"For myself, indeed, with an abstract film, the most pleasing forms are those which come closest to music. There must be visual equivalence"
Norman McLaren.
The above film Begone Dull Care (1949) was produced partly through the painting of the visuals onto 35mm clear film, frameless and frame by frame. Other imagery were etched directly into 35mm film.
— Short animations by Harry Smith. No. 1: A Strange Dream (l946) No. 2: Message from the Sun (1946-48) No. 3: Interwoven (1947-49) (Part 1)
Abstract film, especially where colour is concerned owes a lot formally to the work of Kandinsky. Malcolm Le Grice makes some interesting comparisons between works like The Battle from 1910 and Harry Smith’s Film Number 3 done before 1950. "Kandinsky's work" argues Le Grice "not only explores the notion of shape transformations, or colour changes within repeated shapes, but also shape repetitions which imply movement either across the surface or into the 'space' of the picture" ( 1977, p.77). Further reading:
LeGrice, M. (1977) Abstract Film and Beyond, Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Press.
Russett, R.and Starr, C. (1976) Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology, New York: Van Nostrand.
Oskar Fishinger is often seen as the pioneer of abstract animation. Jerry Beck suggests that “Fishinger had always had a dream of blending classical music with the kind of conceptual designs that might be formulated in one’s mind when listening to a symphony. This mixture he termed as ‘visual music’” (Beck, 2004, p.22).
Fishinger’s ability in blending music with animation inspired the animators on Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1941). He did work on the “Toccata and Fugue” (Bach) section, but “because his original designs were dismissed as too abstract and modified against his wishes, Fishinger acquired a deserved reputation as an animator with more integrity than Disney” (Kostelanetz, 2001 p.213). Fantasia can be seen as “Disney’s attempt to legitimise the animated film by working in a more abstract, highly aesthetic supposedly ‘cultured’ way" (Wells, 1998 p. 29)
Further reading:
Beck, J., (2004) Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, The History of Cartoon, Anime and CGI London: Flame Tree Publishing. Kostelanetz, R., (2001) Dictionary of Avant-gardes 2nd Edition, New York and London: Routledge. Leslie, E., (2002) Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-garde, London and New York: Verso. Russett, R.and Starr, C. (1976) Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology, New York: Van Nostrand. Wells, P., (1998) Understanding Animation London and New York: Routledge
Hans Richter is still an important chronicler of the Dada movement. His first-hand account of Dada, Dada: Art and Anti Art still stands today as an important document despite it’s the silly and appalling treatment of Hannah Höch. It’s a book that still appears on many a reading list in art schools today.
Hans Richter’s Rythmus 21 is an important early abstract film. It sometimes, quite wrongly apparently, referred to as the first abstract film.
According to Esther Leslie, Richter’s “abstract films were conceived as a light-play of positive and negative” (Leslie, 2002p.37). Leslie compares Richter to Malevich in his aim to “reduce form to its simplest element”, which Richter claimed “to be the rectangle or square” (p.37). However, she points out that unlike Malevich and others, there was no “assumed metaphysical importance” to these elements (p.37).
Sources:
Leslie, E., (2002) Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde, London and New York: Verso.
Eggeling was an early contributor to the Dada movement. In collaboration with Hans Richter he worked on abstract picture scrolls. The works are notable shift in (Zurich) Dada’s aesthetics away from Expressionism towards Constructivism. Although it can be argued that historically “the impetus for the production of the first abstract film seems to come from music and paintings rather than cinematography” stimulated by the “Blaue Reiter almanac’s call for a theory of painting” (Lynton, 2003, p. 119).
Eggeling was concerned with “‘rhythm in painting’ through all the possible permutations of certain linear and spatial relationships” (Kostelanetz, R., 2001, p. 189): “a general concern for line and surface” (Michaud, 1996, p.23). Above is the classic Diagonal Symphony from 1924, in which Eggeling produced more than a thousand drawings on his own.
Bibliography:
Kostelanetz, R., (2001) Dictionary of Avant-gardes 2nd Edition, New York and London: Routledge.
Lynton, N., (2003) The Story of Modern Art, London and New York: Phaidon.
Michaud, Philippe-Alain, (1961) “The Haunting of the Subject on Dada Cinema”, in (2005) Dada Cinema, Paris: Re: Voir Video.
Walter Ruttman is perhaps best known for his film Berlin: Symphony of a Great City from 1927, a film that demonstrated the influence of Soviet film montage as exemplified by Vertov. Before he produced this classic film Ruttman was making short abstract films in the early 1920s. Ruttmen like Eggeling and Richter started out as a painter. For these painters-come-film makers “it seems that at first, they hoped that animation could be, above all, paintings salvation rather than films” (Leslie, 2002 p.46).
Lightplay Opus I has been referred to as “not only the first abstract film to be shown in public, but also a film hand-tinted in striking and subtle colours, with a live synchronised musical score composed especially for it (Russett and Starr, 1976 p. 40).
In 1976 Opus I is said to be missing however above is a film which is claimed to be Opus I. It is claimed that “Ruttman did not wish it (Opus I) to be seen, after he had made improvements to his later films” (Russett and Starr, 1976 p. 40).
As well as producing his Opus films Ruttman produced abstract films for commercial purposes in Munich and Berlin: “in 1923 he created the “Dream of Hawks Sequence” for Fritz Lang’s Siegfried” (Russett and Starr, 1976 p. 41). Later he joined Lotte Reininger in her feature length silhouette animation The Adventures of Prince Achmed Ruttman produced fantasy effects using the wax slixcing machine he had commissioned from Oskar Fischinger. Prince Achmed was completed in 1926 after which Ruttmen gave up animation (Russett and Starr, 1976 p. 40).
Bibliography:
Leslie, E., (2002) Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-garde, London and New York: Verso. Russett, R.and Starr, C. (1976) Experimental Animation: An Illustrated Anthology, New York: Van Nostrand.
The Scottish born, Canadian filmmaker and animator Norman McLaren (1914-1987) discovered cinema at the Glasgow School of Art. Initially he was influenced by Eisenstein. At some point he was introduced to the work of Osker Fishinger who produced abstract animations and the work of Claire Parker and Alexander Alexeieff and Émile Cohl. Parker, Alexeieff and Cohl used an animation technique called metamorphosis. I am not quite describing the technique correctly. I will have to consult Paul Well’s book Understanding Animation. This technique was developed further and employed by McLaren in a number of his experimental animations.
I particularly interested in its application within the mode of representation of surrealism. A great deal of McLaren’s work was informed by surrealist techniques.
Above are two stills from A phantasy on a nineteenth century painting (1946) which was inspired by the painting series Isle of the Dead (1880- 86)by Arnold Böcklin
John is a lecturer in Media at Lincoln University and an artist. He began his real love for education at West Park College, Smethwick 1988-90, before going on to do his National Diploma in Art and Design at Stourbridge College in 1990. He went to Humberside Polytechnic and graduated in 94 after it had changed to Humberside University. From 1994-99 exhibited his work in a number of group shows. He also worked with a number of art groups and organisations before in 2000 becoming a university lecturer (thank you Jenny Wolmark!). John worked in art and design for about eight years before moving into the School of Media. He makes digital images.
This particular blog is a response to work started during the MA in Digital Imaging and Photography at the School of Media, Lincoln University 2009-11. This blog deals with a wide range of topics to do with visual culture: photography, art, theory, technologies and media practice.
