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Monday, May 7, 2012

Blog posts 11 Animation as art?


Blog post 11: I can has be qualified as art?
Cartoonists always seem to get a bad rap as Vaudvillans (The words of Rube Goldberg, not mine). That is, people who preceed the main act, and art meant simply for entertainment purposes. Of course we live in a different time now than the 60's, where entertainment has become a form of art, but animation still falls into the category of sub-art.
Or do we? In truth I don't know. Everyone in my circles seems to agree that animation is art, but when does the change happen? When does Cartooning go from "vaudvillian" to "artist". As a community we typically relegate realistic looking things to art. The more real it looks, the more art it is. I don't know if this is really where we, as cartoonists, want to be.
Yes, we are being considered art now. Fine. Good. Yay even.
But do we even want to? If we have to be like "professional artists" to be artists aren't we giving up the best part of cartoons? The fact they are a medium both separate and included in art?
I don't mean to disrespect those that have been established as artists within the community, and those that truly are worthy of both art in the since of classic art and in cartoon art. But I think you are all our strongest advocates. They all know how art is both similar and different than animation, and only they can perhaps prove that we can be art, and that even those that don't fall under the classic ideal of art can be a new form of art.

2 comments:

  1. I would definitely say that animation is a form of art. From how animated characters and worlds are drawn and how the animators are able to weave together sometimes breath-taking stories and scenery, I think speaks as a testament to this belief that animation is an art. Comic book art is one of my favorite styles of art to look at because the artists are able to say so much about the story through their use of color, i.e. dark colors for a darker story and light colors for a happier story

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  2. Anime is, of course, an abbreviation of the word "animation." All animation must first be hand-drawn by the artist, and these artists have mostly also done comic renditions for comic books and started out with that as their goal.

    Freelance Animation Designers

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