Historical Disney Heroines Writeup #1: Snow White
I think it’s about time I started sharing the thought processes and research that went behind each entry in my second historically accurate Disney heroine series, so here we go!
I was, and still am, SO excited to embark upon this new and improved series, four years after I completed my first one. This is for quite a few reasons:
I'm excited to show how much I've grown as an artist - primarily with digital art - over the past four years ! I chose to go digital for this series because I was excited to flex my ability to include more intricate, minute details in each artwork that I'm not so keen on doing with colored pencils at the moment, hehe
I have a lot more knowledge of history and historical fashion than I did 4-5 years ago - and I'm continuously learning while doing this project. I'm no expert, but I'm trying!
I wanted to include some of the more unsung Disney heroines that aren't officially part of the Disney princess lineup and which I feel guilty about not including the first time around, namely Alice, Wendy, and Kida. It seems like this is an opportunity for me to give them some love!
Before I actually dive into this, I'd like to go over a couple of disclaimers:
Although my goal is to educate myself as much as possible on each heroine's respective time period, homeland, and culture, I'm very much aware that I will make some mistakes. I'm relying mostly on extant articles (surviving, authentic artifacts from a certain time period), artwork, artifacts from museum collections, and both primary and secondary resources in books and essays. Especially when it comes to time periods and cultures for which information is scarce or pretty much nonexistent (for example, pre-contact Samoa for Moana), I will sometimes have to do a little guesswork.
Second, I am in no way trying to diss Disney's choices in designing their characters (okaaay, maybe SOME of their choices, such as with Jasmine), nor am I fixated on them being inaccurate. Disney movies are not documentaries and are created purely for entertainment, and most of them take place in pseudo-historical, fantasy realms that have little, if any, connection to any factual time periods and locations on this Earth. As both a Disney nerd and history junkie, I just find it fun to imagine what these characters would have looked like if they had really lived in this world in ages past. It was Claire Hummel/Shmoolah's historically inspired Disney princess series that started my fascination with all of this, back when I was in middle school!
Now that all that's been said, let's get started!
As I'm going down a chronological list of the characters I've selected for this project, based on the release dates of their respective films, who better to start with than Disney's original princess?
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs takes place in an ambiguous, European-style fantasy kingdom that gives off strong medieval and Renaissance/Early Modern Era vibes (as is the case with the vast majority of fairy tale movies and illustrations). However, I've concluded that it would firmly take place in present-day Germany. I say present-day Germany because, during much of the medieval era and through the Early Modern Era, the land that had yet to officially become the nation of Germany existed as a collection of city-states under the Holy Roman Empire, which spread its dominion over much of Western and Central Europe. Germany (I'm just going to keep saying Germany for consistency's sake) would break free from the HRE upon its dissolution in 1806, and then it finally became unified as a nation in 1871.
Sooooo now that I've gone over that very compressed historical background info, allow me to go over some aspects of the film that are very obviously rooted in German culture, architecture, and folklore, without dwelling on the fact that it's based on a German fairy tale ("Schneewittchen/Snow White" by the Brothers Grimm). The dwarves' cottage, with all its cuckoo clocks and intricate wood carvings, is heavily based on Bavarian architecture. Furthermore, much of the film's action takes place in a woodland that's inspired by the Black Forest in Baden-Wurttemberg, which, in turn, inspired the settings of many of the folktales the Brothers Grimm put down on paper, including "Snow White", "Hansel and Gretel", and "Sleeping Beauty". Given this information, much of the visual atmosphere of Snow White draws from the southern regions of Germany, including Bavaria, Saxony, and Baden-Wurttemberg.
As for the time period, I settled on sometime during the first half of the 16th century. I felt this way when I first tried my hand at making a historical Snow White, and I feel the same way now. There are some objects such as cuckoo clocks and bunsen burners, that wouldn't come into existence for a couple more centuries, but Disney has always had such minute inconsistencies in their films, AND this was the first-ever feature-length animated film as well, so I'll give them a pass.
The biggest clue I've gotten for this is Snow White's iconic signature dress. Quite a few characteristics of it - the puff-and-slash sleeves, the high collar, and the narrow-ish silhouette - all were trends among women and girls of high status across different parts of Europe during the Renaissance, including Germany. The kind of gown that dominated the wardrobes of German noblewomen throughout the early 1500s came to be known as the "Cranach dress" , as Lucas Cranach the Elder, a prolific artist of the period whose work I referenced heavily, drew most of his subjects wearing such a dress. Speaking of art and artists, as no surviving examples of 16th century German gowns are known to exist, I had to rely exculsively on artwork. There is thankfully an abundance of paintings and woodcuts (a form of printmaking that skyrocketed in popularity in Germany during the Renaissance era) that provide lavishly detailed glimpses into what the standards for fashion and beauty were for German ladies. Along with Cranach, I also studied the works of Albrecht Durer and Hans Holbein the Younger. Although I've found that fashion among German noblewomen didn't really change too much during the first half of the 1500s, most of my chosen references come from the 1520s-1530s.
The Cranach dress featured a narrower silhouette than the Tudor gown with its farthingale, with a sweeping skirt that was at least ankle-length and often meticulously pleated. The long, fitted sleeves usually had "puff-and-slash" panels through which the voluminous sleeves of the chemise were pulled. The bodice featured a straight waistline and was cut in a way that exposed the exquisitely embellished band of gold, known as the "brustfleck" that went over the bust, and, in cases where the bodice was laced in front, the white placket or stomacher beneath. Equally elaborate bands of gold often decorated such areas of the gown as the bottom of the skirt and the sleeves. There are, of course, numerous different variations of the Cranach dress, as seen in the works fo Cranach and others, but the characteristics I listed are the most common ones, and which I thought Snow should have in her historically reinterpreted dress.
