The Art of Animation
Margo Sivin | Shanefessor | December 2010
The Thaumatrope
Illustrated by Howard Beckerman
For nearly a century, animation has been a unique influence on the
human experience. From an early age, American children watch
Disney Princesses sing with woodland creatures, Bugs Bunny
tease Daffy Duck and Tom chase Jerry, not to mention the various
commercial business that have utilized animation in marketing and
artists as a form of expression. Animator and educator Howard
Beckerman writes,
“Pictures on the screen move in time and, unlike pages in a
book, are not meant to be studied individually. This matter of time
directly relates to the spaces between drawings and their duration
in a sequence. Time is the soul of animation, and it is animators
respect for timing that casts them as actors.” (Beckerman 5)
According to Merriam-Webster, to animate or be animated is to give
life, or act in a spirited way. In a parallel leap forward with live-action
motion pictures, animation brought drawings, clay, and other objects
to life and gave way to a distinct form of art and entertainment.
Animation is fairly young art form; it piggybacked its way through
history on artists, toymakers, illustrators and scientists. Animation,
like other scientific and artistic breakthroughs and movements of the
20th century, did not exist in a vacuum: animation influenced, and
was influenced by artistic expressions like design, music, literature,
and art. The following research represents mere snapshots and
highlights in the history of animation.
EARLY BEGINNINGS: Bringing pictures to life
If the word “animation” refers to pictures in motion, animation began
with the attempt to create motion in still paintings found in caves. But
while the “blurred” legs of animals suggest motion, the beginnings of
modern moving pictures came in the form of toys like the thaumatrope,
phenakistoscope, and stoboscope in the Eighteenth century. Animation
and movies were made possible because of the combined use of
sequential images, perforated, flexible strips, lenses, shutters, and
detants. The following invenetions contributed one, or many, of these
necessary elements (Beckerman 10).
The thaumatrope, invented by Dr. William Henry Fitton, is a disc
like a large coin with different images on each side with two strings
attached on the right and left sides. When twirled quickly, the two
images appear to overlap. This concept of merging imagery prompted
further inquiry by John Herschel, Michael Faraday, Peter Mark Roget
(Beckerman 5–6).
1

(top) The Zoetrope
Illustrated by Howard Beckerman
Eadweard Muybridge, 1872
The Lumiere Brothers Cinematographe
Illustrated by Howard Beckerman
Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (1801–1883) of Brussels created
the phenakistoscope and Ritter von Stampfer (1792–1864) of Vienna
created the stroboscope. These similar novelty items were wheels with
slits and a series of closely related designs that, when spun facing a
mirror, appeared to move. Plateau drew the designs himself, which
makes him the world’s first animator. Most artists and illustrators
who made designs for the phenakistoscope, stroboscope, and later
zoetrope, were generally anonymous animators (Beckerman 6).
In 1892 in Paris, Emile Reynaud replaced viewing slits of the
zoetrope with rectangular mirrors that faced the drawings
and revolved as the drum spun. He dubbed his invention the
praxinoscope, expanding it into an elaborate theatre attraction
via mirrors and lenses and a belt of painted transparencies, called
theatre optique. Accompanied by appropriate sounds, the projecting
praxinoscope was a forerunner of what would become screen
animation.
PHOTOGRAPHY’S AID
Following the invention of photography and the first photograph
by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826, the zoetrope progressed to
include lantern slides (Beckerman 8). In 1872, Eadweard James
Muybridge began photographing animals and people in motion using
twelve cameras with shutters tipped off in sequence. Beckerman
states, “The importance of Muybridge was in the fact that they were
continuous shots of actual motion, not posed stills,” as opposed to
photographs previously depicting motion (8).
Inspired by Muybridge, Parisian physiologist Etienne Jules Marey
devised a gunstock camera that took a series of photographs on a
revolving plate through one lens. He exposed twelve exposures per
second. By 1888, he had developed a new camera design that could
take successive pictures on a moving roll of celluloid film.
