Mention the name of waltdisney it is to directly provoke the mental recreation of the famous castle with a background of fireworks and that tune that we all know how to hum. No reason has been able to bring together children and adults as much as they do the Disney movies . This time, the animation leaves the screen to become the new exhibition Metropolitan Art Museum (MET) of New York.
Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts It opened on December 10 and will be available until March 6. It is a tribute to the American animator and the constant inspirations of European art that influenced his films, a way of thanking him for the infinite good times that his company has given us.
Not only him, but to the great team behind Walt Disney Animation Studios . There are not a few of us who have grown up with their premieres, danced to their songs and, of course, dreamed of those fairytale settings. Now, we know that they drink from personal fascination with Europe and especially of french motifs that have been reflected both in his cinematographic creations and in his theme parks.
Walt Disney's creative process opens up to us at the MET.
WHAT ARE WE GONNA SEE
Tales is what we have seen on screen for so many years and a tale is what this exhibition represents. This time, we go back to the 18th century , from where sixty works of European design and decorative arts have been recovered: tapestries, furniture, Boulle clocks or Sèvres porcelain , among other.
They will appear next to 150 production artworks and works on paper from different institutions dedicated to Walt Disney. They join it movie images that show the technological and artistic advances of the company. However, there will be three star films in the exhibition: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty Y Beauty and the Beast.
These three protagonists are the projects that make the most references to European visual culture. Gothic Revival architecture, medieval influences or Rococo inspiration have had a remarkable representation in these three titles, how to forget Lumiere, Mrs. Potts and Chip, or Din Don!
Beauty and the Beast, 1991 Peter J. Hall
Precisely these last and worldwide beloved characters will have a place in the sample, in the form of sketches, but also real objects that enclose that rococo style in which they were inspired in the studios. A watch by André Charles Boulle , gilt bronze chandeliers Juste-Aurele Meissonnier and the first meissen teapots will be some of the pieces that can be seen in the exhibition.
Walt Disney also had a strong fixation on collect and build miniature furniture and dollhouses, which would later become the kind of creativity he would employ in both his films and parks. These tiny objects will also have a place in the show, along with personal movie images.
THE PATH OF THE STORY
The exhibition of the giant Walt Disney does not lack any detail. In fact, they even take a trip to the past, to the first entertainers . One of the sections animating the inanimate , It will show French and German Rococo porcelain figures brought to life in Disney's Silly Symphonies, a series of animated short films produced between 1929 and 1939.
Miniature room designed by Narcissa Niblack Thorne (American, 1882–1966). French boudoir of the period of Louis XV, 1740-60, ca. 1937.
As we move forward, our next stop will be three great animated movies. Germanic paintings and inspirations in Snow White, and a francophile attitude in Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. In the section of the latter they will have an important role the female artists who broke down the genre barriers of the time as part of the creative team at Disney Studios.
Beauty and the Beast will be the main protagonist of the exhibition . In this extensive section, lovers of this story will discover other cases of anthropomorphism and zoomorphism throughout literature, 18th century French decorative objects , Disney's satires towards rococo fashion, curiosities about the animation of Beast, inspiration in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles to create the ballroom, or even true stories that have a lot to do with the story.
The destination where our journey ends will be disney architecture . Decoration has always been very important in their projects, but we have all dreamed of the company's buildings, their settings deserve a section. Here we can enjoy its castles and how the animators were inspired by such real places such as the 16th century Loire Valley castles and Neuschwanstein Castle , in Bavaria.
Covered tower vase, ca. 1762. Sèvres Manufactory (1740–present).
without realizing it, Walt Disney has played an indispensable role in our way of seeing the world . He has made us laugh and cry with emotion in equal parts, sweetened our childhood, also our adulthood, we grew up with him and, today, the little ones continue to do so. He has inspired us for years, now is the time to know what inspired him to make us so happy.