Little Red Cap ... the Art

Little red riding hood art seems to be a great hit among the people. It's based on an ancient folk tale, which was able to steal the heart of the parents as well as children, and was passed to the future generations, through the medium of folklores. However, many periodical modifications were introduced into the basic story line.

The popularity of the story was exploited in the artistic works, and it became one of the possible medium to symbolically represent much. The art of Little red riding hood has grown from its basic pattern of story line and in the mean time, as a representative of many of the related characters.

Little red riding hood art is basically the representation of the famous story, red riding hood. The central character in the story is a girl, who had an encounter with a wolf. In the standard story pattern, the girl has to move across a forest to meet her grand mother. But, unfortunately her stroll through the woods attracted the attention of wolf to her. The wolf was tricky enough to get an idea about the location and plans of the little girl and afterwards successfully decieved and killed her grandmother. The wolf waited for the girl, lying in the grand mother's bed and tries to eat.

This basic storyline has different type of endings such as the girl itself gets knowledge about the false play of the wolf and escapes from wolf wisely, or a hunter comes to rescue her. In some modifications the story even ends up in a tragic climax, in which the wolf kills the child. In the arts based on the story, generally the characters of the story, such as little girl, wolf and grand mother is picturized.

Red riding hood was first written down in Charles Perrault's famous version in 1697. The German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grim published a modified version of the same story, in the name Little Red Cap, in the year1812. With the introduction of the story among the English, to impress the Victorian out look, the little girl was then illustrated using a red cloak. The little red riding hood follows more or less the same pattern of outlook for the girl, in the there after illustrations.

The little red riding hood art was earlier focused in the illustration of the little girl and the story, in most comfortable mediums. But, as the various interpretations were given for the story, the art also has changed. The story was well appreciated among the crowd because of the guidance involved in the story to become cautious about strangers. Afterwards, men are compared to the wolf ... men who wander around girls hoping to decieve them. The art of little red riding hood also has to imbibe changes in the style of expression. But, the radical versions about the story, which relate many symbolic meanings to the things, used in the story gives a different dimension to the story as well as art.

The art gained popularity along with the several additions of the story. The global acceptance of the idea and the evergreen nature of the story makes the riding hood a favourite associate of the arts. Many films were developed on the basis of this story, in different dimensions about the story, namely, The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood, The Company of Wolves, Freeway, The Red Spectacles, The Woodsman, The Brothers Grimm and A Wicked Tale.

Animations and animated cartoons are the most popular plot for little red riding hood art. Little Red Riding Hood, a short cartoon film of Walt Disney in 1922, was the first of that kind. Little Red Riding Rabbit computer-animated children's film- Hoodwinked, Japanese animated film Jin-Roh, were also little red riding hood art expressions. Comics and videogames are the latest commercial trend around little red riding hood art. The Doll's House, webcomic called-No Rest for the Wicked, fighting game series - Darkstalker and video game -Fable, are some of the artistic expressions, which exploited the thread of the story. It is interesting that Little Red Riding Hood is an inspiration for music videos such as The Second Renaissance of Japanese band Kadenzza's, and Evanescence's music video.

Now, the certain radical interpretations are also explained through the little red riding hood art. The use of the Little red riding hood posters for a campaign to stop reduce child labor and prostitution in, is a remarkable example of the extensiveness of the classic fairy tale character.

The Little Red Riding Hood art thus seems to have multifaceted dimensions, which can be the beautiful illustrations, animated videos, games and comics to impress the children, plot for cinema and drama, inspiration for musical album and also as a medium to protest against the social evils.