The Little Mermaid: Dissolving into Foam 

Edmund Dulac created this illustration of “The Little Mermaid: Dissolving into Foam” with watercolor and ink, achieving a delicate balance of despair and ethereal beauty. The composition is dominated by a muted palette of blues and browns, where the horizontal expanse of the sea meets the somber sky, emphasizing the mermaid’s isolation. Her figure, rendered in warmer tones, contrasts against the cool sea, drawing our eye to her tragic form. Dulac’s lines are fine and precise, detailing the slow dissolving of the mermaid. The foam-like patterns around her mark the boundaries between the self and the dissolution, questioning identity and existence. The formal choices here destabilize the romantic ideal of transformation, turning it into a study of existential fading. In the end, Dulac’s artwork uses formal elements to challenge our understanding of fairy tales and their fixed meanings.