Walt Disney the Artist

Lindsay Lindaman

11/5/12

Art History

Research Paper

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing- that it was all started by a mouse.”  Walt Disney is quoted with saying that, but I am here to let the world know that it was always so much more than a mere mouse.  There is a great deal more than fairy dust and “bibbidi bobbidi boo.” A very great deal more.  And the Disney Company is still around to prove that they can go the distance!
There is something magical about animation, and not specifically Disney magic either.  Its possibilities are endless.  Through art history we see many well known artists struggle or strive to show movement in their paintings.  How amazed would they be to see that it can be a reality?  Moving subjects and scenes! The grass can blow in the wind as gusts tear across the countryside, while we look at a bustling little village below.  Van Gogh would have been amazed at the lengths his paintings could go.  Boccioni would have loved to make his statues move for real, rather than their pretend state, by my way of thinking.  There are countless numbers of artists that based their art on the idea of movement.  I’ve never been able to understand how animation has never honestly been a contender in the artistic community.  But it was never brought to such heights as its work with Walt Disney.
Disney started drawing at a young age for amusement.  He once made a flip book for his little sister, Ruth, while she was ill.  She loved the moving pictures and would look at the little book all the time.  While his father was a hard, though loving man, it was his mother that gave young Disney his spot on sense of humor.  He loved them both very much, and though they never believed in his cartooning dreams, he was going for it.  He got into animation while he was living in Kansas City, and stumbled across the book Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, their Origins and Development. Walt said later, “Everyone has been remarkably influenced by a book, or books.  In my case it was a book on cartoon animation... The book told me all I needed to know as a beginner” (Williams 21).  He got it in his head that this was going to be what he’d do for a living.  He made up his own studio, and taught others what to do, even though he had little knowledge himself.  He started Laugh-O-Gram Studios with barely a cent to his name, and with his salesman skills, brought many others to his cause.  The main production from this studio was the “Alice Comedies,” based on the adventures of Alice in Wonderland.  It’s also said to have inspired Mickey Mouse, though he was created later.  

Regardless of Disney’s cartoons as being referred to some as childish, unrefined doodles, Disney and his artists are very aware of art history, and that is where much of his defense comes from.  Sleeping Beauty’s style was much influenced by the Unicorn Tapestries of the 15th century, along with the Belles Heures du Duc de Berry or the Book of Hours by the Limbourg brothers. The head of this film, Eyvind Earle, filled his living quarters with large and detailed paintings inspired from Durer, Van Eyck, and Brueghel, “but with a modernist twist in that the images were more abstract and less realistic and three-dimensional than typical Disney work” (Gabler 558).  The magic of Disney has almost always been based on the facts of the time period and the nature of the characters.  It has to be believable.  Yet Walt Disney was friends with the avant garde artists of that time, such as Salvador Dali, and once had Frank Lloyd Wright come to teach his animators a class on artistry.  He was not ignorant of what the world of art was doing, but he had his own ideas.  His goal was not to be one of them, one of the ‘art names,’ but that does not mean he wasn’t.  He was a masterful storyteller.  Anyone who was alive to know him would agree.  One of his animators, Ward Kimball, was quoted in saying, “Walt was the best story man in the studio.  No one else ever approached him.” And that’s how he originally sold his idea for Snow White.  He called a select number of his animators to the stage, and acted out his entire vision for the first full length animated movie, voices and all.  After seeing what a cartoon of that length could look like, the animators were all for it.  Isn’t a storyteller what a great amount of artists strive to be?  It may never be the easily understood story of fairies and pixie dust, but that does not mean it is not a story.  The Renaissance artists painted religious scenes.  Though many and myself believe the Bible to be a factual book, isn’t it still a story? Each of those crucifixion paintings tells a story of the cost of sin, and many times the pain of a mother.  The paintings by Titian and others depicting the Roman and Greek gods also tell stories of powerful immortals that have terrific adventures.  These same stories were taken up by Disney’s company long after his death in Hercules.  Look at Picasso’s Guernica. It was done in a response to a terrible bombing in Spain in the town named by the artist.  It’s a ‘horrible’ depiction of the populace of that town and the terrible outcome of such a pointless bombing.  While Disney’s view on bombings was not quite as forward as Picasso’s, (“If people would think more of fairies they would soon forget the atom bomb” 481) but his presence in the storytelling isn’t any less so.  His films have brought along every emotion imaginable, from the deep sadness of watching Bambi wandering the forest searching for his mother that will never return, to the deep sympathy for Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins, who was so caught up in the world that he could not see that he was missing some of the most precious moments of his children’s lives.  There were also the great celebration moments of Cinderella living happily ever after, and the sweet homecoming of Wendy in Peter Pan. They are all beautiful stories of the struggles and joys of life, just like all of art before.  

