disney historic 1.4 part 1

imagine, once upon a time – there was no internet. you could not ask google whatever you needed to know. well, I remember1990, when I worked on ALADDIN, I accidentally heard about the ORIENTALISTS, painters who painted the middle east around the second half of the 19th century. I had to order those very rare coffee table books in a specialized bookstore in cologne ( walter koenig ), wait for some weeks and then pick them up, 300DM each, 4 books. their weight was probably 6 kg, and they had to be brought to L.A. in my suitcase. google is so much lighter. and cheaper!

when EYVIND EARLE needed his reference art-books, it was easier for him. WALT DISNEY had on his several months long trip to europe in the mid thirties bought whatever he could find about art and especially illustrated children books. JOE GRANT had given him a list what to look for. so DISNEY shipped all those ‘treasure’-books, illustrated by KAY NIELSEN, GUSTAF TENGGREN, EDMOND DULAC, HERMAN VOGEL, LUDWIG RICHTER, ARTHUR RACKHAM, WARWICK GOBLE, GUSTAVE DORE and more, to L.A. where they became the reference for future art directors and production designers.

GUSTAF TENGGREN and KAY NIELSEN had even worked in the disney studio, from the mid thirties to early forties. during that time KAY NIELSEN created many designs for future possible productions, like SLEEPING BEAUTY, but as well THE LITTLE MERMAID, and a beautiful piece THE SWAN OF TUONELA.

more tomorrow…

© walt disney enterprises

pure beauty 2

some more recreated pan backgrounds from the old traditional animation days. all backgrounds were painted in watercolor, dozens of layers, or in the later years in gouache. most BAMBI backgrounds were painted in oil, to create the soft look that TYRUS WONG had created. nearly all of these BG’s were painted in several layers on glass, to create a feel of depth. after the shots were finished, the glass was scraped clean and reused. that’s why nearly all of the BAMBI backgrounds are destroyed. more reason to recreate their beauty.

© walt disney enterprises, inc
© MGM © studio zagreb

hermann vogel

I would like to introduce you to a german childrenbook illustrator that is not too well known today, HERMANN VOGEL, 1854 – 1921. he grew up in saxony and studied at the art academy in dresden. VOGEL’s illustrations are in the tradition of german ROMANTICISM, and their best known artists – LUDWIG RICHTER, MORITZ VON SCHWIND and CARL SPITZWEG. ALBERT HURTER introduced these artists and their illustration style to the disney studio and they influenced very much the look of the first animated feature films.

© hermann vogel

style 6

MARY BLAIR, born in 1911, was married to LEE BLAIR ( brother of PRESTON BLAIR, well known for his ‘how to animate’-booklet ). both became very well know watercolor artists, LEE even was at the age of 23 the president of the CALIFORNIA WATERCOLOR SOCIETY. lee blair joined disney in 1938 and became one of the art directors on PINOCCHIO. MARY BLAIR went to work for MGM – animation.

but in 1940 she left MGM and started at the disney studio as well, in the CHARACTER MODEL DEPARTMENT, headed by JOE GRANT. for joe’s idea of LADY AND THE TRAMP she created numerous watercolor sketches. during the early war years, in 1941, disney and a group of designers and animators went on a good will tour through southern america. mary blair joined the group and got walt disney’s attention with some concept designs for the by this trip inspired features SALUDOS AMIGOS and THREE CABALLEROS.

from the mid-forties on she designed most of the disney films, all the way through CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND and PETER PAN. in 1953 she left the studio to follow her own ideas in paintings, children books and other areas incl. some major advertising campaigns. disney asked her to come back in the sixties to design attractions for disneyland. she died in 1978.

mary blair’s influences were very different. they came from contemporary commercial art like european advertising posters, VOGUE fashion designs, NEW YORKER covers as well as folk art and the colorful southern-american culture.

© disney enterprises, inc

…more

…some more recreated backgrounds from disney’s CINDERELLA

© disney enterprises, inc

from singapore

hello from the beautiful SINGAPORE!
enjoy some of my favorite scenes from disney’s CINDERELLA. I removed the animation in most of them and tried to recreate the pure backgrounds to show the style, the composition and the very typical for CINDERELLA color-choices.

