Children’s Literature in pre-Raphaelite Painting: Iconographic keys for teaching fairy tales in the classroom

Abstract

Literature is one of the most important sources of inspiration for pre-Raphaelite painters, who, apart from mythological stories and medieval legends, also felt attracted by Children’s Literature. In fact, artists as prominent as Edward Burne-Jones or John Everett Millais, to name just two, portrayed in their canvases the protagonists of Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, among others. The iconographic keys present in these pictures are analyzed with a double didactic purpose: on the one hand, to use them as visual resources for teaching / learning different versions of fairy tales; on the other, and from a more hermeneutic perspective, to unravel the omnipresence of female representation in these fabrics, which have important connections with the current revision of implicit messages in children’s stories.