Just for reference, here is my first version of a historical Snow White from 2021. I chose to revisit this project mainly to demonstrate how far I've come in terms of artistry and knowledge of historical fashion, and while Snow White is one where I didn't change a whole lot, I did find a few opportunities to alter a few things because of how much I had learned over the years!
As I did with my first version, I aimed to dress Snow in a simpler, less elaborate version of the Cranach dress, more like what women belonging to the middle class or lower nobility might have worn, while still reflecting her status as a princess. Wickfield on Deviantart (who made a FANTASTIC historically accurate animated character series that you should totally check out and who also greatly inspired me) made a very good point with his historical version of Snow White, whom he also chose to depict wearing a simpler dress, stating that she was still technically the Queen's servant when she went with the Huntsman and likely had most, if not all, of her fancy gowns taken from her. This makes sense to me, but I personally feel that the Queen would have had Snow dressed somewhat regally for her "day out" to dodge any suspicions that she was being treated poorly and denied her royal status. Secondly, I felt that Snow would look too stifled if she had the full traditional Cranach ensemble on, complete with the giant feathered hat and the chunky gold chains around her neck. While I'm sure she would have dressed that way when she got a little older or when she reclaimed her status as a princess at the end of her story, I wanted to give her a look that reflected how she was in the film, one that accented her youthful spirit and love for the simpler things in life.
As with my original design, I heavily referenced Cranach's portrait of Mary Magdalene (left) for the more elaborate, "princessy" aspects of Snow's dress. I also turned once again to a detail from an altarpiece dating to the 1510s-1520s, featuring a woman in a simpler red dress (right).
I took this chance to dig deeper into Cranach's works and found so many beautiful examples of less decorated Cranach dresses that still look regal and beautiful, like in the artwork on the far left above. I modeled her sleeves after the ones shown in the two top artworks, and I gave her a high-necked chemise that sort of mimics her collar, as per my original design, even though there are examples of Cranach dresses that have high collars that look a lot like Snow's, as shown in the fourth artwork above.
The color blocking of Snow's dress happens to be period-accurate, according to these artworks. However, after a long period of consideration, I decided to go with putting her in a solid dress. I will definitely design a period-accurate blue/yellow dress for her in the future, though! Pinky promise!
I also long debated putting Snow in a blue dress, since blue was traditionally a feminine color in Western society up until around the 1940s and was long associated with delicacy, purity, and the Virgin Mary. But then I considered that I was going to be putting Cinderella and Aurora in blue for this project, and I thought it just wouldn't be right to have all three of the Walt-era princesses in basically the same color. Furthermore, deep red seemed to be the most common color for the Cranach dress, as least according to Cranach the Elder's works, so I went with that. Red is still fitting for Snow, as it was often tied to royalty and strength during the medieval and Renaissance eras.
Hair, Makeup, Accessories
Though they can't be seen too well under her dress, Snow's shoes are supposed to look like this:
I wanted to do something other than the white and black shoes with slashed (?) tops that are so often seen in Cranach's artwork, as was the case with my first historical Snow White, so I once again referenced the pair of shoes seen in Cranach's David and Bathsheba (1534). I kind of wish I'd made them red like in this painting, to match her dress, but I feel like the brown color I ended up doing ultimately works well too.
Snow would have certainly been wearing woolen stockings or hose, as stockings were a must for modesty and warmth.
Snow's hairstyle is essentially the same one I used for my first version, modeled heavily after a detail from the Master of the Rottal Epitaph, circa 1500 (left). I found it to look a lot like Snow's hair, and the ribbons/cord wrapped around the braids and fabric circlet remind me of Snow's headband, and there's no way I would've redesigned Snow through a historical lens without including something that resembled her iconic bow headband. This time around, I include some loose, curling tendrils around her face, like in the center artwork, and added some pearl beading to the headband. As stated before, I didn't want to give Snow a feathered Cranach hat, and since she's an unmarried maiden at the time of her story, I didn't think she would be covering her head with a "goldhaube" (a gold-embroidered head covering resembling a hairnet worn by noblewomen, as shown in the center artwork)
I used Cranach's "St Catherine of Alexandria" (right) as inspiration for not only her headband, but also her necklace. I wanted to add one extra little ornament to Snow's look, and I thought that simpler pendant looked perfect.
I gave Snow a capelet known as a "gollar". It not only alludes to her collar and her cape, but it also adds that touch of blue that she needs with her outfit. In the majority of artworks I've seen, the gollar is just a simple, round, shawl-like garment, but the artwork on top features a woman wearing a much longer one, complete with what appears to be openings for the arms! Nonetheless, as I couldn't find that much more information on gollars being longer than a small, round capelet, I stuck with what I did for my original design.
Lastly, I think I should touch upon the makeup practices and beauty standards of the era. Snow's uber-pale complexion, rosy cheeks, and red lips were highly idealized among wealthy women. Pale skin was especially desired because it signified nobility and a life free from doing hard labor out in the sun. Although all these characteristics come naturally for our princess, if she were to have used makeup, she would have firstly lightened her complexion using wheat flour, which would have been more easily accessible to her as a scullery maid. There were other substances used, such as Venetian ceruse, that turned out to be highly toxic and destructive, as well as safer methods, such as the use of ground alabaster and egg whites. Flushes of red to the cheeks and lips were achieved using rouge and other plant-based pigments. Pencil-thin eyebrows and high foreheads achieved by plucking or shaving the hairline were also highly favored amongst the elite. I do realize that, in reality, Snow would most likely not have been able to adhere to all of these beauty standards while reduced to servitude under her stepmother, but hey, I guess this is where fairytale logic comes into play, hehe!
