A brief history
The animators
Fine art animation

• A brief history
  
  
  • Fine art animation is the new name of an art that began the early 20th century, when Futurists, Dadaists and other modern artists were eyeing the "motion picture as the medium" that could add movement to their paintings and graphic designs.
    
    
    
    
    
• The animators
  
  
  • Leopold Survage (1879–1968) was a Russian-French painter of Finnish origin. The first abstract animator.
    
    
• In 1912, Leopold Survage began his series of abstract watercolour paintings called the Colored Rhythm (1913), where he planned them in motion by using film animation techniques, and patented what he considered to be "a new art form".
  
  

  Rythme coloré (1913) Léopold Survage

  
  

• Later, in postwar Berlin, three abstract artists named Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling created their history-making films, Opus I (1921) , Rhythmus 21 (1921) and Diagonal Symphony (1924) respectively.
  
  
  
• Walter Ruttmann (1887–1941) was a German cinematographer and film director, an important German abstract experimental film maker.
  
  
  • Opus I (1921) Walter Ruttmann
    
    
    
    
    
    
• Hans Richter (1888–1976) was a German Dada painter, avant-garde film producer. He pursued a meaningful discovery of abstract forms by using moving pictures.
  
  
  • Rhythmus 21 (1921) Hans Richter
    
    
    
    
    
    
• Viking Eggeling (1880–1925) was a Swedish avant-garde artist and filmmaker, one of the pioneers in absolute film and visual music. His film Diagonal-Symphonie (1924) is one of the seminal abstract films in the history of experimental cinema.
  
  
  • Diagonal Symphony (1924) Viking Eggeling
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
• Despite this unpromising start, major careers were established in the new art form in the 1920s and '1930s by Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker in Europe, and by Mary Ellen Bute in the United States.
  
  
• They worked on 35mm film, usually sponsored by advertisers or government agencies, and generally they remained outsiders in the world of art, as well as in the world of film.
  
  
  
  
• Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967) was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music videos.
  
  
  • An Optical Poem (1938) Oskar Fischinger
    
    
    
    
    
• Len Lye (1901–1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. He concentrates on shock tactics in the use of color and sound, or the relation of opticals to the drawn film which gives an invaluable service to his colleagues.
  
  
  
  
  • Color Cry (1952) Len Lye
    
    
    
    
    
  • Kaleidoscope" + A Colour Box + Colour Flight (highlights mix) (1935-1937) Len Lye
    
    
    
    
    
    
• Norman McLaren (1914–1987) was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound.
  
  
  
  
  • Dots (1940) Norman McLaren
    
    
    
    
    
    
• Alexander Alexeieff (1901–1982) was a Russian Empire-born artist, filmmaker and illustrator who lived and worked mainly in Paris. Claire Parker (1906–1981) was an American engineer and animator.
  
  
  • Le Nez (1963) Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker
    
    
    
    
    

    
    
    

• Fine art animation



• Today there are many independent artist-animators, working in various techniques, in collage (stop motion), computer and video technologies.
  
  
• What they all have in common, and what distinguishes them from their colleagues in entertainment and advertising, is that 'they work on their own.'
  
  
• They are stubborn, patient and inventive, and they know that art is indeed long.
  
  
• Their films touch upon literature, psychology, nature, anthropology, and, of course, painting and graphic arts. Each film reflects the unique vision and skills of a single artist, in concept and form, in style and substance.
  
  
  
  
  
• Stan Brakhage (1933–2003) was an American experimental filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film.
  
  
  • Garden of Earthly Delights (1981) a collage of flowers and grasses placed between pieces of splicing tape, creating a visual parable of the struggle of plants to exist.
    
    
  
  
  
  
• Amy Kravitz (1956- ) is an independent filmmaker and teacher specializing in abstract animation. She is currently a Professor in the Film Department at the Rhode Island School of Design.
  
  
  • The Hour Coat (2022) <River Lethe> near-abstract graphite drawings and rubbings on paper, evoking life beyond consciousness.
    

    "The film is made from approximately 18,000 graphite drawings on tracing paper – made by hand. The imagery, sound, and all technical work were done by me. The film was funded, over the years of its making, from money I earned from teaching.

    
    
    
    
• Nicolas Brault (1975 - ) is a multi-award winning filmmaker and Professor teaching the art of animation at Université Laval.
  
  
  • Corps étrangers / Foreign Bodies (2014) Nicolas Brault