As much as he animated European art, Walt Disney neutered the French decorative arts to make pop cartoons. Objects that inspired the likes of 'Sleeping Beauty' are now on view at the Huntington.
Art museums have a really tough time dealing with Hollywood product in a coherent and illuminating way. Mass culture and art culture are not the same thing, so the usual curatorial strategies often run aground.
Or, at the very least tacky, sort of like the cartoon wall murals in the galleries where the show is installed.
They’re attributed to sculptor and Sèvres porcelain designer Etienne-Maurice Falconet, best known for his colossal, 1782 bronze statue ofon rearing horseback in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Huntington acquired one pair of the vases in 1927, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired the other pair in 1956. The architectural towers sport cupolas, buttresses, dormers and booming cannons, and they’re decorated with floral garlands, war-trophy cartouches and jewel-toned colors.
When I saw the show at the Met in the spring, where its thin premise was stretched interminably in room after room, my eyes soon glazed over. Seen one gold curlicue trim from a candelabrum transferred to the interior design of the cinematic Beast’s Castle, seen ‘em all. At the Huntington, smaller is definitely better.One problem with the show is that none of the objects in it was a specific inspiration for the animator’s caricatures. Everything is generic, imprecise and loosey-goosey. Mrs.
One surprising omission: No lavishly decorated snuff boxes are in the show, even though fermented, pulverized tobacco from Europe’s plundered colonies was the addictive drug of choice for idle aristocrats. It seems a missed opportunity, given the generations of American consumers getting high to indulge the modern ritual of watching the dancing hippos and twirling mushrooms of “Fantasia.”
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