Kay Nielsen was a popular illustrator during the early 20th century. Nilesen benefited the new advancements in printing technology that allowed painting and drawing to be reproduced to a high quality.
In his artistic career; Kay Nielsen has provided illustrations for the story books 'East of the sun and west of the moon', 'Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen', 'Hansel and Gretel, and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm', 'Red Magic' and 'Arabian nights' (although unpublished until years after his death). In addition to these illustration sets, he painted scenery for the royal Danish Theater and spend 4 years working for the Walt disney company. His work was used in fantasia sequences as well as providing concept work for the proposed adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's 'Little Mermaid'.
His watercolour illustrations are lavished yet delicate, his paintings are flat like the Japanese prints he took inspiration from. He used colour and pattern to give his artwork depth.
The figures in his paintings are highly stylised - they are elongated, pale and feminine creatures graced in layers upon layers of intensely detailed finery.
He was fond of juxtaposing vertical lines with gentle arches (further influences from Japanese prints, in particular the 'Hiroshige wave') as well as warm colours in otherwise cool palettes to draw attention to important areas of the composition.
No comments:
Post a Comment