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This etching from David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio depicts the somewhat obscure story Old Rinkrank, which Hockney chose to illustrate because it began with the words ‘A king built a glass mountain’, and the problem of drawing a glass mountain intrigued him.
He tried to draw the glass eight different ways, even smashing a sheet of glass and piling it up as reference. He ultimately decided to draw the tree and house behind the glass mountain, distorting their reflection to indicate the mountain’s transparency.
Hockney described his visceral reaction to the King in this story commanding the mountain’s dismantling: “…the idea of digging into glass, the awfulness of someone putting a spade into it and chipping it away – it kind of sends shivers down you, doesn’t it? So I just did that, you see, the glass splintering and shattering off.” Ultimately Hockney conceived the composition purely from his imagination rather than relying on visual references.
In the tale of Old Rinkrank, a king builds a glass mountain and declares that anyone who can scale it will win the hand of his daughter. The princess, however, secretly helps one of the suitors. During their climb, she slips and falls into the mountain, where she encounters Old Rinkrank. He offers her a choice between death and servitude. Opting for servitude, she works for Rinkrank for many years, while he uses a magical ladder to climb out and gather riches.
One day, she traps him by locking all the doors except one, and when he peeks through the small window, she slams the sash on his beard, forcing him to surrender the ladder. She then climbs to the top of the mountain, frees Rinkrank, and returns to her father and suitor. The king punishes Rinkrank, seizing his treasures, and the princess marries her suitor. They live happily ever after.
The glass mountain shattered (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) 1969
Plate 9.1 x 10.5 in / 23 x 26.7 cm
Paper 17.75 x 16 in / 45.09 x 40.64 cm
Unique publisher’s copy aside from the edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios
