‘Ferdinand and Ariel,’ by John Millais
Whatever our view of the existence of fairies and of a supernatural realm, there can be no denying the profound impact of faery (or the idea of it) upon our art and culture. The reason for all this creativity, it seems to me, is that faery as a subject is so rich and complex. Fairies can offer artists every emotion- sexual obsession, love, fear, jealousy, unbounded joy, mystery and mysticism- the list is lengthy.
Fae themes have been persistently rich sources of inspiration for a range of artists, whether in literature, song or the visual arts. I’ll present a few examples, though I’m sure that proof is scarcely needed:
- On the stage– whether inspiring the high art of Shakespeare or pantomimes and popular plays such as Peter Pan. There was a particular trend for patriotic fairy stage plays during the Great War, which I have discussed;
- Musicals, such as Edward Elgar’s Starlight Express of 1915 (this is the original production of this title, plainly, and not that by Andrew Lloyd Webber);
- Novels and short stories (for both adults and children), from Charles Kingsley and George MacDonald through Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter and E. M. Nesbit to Tolkien to Alan Garner;
- Romance and myth– fairy themes are strong throughout many of the Arthurian myths and related stories, including the Welsh Mabinogion;
- Poetry– from Robert Herrick and Michael Drayton through Keats and Blake to Walter de la Mare and Ivor Gurney. On this blog I have been particularly interested in examining the interaction between fairy verse and the First World War, in the work of Robert Graves, Rose Fyleman, J R R Tolkien and others;
- Painting- from Fuseli to Peter Blake and Brian Froud;
- Illustration– from Rossetti and Burne-Jones through Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham and Henry Justice Ford to Cicely Mary Barker and Margaret Tarrant;
- Sculpture– for example the puppets of Wendy Froud or the wire creations of Robin Wright;
- Film and cartoon– we have both fictional films, such as Disney’s Peter Pan or The Dark Crystal, as well as documentaries and ‘factual’ stories based upon the Cottingley case; and,
- Music– ranging from classical to pop, from ballet, opera, ballads, symphonies and lieder, light opera (Gilbert and Sullivan) to contemporary rock (Led Zeppelin, Marc Bolan or Sigur Ros).
Of course, the additional value of all of the above is that they are a supplement to the folklore evidence. Just as much as traditional stories of fairies gathered by folklorists in the field, these various media give us a view of contemporary beliefs on the conduct and appearance of the fays.
What’s more, fairy works have inspired other fairy art. For example Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream has inspired many works of art (by Paton, Dadd, Millais and many others). In particular, it inspired a painting by Thomas Stothard, Titania and Oberon, which in turn inspired a poem by Elizabeth Landon, The fairy queen sleeping. In just the same way in 1825 Louisa Anne Meredith wrote The enchanted island in response to seeing the painting of the same name by Francis Darby; “’Tis the fairies’ home” the verse declares.
I’ll make a radical suggestion: even were fairies not to exist, their impact upon human culture would be almost undiminished. We might even propose that, even if fairies did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent them to provide ourselves with such rich and fruitful veins of imagery and ideas.
The fairies have inspired our creativity for centuries, whether the source of that inspiration is our own imaginations or is an external supernatural force. The power of this creative stimulus is expressly acknowledged by artists working in this genre. It is not just a matter of the work produced, but of the transformative impact upon the artists themselves. Interviewed by Signe Pike in Faery tale, painter Brian Froud said that many of his readers and fans feel that with a rediscovery of their fairy faith:
“they feel they are coming home. They tell me they want to go away and write, or make something…”
His wife agreed: “often people have a creative response to our work.” She starts her puppet workshops with meditation, within which “you do actually, genuinely, touch faeryland- you’re in it, whether you realise it or not. So when you come back, and make a figure, it’s imbued with its own personality.” In the act of imaginative creation, it would seem, there is a re-creation of the creator (Pike, 2010, pp.86-66).
In his introduction to David Riche’s Art of faery (2003), Froud argued that “Fairies mediate art, the mysterious moments of our creative relationship with the world.” Whilst the twentieth century had emphasised our alienation from the world, the resurgence of visionary fairy art in its last decades and into the new millennium suggests the reversal of this and through that “the beginning of a spiritual journey. To paint fairies is not childish- but it could certainly said to be childlike- in its openness to creative and emotional impulses.”
Our culture is richer for fairies; we are richer for fairies….
Further reading
Neil Rushton on his dead but dreaming blog on WordPress provides a very useful overview of the entire world history of fairy art. See too my books on Victorian Fairy Verse, Fairy Art of the Twentieth Century and on the Faery Faith in British Music- all avaliable through Amazon, and my posting on fairies in Art Nouveau.
British Fairies 