They were separated by more than 200 years and catered to entirely different audiences. But French decorative artists of the 18th century and Walt Disney animators in America shared a unique ambition – to breathe life, character and charm into the inanimate.
This spring an exhibition at the Wallace Collection – in collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art – will explore Walt Disney’s personal fascination with France and French culture, and the way in which artists behind some of the most celebrated animation films of our time looked to French artworks for their source material.
Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts will display the hand-drawn animations alongside a selection of the finest 18th-century French furniture and porcelain to reveal the connections between the two artistic movements.
The exhibition chronicles Disney’s visits to France and his personal discovery of French fairy tales, as well as his early attempts to bring inanimate objects to life. Early films from the Silly Symphony series (1929-1939) demonstrate his fascination with anthropomorphic objects such as porcelain vases and clocks.
In total, more than 120 examples of production artwork and works on paper from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and the Walt Disney Archives will be on display, alongside approximately 30 artworks from the French Rococo movement.
These include Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s painting The Swing (circa 1767), which provided inspiration for several Disney films including Beauty and the Beast (1991), Tangled (2010) and Frozen (2013), and which will be showcased for the first time after its recent conservation.
Particular attention is given to the imaginative architecture of Cinderella (1950) and Beauty and the Beast, which feature castles that took inspiration from Versailles and the Loire Valley in early development, and are decorated with gilded mirrors and motifs of the Rococo style.
In Beauty and the Beast, the objects are imbued with a movement and emotion originally envisaged by French artists.
Dr Helen Jacobsen, a co-curator of the exhibition, said: “This exhibition presents us with a remarkable opportunity both to appreciate the extraordinary talents behind Disney animated films and to understand the continuing relevance of French 18th-century artworks.
“Juxtaposing one of the 20th century’s most iconic art forms with these exquisite objects not only provides an unprecedented look at the impact of French artworks on Disney Studios’ productions from the 1930s until the present, it also allows us to understand something of the wit and humour of the innovators of the Rococo, who turned everyday objects into works of genius.”
Dr Xavier Bray, the director of the Wallace Collection, said the museum was “fortunate to have one of the finest collections of 18th-century artworks in the world and we are thrilled to be bringing it to life for new audiences, in a manner that the original geniuses of the French 18th century – Boulle, Meissonnier, Duplessis and Caffieri – envisaged 300 years ago.”
Inspiring Walt Disney will run at the Wallace Museum from 6 April to 16 October 2022, after transferring from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
