The Tale of Hair
By: Lucy White and Stuart Butler
In the telling of Rapunzel by Brother Grimm, one of the most notable icons in the story is Rapunzel’s long hair. In this version, it is one of the few items with any description, depicted as, “…magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold.” Her hair serves as the only entrance to the tower, allowing the enchantress and the prince access. While Rapunzel’s hair in this story has concrete value and practical purpose, the color and length take this one step further, connecting her hair to a dimension of Rapunzel’s identity.
In a series of works in 2012, Australian artist and author Shaun Tan created visual pieces to pair with modern retellings of the Grimm’s Brothers tales. His sculptures, handcrafted from paper, clay, sand, and wax, add a contemporary facet to the classic Grimm’s’ tellings.
In his rendition of Rapunzel, her hair is the only point of this piece that makes the allusion to this story recognizable. The sculpture features a tall and rigid body — doubling as the tower Rapunzel is hidden away in. The hair cascades from the top of the piece to the bottom, standing out from the rest of the artwork with its golden color and sheen. This piece shows the viewer that the most important feature of Rapunzel, and in turn her identity itself, is found in her hair.
The importance of hair in cultures around the world has been relevant for thousands of years. Author Kurt Stenn notes that hair is highly communicative, and is a tool for individuals to send “messages of health, sexuality, religiosity, power” with only a glance. In modern society, this concept has been taking one step further, including new social media technologies to exhibit the hair’s power to transform one’s appearance and identity. There are thousands of social media accounts with devout followings; they’re only purpose being to showcase the beauty and individuality that lies within human hair.
