Beauty and the Boar

Walter Crane's 1874 rendition of the UK published children's book "Beauty and the Beast" depicts the the cursed Beast as a Victorian aristocratic wild pig. The illustrations demonstrate the persisting link between animality, danger, the monstrous, and wild swine in Britain, despite the animal's absence from the island for centuries. However, Crane's imagery and the depiction of the beast seems to suggest something else more ambivalent and playful. In an undergraduate poster entitled "Victorian Counter-Worlds and the Uncanny: The Fantasy Illustrations of Walter Crane and Arthur Rackhamby", Amzie A. Dunekacke writes:

Crane’s Beast takes the form of a boar-like animal with great big teeth and a trunk for a snout. Despite his wild, animal looks, the beast maintains impeccable posture and wears magnificent clothing. Furthermore, instead of drawing the beast as a frightening monster, Crane uses his skill and knack for detail to give the beast an expression of harmlessness. Suddenly, a character capable of inspiring nightmares is approachable to child readers....

Crane transforms the extraordinary—a gruesome beast—into something that appears quite ordinary. In the picture, the beast sits with Beauty on an elegant sofa. His bearing is relaxed as he wears a monocle on his eye and grasps a fashionable hat with his hoof. The exaggeration of the beast’s human qualities allows the reader to imagine the Beast—who belongs to a counter-world—in the context of Victorian Britain. Of course, the Beast’s fanciful attire as well as his palace’s very Victorian décor are not only meant to confuse reality and fantasy; these details also serve as effective humor.

They images are also beautiful and worth re-presenting here.

The full story with images can be read on Wikipedia