The first true movie is generally credited to Thomas Edison and his
invention of the kinetoscope viewing machine in West Orange, New
Jersey. The camera that recorded motion, the kinetograph (1894),
was a large apparatus that pulled the film through horizontally and
was controlled by an enormous electric motor (Beckerman 8). The
kinetograph was only for one person to view.
The Lumiere brothers Louis and Auguste created the cinematographe,
which was a portable camera that also served a projector. This device
allowed films to be made in any location, and to be shown to a large
audience. It was the invention of the projector that opened the path
to longer and more complex motion pictures.
THE FIRST ANIMATED FILMS & NEW TECHNOLOGY
The first film to purposely employ drawn animation was James Stuart
Blackton’s Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in 1906. The film uses
frame-by-frame shooting technique to make blackboard drawings
2
 come alive. There was no story, only simple animation like smoke
curling from a cigar and an eye blinking. Blackton’s early experiments
in animation inspired others and encouraged further developments
(Beckerman 16). In 1909, Blackton and his partner Albert Smith
founded the Vitagraph Corporation of American. In early drawn
animation, two elements were common: the first was the cartoonists
hand as instigator of the animation (which was usually a cutout
of a still photograph); and the second was the stealing of ideas or
imitation.
Largely considered to be the first animator, Emile Cohl, a French
caricaturist, dedicated his life to designing, photographing, and
animating his drawings. Cohl is an excellent example of animators
working closely with other artists. His background would later
influence his animation work. His mentor, political caricaturist Andre
Gill, introduced him to a bohemian circle including artists, poets,
journalists, and critics that would eventually belong to the symbolist
movement (Crafton 63). Cohl became part of a group obsessed with
insanity as an aesthetic issue, the Incoherents. Beginning in 1882,
their group organized charity balls and exhibitions of their strange
work that attracted artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Cheret.
Before he began working on animations at the age of 44, Cohl was a
popular graphic artist, illustrating books, songsheets, and magazines.
Cohl’s cartoons beginning in 1908 features childlike white outlines
of characters on a black background, which was a nod to Blackton’s
chalkboard technique (Beckerman 18). Cohl also made puppets
and paper cutouts for his films dedicated to the Incoherents. Cohl
was one of the first to bring the necessary qualities of intellect,
imagination, strong work ethic, and the obsessive love of drawing
that would mark other great animators (Crafton 61–64).
Until just before the start of WWI, animation was a sideline
occupation. Hoping for success in the steady stream of cartoon
reels to movie theatres, two entrepreneurial newspaper cartoonists,
Raoul Barre and John Randolph Bray organized studios in New
York. Certain technical problems needed to be solved, however,
before animated shorts could begin cranking out. The first challenge,
maintaining constant position of drawings as they were being
sketched and then shot was solved by the Peg System. Raoul Barre
came up with the idea to punch holes in drawing paper that were then
set upon pegs set into the drawing board. A secondary challenge,
quivering backgrounds, was solved by Cels. Earl Hurd was the first
to employ celluloid, the material that ran through cameras. First, the
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, 1906
backgrounds were drawn on the celluloid sheets (cels) and placed
James Stuart Blackton
over the animation, and later, characters were traced onto cels. This
Fantasmagore, 1908 opened the door for more detailed backgrounds and rendering of
Emile Cohl
tones. Eventually Hurd and Bray merged, creating the Bray-Hurd
Newspaper cartoon, 1938 Process Company, which licensed out the technique and collected
This cartoon illustrates animation’s debt to Cohl,
royalties well into the 1930s.
who was largely unknown at the time of his death
in 1938. Although some still considered animation an art form, Bray made
animation an assembly-line, factory style job. Among these were
artists employed in the assembly lines were those who would become
3

Otto Messmer and Felix the Cat, 1977
Vicking Eggling
Snow White, 1937
Walt Disney/RKO Radio Pictures
A painter working on Pinocchio, 1940.
