The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were blooming times for literary fairy tales: they are presented in a wide range from Wilde’s to Tolstoy’s, from Grahame’s to Baum’s. However, it does not often happen that a writer becomes an illustrator; examples include Carroll, Potter, Kipling, and Saint-Exupéry. Although most such authors have been amateurs, some of them belonged to a small group of skillful artists who had gained experience illustrating other authors’ books. One of them was Christian Bärmann, the author and illustrator of a few literary fairy tales, including “The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim,” who had gotten experience creating pictures for Bönsel’s “Maja the Bee.” The combination of an original folk-style narrative with a gifted artist’s illustrations is one of the original features of Bärmann’s book, translated by Jack Zipes, who also wrote the author’s biography.
There are several reasons to rescue Bärmann’s name from oblivion. First, it continues the tradition of a good quality literary fairy tale as a balanced combination of folk tradition delicately mixed with an entertaining and didactic children's story. It praises values of hard work, kindness, loyalty to friends, and heroic deeds—all demonstrated by a good-hearted protagonist Ohl. Second, the author expresses his opinion about the characters through clear assessment of their actions. Third, the story written in post-WW I defeated Germany indirectly reflects the ruined economy and social tension through the plot symbolism, which shows how an outcast tries to prove his good intentions and usefulness to the community by applying hard work and performing impressive heroic deeds. Fourth, the story is based on a contrast of ideas and arguments with folktale stereotypes. The kind-hearted, brave, and hard-working ogre, a typical folktale antagonist, becomes a protagonist. This kind of transformation of a stereotype had already been used before Bärmann, by Grahame in “Reluctant Dragon,” presenting a well-mannered dragon befriending a local boy. Wilde’s “The Selfish Giant” can serve as another example similar to Bärmann’s approach, bringing a reader to the idea of revising stereotypes by humanizing a traditional antagonist. The author justifies the existence of a “good ogre,” representing the world of nature as an environment friendly to people.
The author preserves traditional folktale structure, e.g., triples in protagonist’s trials and tasks, and the number of devils Ohl fights with. Popular folktale motifs are also presented in the content, but Bärmann deliberately modifies such traditional plots as Humiliated Apprentice, Supernatural Helpers, Partnership between Man and Ogre, and some others. This creates an effect of unmet expectations based on a contrast with a traditional mean ogre as a hostile element of nature. Bärmann’s Ohl is a kind-hearted, generous character, seeking human friendship and wishing for acceptance by the local community as an equal member.
This approach to a personal vision of traditional folktales is an integral feature of the author’s individual style. Examples include an impressive image of a kind giant-protector and father-like figure for the local children; the protagonist’s fight with devil-creatures from a different mythological system; and his unexpected victory over Death.
Although Bärmann’s story is based on traditional folktales, it has characteristics of a realistic story. The tale describes farmers’ routine activities and contains indirect moral teaching based on Christian values. Bärmann goes into the smallest details about locale, people’s trades, and German cuisine; he mentions Ohl’s genealogy, his food preferences, and even emotional reactions.
An additional feature of Bärmann’s style is its mild humor, used mostly for description of the giant’s behavior, whose image still has some traces of the folk giants’ simplicity and clumsiness.
Moreover, the book is valuable for its author’s illustrations. Their style demonstrates Bärmann’s high professional skills as a painter. As was typical for the period, the colors are slightly muted, and the palette is restricted to reddish, yellowish, greenish, and brownish shades. Reflecting the development of the plot, the pictures are full of dynamics and energy shown either through the main character or people’s reaction to his actions; some have an aura of mild humor common to the author’s style. One example is the artist’s depiction of demons: they are less anthropomorphic beasts than zoomorphic caricatures (one, for example, is a huge frog-like creature). An additional feature of the humorous vision of the “dark forces,” who behave as a gang of mischievous teens, is the source of their meanness—their tails. After Ohl removes them, the antagonists become obedient. The same can be said about Bärmann’s image of Death shown not as a walking skeleton/corpse, but as a melancholy pale giant.
It is important to point also to an original feature of Bärmann’s illustrations. Like some literary tales of the time, “The Giant Ohl” was obviously influenced by the art of cinematography. When Bärmann uses a “full shot,” it can be explained by his experience in poster painting, but there are examples of other film techniques in his artistic style. For example, some pictures are presented as low-angle shots emphasizing the character’s enormous size for a viewer, and applying a high-angle-shot vision, the artist points at a character’s weakness. Moreover, some illustrations contain a dynamic composition with prevailing diagonal lines (“Dutch angle” in cinema art) used by contemporary German expressionists in early films to emphasize dramatic conflict.
This series of original features of the tale by Bärmann, an undeservedly forgotten German writer and artist of the post-WW I period, makes this publication a valuable source for the research of literary fairy tales as allies of the traditional folktales, and also rediscovers a gifted children's book illustrator.
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[Review length: 916 words • Review posted on February 20, 2020]