Film is another aspect of Disney you could find issues with.  It’s not pen and paper.  It’s not even a statue, or paint and canvas for that matter.  How could we look at this as art? But then you would forget the grand number of painted cells it takes to make even a single second of an animated feature.  It takes about 10-24 drawings to make even one second of film.  This also explains why the original films took so long to be produced and released.  In Sleeping Beauty, these drawings can be taken right out of the movie and be framed and displayed.  The artists remarked upon that fact as well, that you could take any place in the film and pull out a full piece of art.  But its been ignored by the knowledgeable critics that make a difference in the intellectual world.  “Because his art does not fall into any one of  those traditional categories which we have learned to accept as particularly ‘fine’ - examples of which we have pursued over the face of the earth and wherever possible acquired for incarceration in our national mausoleums- it has been presumed that it is outside the range of legitimate criticism” (Feild 11). Robert Feild lost his art position at Harvard for his book, “The Art of Walt Disney,” and the ideas he expressed in this quote, believe it or not.   It was a hot topic, which is rather shocking for the relatively new fans of Disney pieces.  

Not all believed in the fantasy land of Disney.  A columnist in the Gazette reported that among the high class critics, they believed that his films “didn’t deserve recognition as art simply because ‘his work appeals to the masses’” (Watts Pg 126). In a review of a 1940’s Disney film, the Los Angeles Times reporter, Arthur Miller, had great problems with the “notion, which as been much propagandized during [the last] decade, that ‘the people’ are the immediate and infallible judges of art and that what they don’t take straight to their bosoms is spinach” (Watts 126).  Even though they loved him, sometimes Disney’s family was against his seemingly eccentric plans.  When Walt Disney came to his partner and brother, Roy Disney, about making the first full length animated feature, Roy straight up told him to stick to shorts.  Lillian Disney, his wife, also was rather against the idea.  Hollywood was just waiting for Disney to fail with Snow White.  He played polo with the big names of live action films, and they were rather excited to see the ‘Little King’ get knocked down a peg or two.  There were enough good reviews in his lifetime to make Disney happy, however. One of Disney’s biggest fans was Gilbert Seldes, who was a film critic.  He believed Disney was an absolute artistic genius.  In many different articles and reviews, he titled Disney’s creativity represented in his films as “the perfection of the movie.” He also said that his work “offered proof that the movies, as an art, are pure gold” (Watts 129).  Seldes worried, however, that Disney would fall into that trap of ‘trying’ to make it art.  Seldes believed that “that would be tragic, because at its best Disney’s work  was ‘a lively art that also reaches greatness, a degree of perfection in its field which surpasses our best critical capacity to analyze and which succeeds at the same time in pleasing simple folk” (Watts 129).

