I thoroughly enjoyed your stimulating remarks on drawing and agree with most of them. What slightly depresses me though is the resemblance of your arguments to the comments sometimes made by pompous theatrical actors towards their counterparts working in film (or sometimes by classical musicians towards pop musicians) ie. that somehow the former are the true 'keepers of the flame' and should shun involvment with their less enlightened cousins. Apart from being gratuitously patronising, this form of art is risking extinction. There has always been cross-pollination between the arts and commerce. So what? Do you really think that artists like Velázquez (court painter to the Spanish aristocracy) and Ingres (portraitist to the French bourgeoisie) or the ludicrously overrated Picasso were unswayed by the temptations of fame and fortune? Or that it diminishes their achievements? The fact is, the difference between art and 'crap' as you call it, is more ambiguous than you seem to realise. It might sound clever to claim that the work of people like Chuck Jones and Kim Deitch is 'crap' because it was done for money, but it speaks more of an abject fear of irrelevance than any creative insight. Perhaps your real argument is with the distorting influence of capital on human life. If so, why not say so? Or would it be too reminiscent the 1970s and its psuedo-revolutionary 'critique' of painting as reactionary anachronism, perhaps? I was attracted to animation precisely because it is the trashy, bastard offspring of comics and film and has (so far) had very little to do with art galleries, museums or scholarly aesthetic doctrines. If that means I'm not allowed to call it art, well excuse me all over the place. I'm sorry to hear that you suffer from an allergy to paint fumes. I can well imagine the frustration, and would suggest (from long experience) that sitting in front of a computer terminal isn't a particularly healthy alternative. Do you want to know what I'm allergic to? The boring pieties of opinionated theoreticians who have inflicted infinitely more damage to the cause of art than Walt Disney could have imagined in his wildest dreams.

Thoughtful and thought provoking. I enjoyed it very much. When applying the "high art vs. low art" debate to the animation field, I like to categorize (being French, I can't help categorizing...) animated films as follows: some animated films are "jubilatoires" (the old WB stuff, Avery, Freleng, Jones, McKimson, Clampett...), some are "incantatoires" (festival shorts with a purpose), some are "masturbatoires" (festival shorts withourt a purpose). The interesting part is that some films can be all of the above and still be great. So even when admitting that the "exception culturelle" is a valid effort, one can also find some solace in a more dadaist approach to art as a consumer goods (sorry Cézanne, but too many a crime has been committed in the name of religion), a ready-made item that one consumes and preferably enjoys, like a good meal, looking forward to the next god meal.

To Zara Goza: Van Gogh was looked down at by painters of his time, most thought he was a jerk, some more charitable ones thought he was a talented Sunday painter. To embark on a genuinely creative journey does not guarantee acceptance by others, far from it. In fact, I suspect that most of those who really dare go for their own vision do so because they cannot find it in other people's work. So at bottom, to be creative also means "I am different, or at least I ought to be!" Much of the work we see around us nowadays (not just in animation!) is going the other way, it stems from a sickly need to demonstrate that "I too can be like others, and belong!" Add to that that animation can be extremely complex, so very demanding technically, and you have therefore a fertile ground for the "plumbers" to claim the picture as totally their own, and like in so many other areas, to have the bean counters "lead" the way, controlling everything in the name of the possible. And yet, Art is and has always been about the impossible! ("Be realistic, go for the impossible!" is a graffiti I saw on the walls of France and Belgium in 1968, and that graffiti has been front and center in my life ever since). To say that the lowest common denominator is "good enough" (as you quoted: "We're only people!") is bad enough for those too many who are willing to settle for that, but it is darn right unacceptable when it becomes a norm "they" would want to impose on everybody, and then add insult to injury by calling it "Art." Rembrandt and South Park are at odds with each other, and I fear that Rembrandt is not gaining any ground. I was once told that we can today have both, and I totally disagreed with that. We can try to have both, and get "something," but both it isn't. In fact, I strongly suspect that the minute one starts seriously reflecting on this, and better yet, work on it, South Park vanishes fairly quickly, there isn't enough food there to sustain one's investigation. As for the opposition between Art and entertainment, or between high art and low art, I recently received a letter from a friend who put this in perspective: "The issue isn't between Art and entertainment, it is clearly between Art and crap!" I think he's got a point there!

Mr. Detheux, I am a fledgling animator who is sharply determined to live up to a process of vision very similar to yours. I am finishing the last year of my film/animation and to be honest. . .my animator community is quite depressing. For the past two years, I have gone into working privately (with no more than two friends--not animators--helping me at a time). I don't regret it, but I feel a bit jealous of the other flourishing art communities in my city. Painting circles, performance cliques and, hell, even grafitti artists encourage each other to challenge that medium's "fundamentals." In the end, this will make me a stronger artisan (if not the most expressive), but it saddens me to see that I will not help strengthen some type of community or movement right here around me--especially when I go to a school THRIVING with skillful animators. I have no useful contributions to your viewpoints, but I do see this inner-pilgrimage of vision at some point confronting the Pimp's anti-highbrow sentiments. Here's a supershort tidbit for you, Mr. Detheux: A year ago, I found myself at a techniques workshop with many other student animators at my school, Columbia of Chicago. Many of them were indeed discussing techniques, but they were all geared towards dealing with techniques that would compliment Pixar's or Disney's toolset. Most techniques were (as you said) aimed at doing what the studios were doing, only faster and inexpensively. Personally, I think streamlining these big-name studio methods is wonderful! Imagine the freedom and instant feedback while attempting to re-interpret the vision of reality you see in your head! I spoke this out loud, encouraging others to break FREE of the mundane callings of the Disney machine--to use their toolsets (or completely new toolsets) for the purpose of illustrating new inner voices. I said that animation is lacking that which other visual arts have: realities that encourage the depth of unique/personal realities, and not the IMITATION of OTHER realities. I said that we need to strive to present our own points of views, even if it takes a bit longer than other artists. We can no longer afford to be the bastard little sister of film, when we have the means to be oil painting's distinguished brother! At this point, banging atop the table, I had excited six other animators to ask questions like "What about money? How will I buy my next Nintendo as I work?" and "How are we supposed to get kids into art?" Yes, things were looking gloomy, and then the toilet seat fell. Someone who, in my opinion, echoes the Pimp's post said: "Come on! Give us a fucking break!!! We're only people! Our audience...they're ONLY people! Who the hell do you think you are? Get off your pedestal--any of us here would KILL to be involved in the next South Park!" I laughed in disbelief and looked around the room to see that he was right: in this community of animation, the personal notion of high-art is irrelevent. After all, the act of inbetweening itself is enough "art" for the whole project. To say the least, I was heartbroken, but I hid it well. Every now and then, other collegues are interested in my work, but I've never again discussed my theories or screened my work with an animator; only other types of artists. (Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I studied cinematography and THEN switched over to animation?) I would like some more opinions on this notion of "South Park and Rembrandt" as it could help at least one future creative leader. -Z