Walt Disney Productions/PhotoFest
producers in their own right, like Max and Dave Fleischer. The
Fleischers created a projection-tracing device, the rotoscope, in
1917. They filmed live-action sequences and then traced single-frame
projections of it. This technique made animating considerably faster,
as well as smoother. They introduced the Koko the Clown series, whose
hallmark was the combination of the characters with photographic
backgrounds. Dave acted as Koko’s model (Beckerman 23).
STUDIOS AND FULL-LENGTH FEATURES
In the 1920s, animation in the United States was centered around
production in New York studios. Cartoons at this time had a specific
look: inked in heavy black, with white, mask-like faces. They moved
on a white plane with occasional black lines showing scenery. From
1919 to 1930, Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan’s Felix the Cat was
the number one crowd-pleaser. Through clever animation based on
Charlie Chaplin, Felix could think and solve problems. For instance,
using his tail, he could form a telescope. During this time, animation
was never as serious as the feature-film that seceded it. One man
would change that: Walt Disney.
Walt Disney’s success came from a mouse. Mickey’s first success was
with Steamboat Willie, Disney’s third Mickey Mouse short, but the
first with sound. In the 1930s, color cartoons were shown in theatres
in between black and white features, newsreels, and advertisements.
Disney’s 1933 Silly Symphony, The Three Little Pigs, was a landmark in
animation, and featured the first hit tune from an animation, “Who’s
Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf ?”
Disney sought to raise the standards of animation. His skill with
combining a winning story, sound effects, music, and color made him
a man difficult to match. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, opening to
worldwide acclaim in December 1937, showed doubters that a full-
length feature animated film could indeed hold the public’s attention.
A reviewer for The New York Times said, “If you miss it, you’ll be
missing the ten best pictures of 1938” (Beckerman 45) A 3-year
effort that ran over budget, Snow White not only earns a place in
history because it was the first full-length animation featuring sound
and color, but because it was a beautiful and captivating film. At the
1939 Oscars, Walt Disney was given a special award, which read, “To
Walt Disney for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, recognized as a
significant screen innovation which has charmed millions and pioneered a
great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon” (Academy
Awards Database).
During the production of Snow White, the mostly under 25, high-
school educated “girls,” as Disney paternalistically referred to them,
worked to exhaustion. Behind Disney’s first animated features–Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi–there were
as many as 100 young women working as inkers and painters, making
his dream a reality. It was the forgotten armies of women working
for Disney who painted “minor miracles that would become part of
our collective visual consciousness: the curve of Mickey’s ears, the
4

(top two) Symphonie Diagonale, 1924
Vicking Eggling
Dumbo, 1941
Walt Disney/RKO Radio Pictures
The Dot and The Line, 1965.
Chuck Jones
sympathetic lines of Goofy’s face, the flap of Dumbo’s trunk, the
downy spots on Bambi’s back, or perhaps the most storied, the fairy
dust that has endured as a symbol of enchantment, if only we wish
hard enough” (Zohn). The “girls,” as Walt paternally referred to
them, worked double time (logging up to 85 hours in one week) and
had no time off. The budget was so tight for a couple of weeks the
girls did not get paid; Walt joked that he had to “mortgage Mickey
and Minnie” (Zohn). Still, the girls remained upbeat. Most people
felt lucky to be working for Disney.
ART’S INFLUENCE
Although the major players like Disney, MGM, and Warner Brothers
set the visual standard for animation and are most remembered for
the animations of the time, there are several fringe groups and films
worth noting. The world-wide effects of animation in combination
with the artistic zeitgeist of the time (cubism, abstract, futurism)
can be seen in works coming out of Europe. Marcel Duchamp and
Giacomo Balla painted overlapping imagery to express motion.
