The Arabian Nights: Daylight Faded from View 

Curator: "The Arabian Nights: Daylight Faded from View," an illustration—likely made with watercolor and colored pencil by Edmund Dulac. And what a dreamy piece to get us started. What's your first reaction to it? Editor: Oh, it's pure escapism. A shimmering vision of midnight. I am instantly drawn in! There is something about that colour palette...it suggests a beautiful dream about to go wrong. Curator: Right? Dulac captures the exoticism that Western audiences expected from tales of the Arabian Nights, yet he also presents it with this otherworldly delicacy. Editor: Indeed. It is playing with how the west views this kind of tales. The rider, cloaked in what looks like moonlight, soaring through the clouds atop this ghostly horse...Is he hero or anti-hero I wonder? It's got that ambiguous charm, you know? Is this a product of Imperialist Fantasy or the very embodiment of its failings, I always ponder on seeing the imagery associated with 'The Arabian Nights'. Curator: Precisely. And what’s really compelling is that he achieved that level of emotional ambiguity through incredibly tight control of technique. Those colours... they're both vibrant and subdued. Also, consider the influence of symbolism with the moonlight. Is it simply an orientalist take, or is he actually trying to convey a message? That's the thing. Editor: Good question. It’s also difficult to view the Arabian Nights tales separated from their place in our institutions. To view the imagery without all that history tainting what might be, simply, a dream is hard. As if it’s meant to evoke childhood memories—the wonder and terror of a bedtime story that somehow seems too familiar to be completely safe. The subject certainly is detached in feeling and pose. Almost melancholy. It makes it all so much more meaningful. Curator: Agreed. It’s a stunning visualization of the power—and inherent challenges—of storytelling and worldbuilding. That particular blend of allure and warning. And, if nothing else, I feel the need to pull my own Arabian Nights collection and get reading, even after all the discussion and dissection of those tales, time and again! Editor: Then I am sold on the beauty of fairytales, their lasting and complex cultural capital, if one can get this level of conversation sparked by just a single illustration. Mission Accomplished, Mr. Dulac.