Ten years ago, after Paul O. Zelinsky’s lush adaptation of “Rumpelstiltskin” was published, admirers of his work began paying him a muddled compliment.
“I loved your `Rapunzel’!” they gushed.
The renowned children’s book illustrator responded the only way he knows how. “Since people thought I already had done `Rapunzel,’ I decided I might as well,” says the 44-year-old, Evanston-born Zelinsky.
Conceived in confusion and delivered after three years of hard labor, Zelinsky’s adaptation of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale about the virtues and pitfalls of long hair is nothing short of magic.
“Rapunzel”–published this month by Dutton Children’s Books–is as much a masterpiece of its genre as the Italian Renaissance paintings that inspired it.
This lovely and luminous “Rapunzel” does not, however, belong on the coffee table.
Zelinsky’s combination of appropriate illustrations with a scrupulously researched adaptation of the text was meant to be mauled by tiny hands. “I hope the story and the people are at (Rapunzel’s) center,” says Zelinsky. “I hope there is a level of sophistication in what I did, but only in addition to the basic elements of what make a good story for children.”
Zelinsky’s respect for his young readers is such that he has refused to sanitize his version of “Rapunzel” to satisfy modern-day adults who would prefer to shield children from the complexities and hardships of life. For example, after Rapunzel’s parents are forced to hand over their newborn to a sorceress, they never see the child again.
“I often see a value in what you might call the troublesome aspects of a story,” he said. “I don’t believe in leaving pain out of stories. Having been a child, I seem to remember pain. It is just as recognizable to children as to adults, and if a story uses pain in a meaningful way, it can belong there.”
If Zelinsky remembers pain as a child, it was not overriding. The second of three children, he grew up in Wilmette. His mother, a medical illustrator, and his father, a Northwestern University mathematics professor, encouraged his early artistic talent. Not that he needed much encouragement.
“I was always the class artist,” said Zelinsky. “I loved to draw, and would make up imaginary civilizations and characters. A classmate and I once created a race of imaginary creatures (with) superpowers, and then pitted our world against the imaginary world of two other kids. Stuff like that kept me going.”
Zelinsky graduated from New Trier High School in 1971. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University, followed by a graduate degree in painting from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and its overseas campus in Rome.
After finishing his formal education, he moved to New York City, where he continues to live, and soon began his first project–pen drawings to illustrate “Emily Upham’s Revenge,” a novel by the children’s author Avi, published in 1977.
Since then, he steadily has built a reputation for versatility, technical ingenuity and imagination. He also has racked up prizes, including three coveted Caldecott Honor awards.
“Hansel and Gretel,” adapted by Rika Lesser, was the first Brothers Grimm tale that Zelinsky illustrated, and it was a 1985 Caldecott Honor Book. He subsequently adapted and illustrated the Grimms’ tale, “Rumpelstiltskin,” which won the same prize in 1987. His third Caldecott Honor came in 1994 for his devilishly engaging illustrations of “Swamp Angel,” an American tall tale written by Anne Isaacs.
Some might question the professional wisdom of illustrating yet a third Grimms story, especially since redundancy might not sit well with those responsible for doling out prizes.
But Zelinsky maintains that he and his longtime editor, Donna Brooks, decided years ago that they ultimately wanted to publish three Grimms tales. No more, no less. Why?
“Because three is such a Grimms tale number,” he said. “It’s a magic number.”
Working on his Grimms trilogy also has given Zelinsky the opportunity to plumb the depths of his subject matter, one of his favorite pastimes.
He has learned from years of research that Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were not pure folklorists who simply transcribed the tales of old storytellers. “They frequently changed the stories for their own purposes,” he said.
For instance, the first edition of the Grimms’ famous “Children and Household Tales,” published in 1812, was not nearly as moralistic as later editions, Zelinsky said. “I think they didn’t expect it to be a book for children, but it was immediately taken up and read to children,” he said. “Before too long, they had done a special children’s edition that had a sort of punishing morality.”
With “Rapunzel,” Zelinsky’s research took him back well before the early 1800s to a collection of stories called “Il Pentamerone,” or “The Tale of Tales,” published in 1634 and written in the Neapolitan dialect by Giambattista Basile.
It is “Rapunzel’s” Neapolitan roots that inspired Zelinsky to illustrate the story using not only the style but the actual techniques of the Italian Renaissance masters. In many of the “Rapunzel” paintings, Zelinsky has reused images and ideas from renowned works of art, mimicking a practice that was standard during the Renaissance.
When Zelinsky wanted to show the prince, wretched and blind, wandering in the woods looking for Rapunzel, he borrowed the image of Adam driven from the Garden of Eden from Masaccio’s “The Expulsion From Paradise.”
“Taking poses was a Renaissance thing to do,” Zelinsky said. “It was an act of deference, not theft.”
Initially, Zelinsky wasn’t going to divulge that some of his illustrations were alterations of masterpieces, fearing that “Rapunzel” might become a sort of art historical hide-and-seek book.
But he changed his mind after realizing that too many readers might make the connection between the last illustration in the book and its source (Raphael’s famous “Madonna and Child with the Young St. John”), and feel tricked.
“I would rather have readers not know or care,” he said. “But if they do come to know, I would hope that the order of knowing would be first reading the book, then seeing the painting, and then becoming more interested in classical art.”
“Rapunzel” also bears a resemblance to its predecessor, “Rumpelstiltskin.” Though Zelinsky took his overall inspiration for “Rumpelstiltskin” from northern Renaissance paintings, and gave the illustrations a more delicate, otherworldly aura, the two books have a similar look and feel.
That is a rare thing for Zelinsky. More often, his illustrations for one book look nothing like those for another.
“Rapunzel” and “Rumpelstiltskin” bear no resemblance to “Swamp Angel,” with its highly amusing, two-dimensional caricatures painted on cherry veneer paper; and “Swamp Angel” could not be more different from 1981’s clever, stylized puzzle poem, “The Maid, The Mouse and the Odd-Shaped House.”
Zelinsky acknowledges that he might be better off, from a business perspective, developing a consistent look that is instantly familiar–and therefore sought out–by readers.
But he isn’t likely to do so. For his next project, Zelinsky said, he will leave the Renaissance behind.
“I’m always teaching myself different styles, which tends to drive me crazy,” he said. “But it’s the only way I know how to illustrate. Maybe unrecognizability is what people should recognize me for. Maybe they should say, `I don’t recognize that. It must be a Zelinsky.’ “
