good worldbuilding: flights of fancy on wings of history

"The more specificity we feel in a story, in pictures or in text, the truer and more resonant that story becomes. We might have expected, given their reputation, that fairy tales should be illustrated with pure flights of imagination. But pure imagination, if it existed, would never fly. I'll take the most absurd and impossible things, when I illustrate them, with all the seriousness I would give a work of real history. That's what I hope will make it fly. There is no "authentic" version of a fairy tale like Rapunzel, but a good version should make you feel that its authenticity is absolute."

-Illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky in this CBC magazine article
His Rapunzel book is beautiful, painted in a renaissance style and technique.