Sleeping Beauty

The Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or very Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince. Written as an original literary tale, it was first published by Charles Perrault in Histories our contest du temps passe in 1697.

Perrault's narrative:

The basic elements of Perrault's story are in two parts. Some folklorists believe that they were originally separate tales, as they became afterward in the Grimm’s' version, and were joined together by Basile, and Perrault following him.

Part One:

At the baptism of a king and queen's long-wished-for child, seven fairies are invited to be godmothers to the infant princess. At the banquet back at the palace, the fairies seat themselves with a golden casket containing golden jeweled utensils laid by them. However, a wicked fairy that was overlooked, having been within an exact tower for several years and thought to be either dead or enchanted enters and is offered a seating, but not a golden casket since only seven were made. 

The fairies then provide their gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song and ability of musical instruments. The old fairy then places the princess under an enchantment as her gift: the princess will prick her hand on a spindle and die. One last fairy has yet to give her gift and uses it to partially reverse the wicked fairy's curse, proclaiming that the princess will instead fall into a deep sleep for 100 years and be awoken by a king's son.

The king forbids spinning on spinning-wheels or spindles, or the custody of one, throughout the kingdom, upon pain of death. When the princess is fifteen or sixteen and her parents are away on pleasure bent, she wanders throughout the palace rooms going up and down and then chances upon an old woman who is spinning with her distaff in the garret of a tower and had not heard of the king's decree against spinning wheels. The princess asks to try the unfamiliar job and the inevitable happens: the curse is fulfilled. The old woman cries for help and attempts are made to revive her, but to no avail. 

The king attributes this to fate and has the princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold-and-silver-embroidered fabric. The good fairy that altered the evil prophecy is summoned by a dwarf wearing seven-league boots and returns in a chariot of fire drawn by dragons. 

Having great powers of foresight, the good fairy sees that the princess will be distressed to find her alone and so puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy's magic also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world and preventing anyone from disturbing the princess.

A hundred years pass and a prince from another family spies the hidden castle during a hunting journey. His followers tell him differing stories regarding the happenings in the castle until an old man recounts his father's words: within the castle lies a beautiful princess who is doomed to sleep for a hundred years, whereupon a king's son is to come and awaken her. 

The prince then braves the tall trees, brambles and thorns which part at his approach, and enters the castle. He passes the sleeping castle folk and comes across the chamber where the princess lies asleep on the bed. Trembling at the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her. The enchantment comes to an end and the princess awakens and converses with the prince for a long time. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakes and go about their business. The prince and princess head over to the hall of mirrors to dine and are later married by the chaplain in the castle chapel.

Ragamala Paintings

Ragamala Paintings are a series of descriptive paintings from medieval India based on Ragamala or the 'Garland of Ragas', depicting various Indian musical modes, Ragas. They stand as a classical example of the amalgamation of art, poetry and classical music in medieval India.

Ragamala paintings were created in most schools of famous painting, starting in the 16th and 17th centuries and are today named accordingly, as Pahari Ragamala, Rajasthan or Rajput Ragamala, Deccan Ragamala, and Mughal Ragamala.

In these painting every raga is personified by a color, mood, a verse describing a story of a hero and heroine, it also elucidates the season and therefore the time of day and night in which a particular raga is to be sung; and finally most paintings also demarcate the specific Hindu deities attached with the raga, like Bhairava or Bhairavi to Shiva, Sri to Devi etc. The paintings depict not simply the Ragas, but also their wives, (raginis), their numerous sons (ragaputra) and daughters (ragaputri).

The six principal ragas present in the Ragamala are Bhairava, Dipika, Sri, Malkaunsa, Megha and Hindola and these are meant to be sung during the six seasons of the year – summer, monsoon, autumn, early winter, winter and spring.

History:

Sangeeta Ratnakara is an important 12th century CE treatise on the classification of Indian Ragas, which for the first time mentions the presiding deity of each raga. From the 14th century onwards, they were described in short verses in Sanskrit, for Dhyana, 'contemplation', and later depicted in a series of paintings, called the Ragamala paintings. Some of the best available works of Ragamala are from the 16th and 17th centuries, when the form flourished under royal patronage, though by the 19th century, it gradually faded.

The Sleeping Gypsy

The Sleeping Gypsy is an 1897 oil painting by French Naive artist Henri Rousseau. The fantastical depiction of a lion musing over a sleeping woman on a moonlit night is one among the most recognizable artworks of modern times.

Rousseau first exhibited the painting at the 13th Salon des Independents, and tried unsuccessfully to put up for sale it to the mayor of his hometown, Laval. Instead, it entered the private collection of a Parisian charcoal merchant where it remained until 1924, when it is discovered by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles. 

The Paris-based art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler purchased the painting in 1924, although a controversy arose over whether the painting was a forgery. It was acquired by art historian Alfred H. Barr Jr. for the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The painting has served as inspiration for poetry and music, and has been altered and parodied by different artists often with the lion replaced by a dog or other animal. In the Simpsons episode "Mom and Pop Art" Homer dreams of waking up in the artwork with the lion licking his head. A print of the work seems in the movie "The Apartment" higher than the comatose Fran Kubelik.