Bambi was one of those films.  Bambi was the fifth of the Disney animated “Classics” series.  It was released on August 13th, 1942.  It’s the coming-of-age story of a young buck and his journey into adulthood.  Disney read the book “Bambi”, and was inspired by it’s array of characters with their unique personalities.  It’s my favorite Disney movie under the artistic category. The scene about becoming ‘twitter-pated’ and Thumper’s Life Lessons are some of my most favorite moments of Disney film.  They just make you smile!  I rewatched the movie to refresh my memory, and I’m still as amazed at the beauty and artistry.  Each scene is colorized so perfectly to the mood, whether it be in the scheme or in the dramatic effects.  For instance, we have the scene where the Great Prince senses the arrival of Man in the forest. * The colors change from natural looking browns and greens to those of a more dramatic shade, like bright yellow and orange.  This adds to that sense of fear and panic very well, and it makes the viewer scared that something bad may happen.  The use and invention of the multiplane camera by Disney also added to the impenetrable depths of the character’s forest home.  Many a researcher has commented on it’s use as being brought to such a glorious state in Bambi, and is the most well known movies to have used it.  The style was brought to the studio by Tyrus Wong, a Chinese born artist.  His mixture of Western and Eastern styles appealed to the effect Disney wanted in this film, and Wong taught this style to the other animators on the team. Wong’s style is the perfect amount of detail, yet not so overwhelmingly so that it takes precedence over the animated characters.  It’s a delicate mixture of watercolor style and a fine, well-placed block of color and line.  The colors are what makes this movie unique.  It is much like the older silent films in the way the artistry and music makes the story.  There are only around 1,000 words spoken throughout the entire film.  You can see in the colors how you are to feel.  When Bambi and Faline are frolicking through the glade after Bambi wins her love, you see the mood change to one of lighthearted, young love.  The light of the moonlight on the grasses and the other twitterpated animals adds just the right touch.  The passages of time are done beautifully as well.  There’s a scene where Mother and Bambi are walking along a stream in the fall, and all you see is the reflection of them on the water.  It’s such a stunningly beautiful scene, and it’s a great way to show that the animation business can use such perspective styles as live action films can.   There is no limit to what animation can do.  One of my favorite scenes, when Friend Owl explains ‘twitterpated’, they have Friend Owl ‘walk in air’ to describe the feeling of love.  There is no other way that could have been done.  Bambi, Thumper, and Flower’s facial expressions are spot on to how a young person would react to being told of the ‘horrors’ of being twitterpated.  And this is where the excellence of a Disney film comes to life.  The care and attention given to making these characters come to life, and to have the depth of heart and character all comes from Walt Disney.  Disney called in all sorts of favors from all over to make sure his staff knew exactly what they were looking for.  He sent some on field trips to the deep forests of the east, and some to the west.  He set up a small zoo in the studio with a pair of fawns, along with ducks, rabbits, skunks, and other forest animals.  Disney wanted the characters to look as realistic as possible, yet be cartoons.  For the frozen pond scene, he called in two professional skaters for his artists to watch and learn from.  You can see how well that paid off when you see Thumper skating around the pond so perfectly; his large feet acting just as skates would.  The child actors that voiced the characters also helped the animators with the facial features.  Thumper’s reactions to his mother’s reprimands are so warmingly familiar, you can’t help but smile at the poor little mite.  They are pure genius.  Bambi’s open curiosity is also apparent in his quest to learn about this world he was born in to.  The lightning in the storm sequence is breathtaking as well.  Robert Field reported the animators were “inspiring the audience with awe by showing them the elements in conflict,” and they “wanted to make [the audience] aware of the kindred feeling that all God’s creatures share when subjected to an ordeal in common.” (Field 264). And that is one of the main artistic themes throughout the whole movie.  The whole experience can be summed up in one quote.  “A spirit is beginning to pervade the whole, linking together ideas, characters, and environment so that when the artist starts his morning’s work, he steps out of the world of everyday experience into that other world where he can share the creative process with his Maker.”  This is the spirit of Bambi.
The appeal of Disney movies, for myself, is the feel good stories.  The knowledge that even though bad things may happen, it will all be okay in the end.  There is a movie for every type of feeling, and every age.  Disney once said, “I do not make films primarily for children.  I make them for the child in all of us, whether they be six or sixty.”  It is a very famous quote, and I believe it completely.  When there is a point that a person just misses being a child, Peter Pan may start to play in their mind.  They may think of the fun of nursery games and how they wish they never had to grow up.  When you are weary of other people and their attitudes, Mary Poppins comes to light.  They may think of how sadly blinded Mr. Banks is, and see hope that others may become aware of their misdeeds or of how lonely they are.  When dreams become so far in the distance that you do not know if you will ever reach them, Cinderella comes to lend a helping hand.  Even though she is under stronger shackles than many a dreamer, she still holds on to that one day when her dreams of freedom will come true.  Though Walt Disney never intended to change our way of thinking.  He meant to entertain.  Reid passionately pours out, “Their appeal is to the common man.  And it is in the common man that the child endures.”  The art of these movies makes those moments come to life, no matter how talented the actors or the musicians. The audience reaction is what makes them works of art.  As Mary Poppins would say, when there’s nothing else to say... supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Works Cited

Feild, Robert. The Art of Walt Disney. New York: Western Printing and Lithographing Company, 1942.
Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York: Random House Inc., 2006.
Watts, Steven. The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997.
Williams, Pat. How to be like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life. Deerfield Beach, Florida: Health Communications Inc., 2004.