Long-Lost Watercolors Of '1001 Nights' Bring New Life To Age-Old Tales
"In the early 20th century, artists experimented with color and less realistic dimensions, and mixed the worlds of Eastern and Western mythologies. Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen, working in Europe during World War I, finished his own evocative version of A Thousand and One Nights. His mysticism-tinted take on the Arabian stories pushed visual storytelling to new heights.
Nielsen filled his illustrations with expressionist, nearly surrealist characters and whimsical landscapes, breaking the boundaries of what visual storytelling was supposed to look like. His use of bright reds and deep blues, of golden leaves and detailed floral elements, hinted at a mix of Asian folklore and Arab iconography, make of his work a revolutionary body of visual art.
But the illustrations were never published, and the watercolor images remained tucked away for more than 40 years. They were rescued from oblivion after Nielsen's death in 1957 and sat unused for another 60 — until now."
More on the story, the new book and reproductions of the artwork -
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2018/10/22/653642391/long-lost-watercolors-of-1001-nights-bring-new-life-to-age-old-tales
