http://tags.library.upenn.edu/project/46844/film_history PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/46845 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/46845 <p>The article opens with the note that it is easy to forget that Walt Disney "was once celebrated as a great artist" for his innovations in the field of animation as well as his creative abilities.&nbsp; However, by the late 1940s the filmmaker's critical acclaim began to wane.&nbsp; Critics began to see Disney as having sold out his talent to pander to popular tastes.&nbsp; The author argues that Walt Disney's aesthetic evolved to reflect the contradictory intersection of Victorian sentimentalism and modernism, creating a hybrid style that helped mediate an important cultural shift in the United States during the 20th Century.&nbsp; The author goes as far as referring to Disney as "a kind of popular Picasso" to reflect his hybrid style that combined commercial entertainment and elements of surrealism (such as fantastic imaginary settings).&nbsp; In response to Disney's early modernist aesthetic, Sergei Eisenstein is quoted as having said in the early 1940s that the animator's work constituted "the greatest contribution of the American people to art."&nbsp; However, as Disney's efforts grew increasingly dedicated to enhancing realism in animation, his style onscreen became firmly rooted in a sunny aesthetic that reflected the sentimental idealism of the Victorian tradition.&nbsp; Disney was working at a time when other cartoonists had already developed a modernist aesthetic (often dark and surreal), and he curbed their style with his own anthropomorphic, fantastic-yet-optimistc idealism.&nbsp; The author argues that <em>Fantasia</em> represents the embodiment of this hybrid agenda.&nbsp; Abstract shapes and bizarre images set to classical music form the modernist component (especially through the juxtaposition of "high" and "low" images), while the idealistic nature scenes that form the imagery for several sequences form the&nbsp; counterpoint of Victorian sentimentalism.&nbsp; Many critics of the early 1940s likened Disney's appeals to the unconscious to the trickery and even drugging of audiences.</p> <p>This article provides a retrospective analysis of Walt Disney's unique artistic style at the time leading up to and including the creation of <em>Fantasia</em>.&nbsp; It is important to note the temporal distance between the realm of the article's subject (the 1930s and 1940s) and that of its author (1995).&nbsp; The hindsight of this 60-year lapse enables the author to draw clear distinctions between different artistic movements in history, namely Victorian sentimentalism and modernism.&nbsp; While Disney's work was criticized at the time for being too "cutesy" and commercially exploitative, this modern author re-defines Disney's style as an innovative hybrid of two conflicting artistic movements.&nbsp; Thus it is in the context of these historical paradigm shifts that the author resurrects Disney as an artist.&nbsp; This article relates to my thesis because the author uses historical/retrospective insight to read <em>Fantasia</em> as the prime example of Disney's hybrid artistic style.&nbsp; While many music critics of the time condemned <em>Fantasia</em> for destroying the classical music at the film's center, this author uses the more than 50 years since the film was made to develop an analysis that sees the "bigger picture" of how the film fit into various definitions of art.</p> <p>Watts, Steven. "Walt Disney: Art and Politics in the American Century." <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Journal of American History</span> june 82 (1995): 84-96. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008 .</p>