Pink castles, talking sofas, butlers with golden candelabras, mirrored ballrooms with infinite reflections... Walt Disney's own fanciful, imaginative fantasies seem to have no precedent. But this is not the case, and the origin of these illusions can be traced back to 18th-century French Rococo art.
On April 6, the Wallace Collection in London will launch "Inspiring Walt Disney: Animation of French Decorative Arts," an exhibition about the three-century connection between French art and American animation. "Disney animators and craftsmen in 18th-century Paris shared the same ambition to breathe life into what is essentially inanimate." Curator Wolf Burchard said.
Left: Concept art of the Disney film Beauty and the Beast (1991), circa 1989, by Peter S. Thompson. J. Hall (USA, 1926–2010); right: André-Charles Buller (France, 1642–1732) designed a clock with a base.
Organized by the Wallace Collection in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the exhibition explores Walt Disney's personal fascination with France and French culture, and how artists behind some of the most famous animated films of this era viewed French art. The exhibition combines related objects with images to perceive their differences and similarities. If you don't like Rococo's over-gilded clocks, furniture, and paintings, you might want to revisit them through Disney's eyes.
Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901 and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. After World War I, he went to Paris as an International Red Cross volunteer and became an ambulance driver. From this, he really felt the atmosphere of French art.
In early 1919, Walt Disney stood in front of an ambulance decorated with cartoons
In 1931, the first Disney-made film to appear on a fluorescent screen was born, and in this short film of only 7 minutes, "The Clock Store", various clocks and watches were given life and character. A pair of ceramic dancers as decorations dance gracefully in front of a gilded fireplace clock to Mozart's small steps.
Disney's First Animated Watch Shop (Clip) (01:25)
This video is accompanied by a porcelain statue, a popular style in Paris in the 18th century. In contrast, it is obvious where the dancers in Disney animation come from, and what is even more amazing is the level of production of Disney animation more than 90 years ago. The rotation of the ceramic dancers, with both human movements and the texture of the original hardness of the porcelain, restores the childhood dream of the magical resurrection of inanimate objects.
Disney is a difficult figure to stereotype, he does not belong to any traditional visual arts category, and he has never claimed to be a so-called "good artist". However, he, like his contemporaries Frank Lloyd Wright, Owen Panofsky and the Lumiere brothers, is considered a pioneer of modern art. The first sound cartoon film, Steamboat Willie (1928), and the first color cartoon, Flowers and Trees (1932), were both brought by Disney.
Cinderella's Stepmother's Room, 1950
Many of the scenes in Disney animations are inspired by reality. For example, in a home video taken in 1935, Walter and his brother travel to Paris to marvel at the magnificence of versailles. This fascination manifested itself in the later Cinderella, the carriage in front of the palace, the towering windows, the huge library, the endless glowing mirrors... The visual vocabulary in the film corresponds directly to the Palace of Versailles.
Cinderella, 1950, by Disney concept artist Mary Blair
Disney's animations, like a magic trick, make it hard to imagine how they were born. But the exhibition restores the process of "casting spells", and on an entire graphite wall, the animators of Cinderella (1950) show hundreds of thousands of pencil points to perform the miracle of fairy dust, thus constituting the passage of Cinderella from a torn shirt to a court dress. As we all know, it takes 24 frames to make a one-second animation, and the staff of Disney's hand-drawn department meticulously copied each frame onto celluloid, giving birth to one of the great moments in the history of cinema.
Vase of the Tower with Lid, Sèvres Royal Porcelain Factory, circa 1762
These great moments are inspired by classical art – exquisite French clocks, tower-style vases from the Royal Porcelain Factory of Sèvres, even tea sets in the shape of figures... Rococo-style crafts are cartoonish and anthropomorphic in Disney films; artists run through the exhibition, from Disney herself to Mary Blair, who designed the look for Cinderella, as well as Glenn Keane, Peter B. Lee, and others. J. Hall, Mel Shaw, and so on. In Beauty and the Beast, released in 1991, animator Glenn Keane is said to have borrowed Rodin's sculpture The Burghers of Calais while modeling the beast, and there is a scene in the film that is directly adapted from Wallace's most famous Rococo work, Flagonar's Swing.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (France, 1732-1806), Swing, circa 1767-1768
The girl in the painting is wearing a thick pleated skirt, a high heeled shoe parabola flying high, and an older man on the right pulling a swing, thinking that he is manipulating everything, but he cannot see the girl's young lover hiding in the bushes, and the statue of Cupid keeps all secrets. There is a porcelain cupid in the exhibition, similar to the movement of cupid in the painting, and from the age of production, Fragonard should have borrowed the image of the porcelain cupid, just as the Disney animators later borrowed from Fragonard.
Mel Shaw (USA, 1914-2012), concept art drawing of Beauty and the Beast
This Swing later evolved into a scene from Frozen, and another walled collection of Frans Hal's Knight of Laughter appeared on the wall of Beauty and the Beast castle.
Part of storytelling is structuring the world, and when the lights of the theater go out, the film-making team tries to take the audience to places they've never been before. Animation has a natural advantage in this regard. During the creation of "Beauty and the Beast", the eight members of the production team spent a few days in the Loire Valley of France, immersing themselves in the scenery, the castle, and the classical furniture, textiles, lead glass windows, etc. in the castle, and transforming what they saw into animated scenes.
In 1989, a research trip by the members of the production team of Beauty and the Beast shows lunch on the banks of the Loire.
To some extent, the intention to move in stillness is also the essence of Rococo art. Inanimate still lifes jump and dance in Disney animation, French velvet sofas are given embracing arms and light feet, gilded candlesticks become the stewards of Beauty and the Beast, and fables such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty also originated in France.
The exhibition features a metal clock made in 1730 that emits a cheerful and sturdy chime that looks like it came straight out of Disney animation. There is also a Table of André-Charles Boulle made of walnut, ebony and gilded bronze with bent legs that resemble a pair of feet dancing in ballet.
Left: James Cox (England, circa 1723-1800), chariot clock, 1766; Right: Automatic mechanical bird, made by Bontems, early 1900s
These collections, which were originally unpopular in the eighteenth-century "decorative arts", have become vivid because of the interpretations of Disney animators. Together, they use humor to turn everyday objects into works. So, is the influence of Rococo Art on Disney animation a reference to vocabulary or style? Through this exhibition, the audience can have their own judgment.
Exhibition entrance
Note: The exhibition will run until October 16, and this article is compiled from The Guardian Laura Cumming's "Walt Disney & French Decorative Arts, The Wonderful and Fascinating Animation" and the Metropolitan Museum of Art website in New York.