© disney enterprises, inc

pumpkin

some more recreated backgrounds from disney’s CINDERELLA

© disney enterprises, inc

bibbidi bobbidi boo

these recreated backgrounds are from disney’s CINDERELLA, released march 1950. it was the first full length animated feature film after the second world war, after BAMBI in 1942. disney chose another grimm’s fairy tale hoping it would continue the success of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. it was a good choice, the film became the most successfull film of the year.

© disney enterprises, inc

aquarell

I mean – WATERCOLOR, in that technique most of the backgrounds of the late 30s and 40s were done. at disney the BG-painters started to use a different technique, to paint with gouache color, from the mid-forties on. there seems to be a change during BAMBI, where most of the BG’s were painted in oil, a few in gouache. then from CINDERELLA on, everything is painted in gouache. one of the reasons might have been the simplified style MARY BLAIR introduced. earlier, in PINOCCHIO the wooden textures had been pretty realistic, the environments were very close stylistically to childrenbook illustration of that time, TENGGREN and NIELSEN were at the studio as designers. later, especially in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, the environment is way more stylized. with LADY AND THE TRAMP the studio returned to a more naturalistic look, but still painted in gouche. SLEEPING BEAUTY is a different story, because disney tried to create an epic film in style and format. so it had to have its own very specific look. we all know that after the film’s moderate success the studio had to come up with a cheaper way to produce a look, what resulted in a new technology.
anyway – here are 4 backgrounds painted in that beautiful watercolor technique, they are recreated from disney’s DONALD AND PLUTO, sept. 1936 – and MGM’s BOWLING ALLEY CAT, july 1942. as you can see, no matter what studio, the look is very similar.

© disney enterprises, inc
© MGM

romanticism

the 19. century is called THE ROMANTIC ERA, in music, literature and visual art. ROMANTICISM started with the french revolution and lasted until about 1900. artists like MOZART, HAYDN, BEETHOVEN, WEBER, BERLIOZ, SCHUBERT, CHOPIN, WAGNER and LISZT in music, GOETHE, HEGEL, SCHILLER, HOELDERLIN, VON EICHENDORFF and BRENTANO in literature, and DELACROIX, FRIEDRICH, BIERSTADT, COLE, WATERHOUSE and RICHTER in visual art are the most famous representatives of that movement. In germany the BROTHERS GRIMM collected popular fairy tales like SNOW WHITE, CINDERELLA and HAENSEL AND GRETEL.

GUSTAF TENGGREN, born 1896 in sweden, was influenced by scandinavian romantic folklore, and painters like JOHN BAUER with his elves and troll world.

tenggren brought that ‘old world’ look into the DISNEY films he worked on. you can see his influence in SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS and PINOCCHIO, as well as in the SILLY SYMPHONIES – THE UGLY DUCKLING and THE OLD MILL. even BAMBI had a tenggren look in the very early stages with a detail rich illustration-style forest.

but the disney artists realized early enough that this look wouldn’t work for bambi. all the detail with foliage, trees and grass was working against a clear readability of the characters. and besides that it would have been a nightmare to finish over 1.000 workintensive backgrounds on time.

TYRUS WONG and his chinese art influenced soft style was the solution. he gave the backgrounds the feeling of a forest, with only a few leaves and grass painted. it was impossible to paint his stylized backgrounds in the traditional watercolor technique. to achieve the softnes the disney artists had to start painting the BG’s in oil, painted direct on different glass levels. to create depth the separation into different layers for the MULTIPLANE CAMERA made that necessary.

gustaf tenggren and KAY NIELSEN, a danish artist, who had designed parts of FANTASIA, left the studio during the strike in 1941. it is interesting to compare the styles of the later feature films without their influence. there were other very talented artists like MARY BLAIR, EYVIND EARLE and KEN ANDERSEN who took over and created the worlds of PETER PAN, SLEEPING BEAUTY and 101 DALMATIANS.

© disney enterprises, inc
© waterhouse, richter, bauer

mice + shoes

disney’s CINDERELLA, released march 1950. this beautiful illustration was used for the opening of the film, it feels like the romantic background for an operetta. CINDERELLA was the first animated feature film after a long period of time, after BAMBI. during the wartime the studio had to improvise with short-compilations. as a new start they choose a classical fairy tale like SNOW WHITE before. the choice was a good one, it became the biggest box office hit for disney in years.

© disney enterprises, inc