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Review of the recent exhibition, Once Upon a Dream: the Art of Sleeping Beauty at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.
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Once Upon a Dream at the Cartoon Art Museum – Exhibition review by Kim Munson (November, 2009)
Production cel of the evil witch Malificent (animated by Mack Davis). Courtesy of the Cartoon Art Museum.
Once Upon a Dream: the Art of Sleeping Beauty -
Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco (July 18, 2009 –
January 10, 2010).
This excellent exhibition at the Cartoon Art Museum
celebrates the 50th anniversary of the release of
Disney’s visual masterpiece Sleeping Beauty. On
display are concept paintings, model sheets, cels,
production drawings, color keys, photos and other ephemera that tell the story of the
making of Sleeping Beauty from design concept through the finished film. Sleeping
Beauty was a Disney milestone: a Technorama 70, 6-channel stereophonic vision of the
Perrault fairy tale that took over five years and $6 million to make. Stunning as it was
visually, the film cost so much to make that it lost money when it was released in 1959,
even though its box office take was only beaten by Oscar-winner Ben Hur. The film had
a comeback with the 1979 & 1986 reissues, when it finally took its place among the rest
of Disney’s classic (and money-making) films.
Unlike many Disney features, the visual style of Sleeping Beauty was driven primarily by
one man, supervising color stylist/inspirational sketch artist Eyvind Earle. Earle was a
painter and greeting card designer that was hired at Disney in 1951. Earle painted
backgrounds and concept paintings for shorts like The Little House and Toot, Whistle,
Plunk, and Boom and the features Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp. When Walt
Disney decided he wanted to do something with a completely unique look, he took a
chance on Earle, and gave him unprecedented control over the project.
Concept painting of Sleeping Beauty's castle by
Eyvind Earle, collection of Ron Dias. Courtesy of the
Cartoon Art Museum.
Earle created a “medieval tapestry”
inspired by the paintings of Durer, Van
Eyck, Breughel, and 15th century
French illuminated manuscripts,
especially the Tres Riches Heures de
Jean, Duc de Berri, as well as Persian
miniatures and Japanese art. Another
influence was the minimalist,
streamlined style of 1950’s graphic
design.
Many of Earle’s concept and background paintings are featured in this exhibit. I was
spellbound by the contrast of the stylized sharp angles, rich color palette, and dense
detail work. At one point in the exhibit, there is a concept drawing by Mary Blair for the
cover of a Sleeping Beauty storybook, and it’s interesting to contrast Blair's whimsical
style with Earle's, and imagine how different the film would have looked based on Blair’s
designs.
Many of the animators, which included the famous Nine Old Men and Production
Designer Ken Anderson, were concerned that the backgrounds were too cold for a
romantic comedy and that the detailed backgrounds would swallow the characters. This
struggle is mapped out in a series of model sheets and character concept sketches that
show the amount of work that went into finding character and costume designs that
would stand out against Earle’s grandiose backgrounds. Of particular interest in this
section of the exhibition were drawings of Princess Aurora, who was loosely based on
Audrey Hepburn. The princess presented special problems as she has only 18 minutes
of screen time to establish herself as the sympathetic heroine before she's fated to meet
up with that nasty spinning wheel and sleep through the rest of the film. On top of that,
she is living in the forest when the character is introduced, and is dressed in a muted
wardrobe that echoes the natural surroundings. The drawings show the character's
progression from forest maiden to a princess regally attired in blue or rose colored
gowns. Also of interest were different versions of the 3 good fairies, a photo sheet of
Maleficent’s two-horned “devil” headdress from every conceivable angle (the animators
had a really hard time drawing it), and photos of the "live cast" who acted out the
characters for the animators, enabling them to achieve more realistic movement in their
drawings.
Much of the work featured in this show is drawn from the collection of Ron Dias, a
Disney artist/illustrator whose first professional job in the animation industry was as an
in-betweener and clean-up animator on Sleeping Beauty. Dias went on to become one
of the most highly-regarded and sought-after background artists and color stylists in the
business. The exhibition includes a spotlight section with a selection of Dias’ own work,
such as background paintings and color concepts from The Secret of Nimh, Who
Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Little Mermaid.
This review will be published in the Spring 2010 edition of the International Journal of
Comic Art. See more reviews and news about comics and museums on my blog at
http://kmunson-mac.blogspot.com/