Tatiana in a Henry Darger illustration?

[Tati-Fan]

Henry Darger's writings and illustrations have always fascinated me.

While I was looking around on PBS's In the Realms of the Unreal website, I found this:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/intherealms/special_audio_7.html

That is Tatiana, isn't it?

[Margarita Markovna]

I don't see who else it would be!

[Sarushka]

Except it's labeled as a portrait of Colonel Jack Francis Evans, a character from Darger's own works of fiction.

[grandduchess_42]

creepy.... it really does look like her.

[Holly]

Strange....the colors of the uniform are exactly the same as Tatiana's.  

[reashka]

Maybe it was inspired by her and on that picture he created a story I don't know

[Sarushka]

Strange....the colors of the uniform are exactly the same as Tatiana's.  

The colors are very similar, but the styling is different.



(Thanks to Lisa for the photo of Tatiana's uniform!)

[Katia]

Have a look at this (Livadia.org):

http://www.livadia.org/tanya/images/tatianalancers.jpg

Katia

[LarissaAnn]

Wow, Sarushka that photo of Tatiana's uniform is awesome.  It's very beautiful.

[Sarushka]

Have a look at this (Livadia.org):
http://www.livadia.org/tanya/images/tatianalancers.jpg

Ah-ha! That makes me think reashka's right -- maybe he was inspired by a photo of Tatiana. Interesting, isn't it, how the yellow portions of the uniform hardly show up in B&W?

[Tati-Fan]

I think it's best to look at some of the other photographs that show her in that uniform:



(The styling of the uniform is different, but keep in mind that it's hard to see that yellow middle part of the uniform in black and white photographs.)

Take a look at this part of the Wikipedia article:

"Darger's human figures were rendered largely by tracing, collage, or photo-enlargement from popular magazines and children's books. Some of his favorite figures were the Coppertone Girl and Little Orphan Annie."

I think that Darger found a photograph of Tatiana wearing that outfit.  He then created a character in his story that was inspired by her.  In that case, is it possible to determine exactly which Tatiana photograph was the inspiration?

[grandduchess_42]

Have a look at this (Livadia.org):

http://www.livadia.org/tanya/images/tatianalancers.jpg

Katia

i think thats the picture he based his picture on. they are both facing the same way

[Yoyo22]

If you listen to the audio you will see that it is supposed to be a portrait of a character from his fiction "In the Realms of the Unreal". The narrator says that the portrait is (talking about Darger's method) "a collage image of a little girl cut from of a newspaper clipping. The little girl with the addition of water colour and the transformation of a costume, an Angelinnian costume, becomes no longer a girl from early 20th century popular media but is rather one of the key characters of Darger's "In the Realms of the Unreal.""

I have never heard of this writer/painter before, but it seems like he might have found a picture of the grandduchess in a magazine or something and used it to make a portrait of his fictional character, colonel Jack Francis Evans.

Yoyo

[GrandDuchess_Bella]

That is an interesting thought. It certainly does look like Tatiana and the IF did appear in many magazines. Very interesting topic.

[Sophia_Skymind]

I think that's kind of creepy. I wonder weither this man ever saw this picture of Tatiana before, because I can't imagine he hasn't.

This drawing (or painting) really lokks too much like her.

Nice topic!