Back in the day, Walt Disney’s animators were meticulous about their research. To get the deer and other animals in Bambi right, they trooped off to the zoo for observation and sketching, then wrangled fawns, does, rabbits, and who knows what else into the studio for more of the same. Disney’s fairy-tale features didn’t aspire to quite that level of naturalism—no one at the studio was dissecting pixie anatomy—but neither did they lack for real-world grounding.
A new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts,” shows just how indebted Disney and his corporate heirs were to 18th-century Europe for the style of two classics, Cinderella (1950) and Sleeping Beauty (1959), along with the latter-day Beauty and the Beast (1991). The show features 60 pieces mostly drawn from the Met’s collections—clocks, vases, teapots, assorted porcelain tchotchkes—alongside concept art, character studies, and background paintings from several Disney archives and collections.
