Animation as an art form
While I am currently reading a book consisting of letters written in Germany (or what was to become Germany in 1871) from 1750 to 1950 (“Deutsche Briefe 1750 - 1950″; S. Fischer), I become painfully aware of the lack of depth im most of today’s animation/computer graphics. It seem to me that many artists neglect (willfully or not) the achievements in the visual arts that have been made during the last say, two hundred years. Instead, they are starting anew, but on a comparably low (and superficial) level.
As I wrote in a previous post, it seems to me that one of the reasons for this imho very unfortunate development is, that especially younger artists are not that familiar with art (and here particularly painting) from previous centuries. Another problem is imho the lack of a tradition comparable to the one in painting. (What inevitably leads to the question inhowfar the achievements in painting can serve as a “model” for computer graphics.) Then there is (at present) the lack of wider recognition of computer graphics as an art form comparable to painting, sculpting, etc..
When taking a look especially at today’s animation, I often encounter works that are (compared to established art forms) superficial, at times even adolescent (especially in the selection of the themes). Very rarely do I have the feeling that here is a mature artist expressing him- or herself.
One example of animation that stands out to me (both technically and artistically) is the Björk video of “All Is Full Of Love”, and even if the context of this video is commercial, to me, it nonetheless has a poetry and depth one rarely encounters in computer graphics/post-production. Another example would be the video of “Frozen” by Madonna, made by the same director (Chris Cunningham).
Ok, this is not “serious art” in the sense the work of Leonardo da Vinci is, to take but one example, nor does it pretend to be, but imho this could be a start. The technique is there — but where is the van Gogh of computer graphics, or its Charlie Parker?
Related: “The art connection”
