Henry Darger and The Realms of the Unreal

[ShadeofGreen]

I'm not sure if anyone ever posted a thread about Henry Darger before, but I just saw a great film about him.

http://www.realmsoftheunreal.com/

If you don't know Henry Darger is, he's a man who between 1909 and the late sixtys wrote and illustrated a 15.000 page book, along with hundreds of paintings, in complete isolation. No one knew of the work till close to his death. The art is actually really great, and totally self taught, as a result he has a style thats really interesting (despite how strange it is). As an illustrator I found it great, I think some of you may as well.

If anything the story about this incredible recluse is very interesting.

[Inkthinker]

Sounds pretty interesting, and I'd like to see the film... it's an interesting subject to most of us, I think.

But... seems like there's a lot of li'l nekkid kids in that artwork... just sayin', kinda creepy.

[ShadeofGreen]

Actually there are A lot of naked kids. The story is of the Seven Vivian sisters. But, if you knew the story of Henry Darger the images are less creepy. Henry had some mentle issues including spending his early life in an asylum for feeble minded children. People close to him think that he didn't knoiw the difference between a boy and a girl, and he never was with a woman for fear of accidentaly having relations with his long lost adopted sister.

While the imagery looks like that of a child molester it is really just that of a man who is still as innocent as a child, as he was never educated beyond that, and possibly lacked the mental capacity to be an adult. Also he was a janitor in places that had a lot of kids.

Though in the story a war is started over the loss of a picture of a little girl that he lost in real life (the picture) it is thought that he may have killed her, but I doubt it from what I know.

But seriously see this movie, its really good.