During the 1920s, graphic designers Vicking Eggling and Hans
Richter joined Walkter Ruttmann and Berthold Bartosch in studying
tempo and rhythm in conjunction with animation (Beckerman
30–31). Beginning in 1930, animators who had been exposed to the
words of Braque, Matisse, and Picasso began applying what they
saw to animation. The 1934 French production Joie de Vivre, designed
by Hector Hoppin and Anthony Gross, exemplified this influence.
Sequences from Disney’s Dumbo and various sequences from The
Three Caballeros shows the Disney animator’s slight inclination
during the period (Beckerman 54).
One of the simplest and most charming short animations came
from one of the biggest players in animation: Warner Brothers’
Chuck Jones. The creator of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and dozens
of other beloved animated heroes also made a short, modernist
animation. 1965s The Dot and The Line: A Romance in Lower
Mathematics, is Norton Juster’s story of a straight line who falls in
love with a red dot. Using simple geometry, occasional squiggles,
flowers, and a simple narration and score, The Dot and The Line won
an Academy Award for Short Film (animated) in 1965.
The Academy Award for Short Film (animated) was added to
the 5th Academy Awards in 1932. The addition of Animated
Feature Film was added for the 74th Academy Awards in 2001
(Dreamworks’ Shrek won.) The only two animated films to be
nominated for Best Motion Picture are Beauty and the Beast (1991)
and Up (2009). Pixar Animation Studios is the most successful
in the Animated Feature Film category. Out of the seven feature
films Pixar made between 2001¬–2009, all have been nominated
and only two have lost (Academy Award Database). Additionally,
John Lasseter received an Achievement Award in 1995, for “his
inspired leadership of the Pixar Toy Story team, resulting in the
first feature-length computer-animated film” (Academy Awards
5
 Database). Although widely praised as one of the best films of 2008,
the cautionary environmental tale of WALL-E was not nominated
for a Best Picture Oscar. The first animated film to be nominated
for Foregin Language Film was Waltz with Bashir in 2008. Israeli
director Ari Folman used stark black and yellow sketches and photo-
realistic drawings to depict his time as a young soldier in Israel’s 1982
invasion of Lebanon (“Animated Movies”). Another artist gaining
critical acclaim for his animation is South African artist William
Kentridge. One of his most well-known characters is Soho Eckstien,
a business tycoon, and his alter-ego Felix Teitelbaum. The film
Johannesburg, the 2nd Greatest City After Paris was created on the
city’s one-hundredth anniversary and addresses the social problems
of apartheid (“William Kentridge”).
These films demonstrate the variety of animation’s uses: an
animated film can be both educational and artistic, entertaining and
informative. Interestingly enough, though the animation targeted to
adults (such as Futurama, The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy)
is often visually similar to children’s animation, the content is strikingly
different. Since its popularity in the beginning of the 20th century,
animation has permeated every aspect of our culture. Animation has
expanded from simple animating of drawings to claymation, stop-
motion, and computer generated imagery (CGI). More than ever, the
phrase “graphic design” encompasses so much more than traditional
print design. Animation is frequently seen on graphic design blogs and
websites. In our ever-expanding world of design, it is clear animation
certainly has a place.

WORKS CITED
Academy Awards Database. 2010. Web. 04 Dec. 2010.
“Animated Movies: Not Just for Kids.” TIME Magazine. 21 Nov.
2008. Web. 04 Dec. 2010.
Beckerman, Howard. Animation: The Whole Story. New York:
Allworth Press. 2003. Print.
Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898–1928.
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1982. Print.
“William Kentridge: Five Themes.” Museum of Modern Art. 24
Feb. 2010. Web. 03 Dec. 2010.
Zohn, Patricia. “Coloring the Kingdom.” Vanity Fair Magazine.
(top) Waltz with Bashir, 2008 Vanity Fair, Mar. 2010. Web. 01 Dec. 2010.
Ari Folman
Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City After Paris,
1989. William Kentridge