https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1389039
https://doi.org/10.60056/Lit.2025.35.11–36
Katerina Gadjeva
The article reviews the appearance of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale in France and the challenges that illustrators have to deal with. The focus is on the first translations of the fairy tale into Bulgarian, as well as on some of our twentieth-century editions in which the text is accompanied by images. Although today it is mostly read to children, the story of the girl who falls in love with a monster was created for grown-up girls who have entered womanhood. The illustrations bring additional meaningful touches that enrich the text and direct it to the appropriate audience. Between Beauty and the Beast there can be shyness, romance, passion and sexual attraction – these details are not described in words, but could be added by the artists. The text looks at some of the Bulgarian attempts at illustration, asking how bold and innovative they are.
Keywords: Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, Sergey Aksakov, French fairy tales, Russian fairy tales, world illustration, Bulgarian illustration
About the author: Katerina Gadjeva, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and lecturer in New Bulgarian University. Her interests are in the field of history and theory of photography and book illustration. She has publications in many international and Bulgarian journals. She published the monographs “Between Desire and Reality: Photographic Illustrations in Bulgarian Periodicals 1948–1956” (2012) and “From Text to Image. Culturological and Artistic Aspects of Four Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm in the Second Half of the 20th Century” (2023).
