Colours aren't reflected light in the concept art of Mary Blair, they're light sources. The Disney films she worked on were nocturnal fairy tales, intimately sunless and perfect for dark rides. There were concepts in her concept art too, like filling Wonderland with signage for example.
That seems apt. If Carroll's stories had a villain it was probably words. Tangentially, it's possible that I've been misusing the word "liminal". I've used it describe the location of an act of the imagination, but strictly speaking it doesn't mean pretend-y so much as between-y, coming from the
Latin word for threshold. 
It was the video below that brought this to my attention. I know nothing about the contributor but my algorithms made a hell of a recommendation because Solar Sand's search for the fabled "backrooms" is absolutely packed with potential rabbit holes: "noclipping", kenopsia, the actual length of a fire hydrant, what kind of rooms inspire nostalgia in Russian millenials... Wait. What does the word "threshold" come from?
Gorgeous concept art. I don't think I quite got the dream-like weirdness of Disney's Alice in Wonderland as a kid, and I remember finding the Cheshire Cat absolutely terrifying for some reason - possibly because of the way he's there-but-not-really when he starts disappearing bit by bit. (Wait, does that make him liminal, somehow? How he's somewhere in between being there and not being there? I'm not sure I fully understand the concept of liminality, even now.)
ReplyDeleteApparently, the ancient Romans believed in multiple deities connected with thresholds/doorways/hinges, and Wikipedia has an entire page about liminal deities from different mythologies. As for the etymology of the Latin word itself, the Merriam-Webster dictionary reports as follows: Latin limin-, limen transverse beam in a door frame, threshold; probably akin to Latin limus transverse. With my apologies for going off topic, again.
All rabbit holes are on topic. Ganesha is the first threshold-guarding deity that always comes to my mind. Although I associate him with going on a journey, so exiting, whereas for some reaosn I normally associate thresholds with entrances.
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