To Joel Snider: Indeed, you have clearly seen how much one can be distracted from doing what one entered art school for by being thrown at so many layers of (so called) knowledge. Form, composition and line quality are all taken care of if one remains focused on one's vision (or on the developing/uncovering of one's vision). Focus on form, composition, and line quality, and most often, poof, there goes the connection with the vision. At the core of my presentation is a belief in what Philip Guston called "inherent composition," which seems to be true also in animation as "inherent animation." (I will likely talk more about that in the next installment.) I think it was John Holt who once said that if kids had to be taught by schools how to speak and walk, we would be surrendered by millions of deaf people moving about in wheelchairs. I very honestly do not believe for a moment that you have lost a piece of yourself, your reading into my article is far too lucid to warrant that kind of worry. These are hard, even insane times, so determined we seem to be to invent a simplistic picture of the world, of life itself. Art has always been about the complexities, about the paradoxical nature of human thought, and our times are not too keen on complexity, on paradox. As for animation, 3D or other, it can play a role in helping us renew a conscious connection with our own unknown and become a precious tool for discovery, or it can unfortunately be one of the forces that will give our unknown more control over us because our unknown gets stronger the less we look at it. Socrates is now more needed than ever, schools ought to renew their primary vocation which is not one that makes people "job ready," but one that supports what is possibly the most important task that we can accomplish and contribute to the world: "know thyself."

To Pigalow Bradley: I am far from being certain I understand what you are saying, but I also feel fairly certain you don't understand what I am saying either (my fault for sure). Art is very akin to Pirsig's "Quality" in the sense that it cannot really be defined (though saying this is a bit of a contradiction). I deeply believe that animation has a huge potential, close to being a paradigm shift in art, but I also see that as long as it is equated with a form of entertainment that caters to the lowest common denominators, it will not even begin to fulfill that potential. As for redundancy, though I am not totally sure I get what you are driving at in your comments when you talk about this subject, I also believe we are inevitably "condemned" (is it a curse, or a blessing?) to constantly do the same thing over and over again (Sisyphus, no doubt). I cherish what T.S. Eliot says about this in his "Four Quartets:" "Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate--but there is no competition-- There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." (East Coker) As a painter, I bought my canvas, brushes, paints, and so on, and only paid lip service to the making of my own material, just as a digital artist, I use with great joy the hardware (Mac (and software packages Studio Artist, Painter, etc.)) that others have designed. I'd rather reinvent the wheel at the level of the genesis of images than at the level of the tools I use to create those images. Finally, if your days have only 18 hours, what are you wasting your life on during those other 6 hours? ;-)

Hello, young animator here with comments about Mr. Detheux’s article. First and foremost, let me say that I have 2 major problems with his article, those problems being first his definition of art and second his perception of animation. First his definition of art, which is from what I gather that art is nothing but a reflection of the out side world of the interrogative human essence. Where any act of creative invention is simply an exercise in redundancy. Redundant exercises in creative redundancy, at least for me, is the only reason to put up with this very trying art form. Maybe that is the core of Mr. Detheux’s problem with animation . Second he implies that animation douse not temper itself by life as does painting. Even Frank and Ollie admit in an interview I saw recently that even the last two old men of Disney don’t know exactly what their animation is going to be like until it is tested. For me that is animation. I mean every animator who has tried to tackle the spider walk cycle, the subtle daily story behind an old man's limp effected walk cycle, waves breaking on a shore or that hell inspired bouncing ball, any body who has gone through a couple of month's and a couple of aneurisms to recreate life in animation should be able to know the inspiration of life is what at time's carries an animator through his 18 hour day. Sure it's not all creative, there is redundancy that enters the picture. But I believe that in animation you do separate the work and inspiration but if the inspiration itself is missing the project is dead . To close I say yes animation is an art form, simply one that is broken up into a six month work cycles, kind of like if a painter had to first knit his canvas, brew his own paint, make his own brushes and put together his own canvas before he ever started painting.

To Chris Lanier: it seems to me that we have greatly devalued the worth of personal experience, and are madly running after something "special," so convinced that we are that there's nothing universal in the particular. I strongly disagree with that (and it seems you do too) and have written a bit about it in another AWN article, an excerpt I'll post here: > When on the Réunion island, I was shocked to see that the work done there could have been done in L.A., NYC or Montréal, there was nothing "local" about it, and the kind of "generic" look most everything is sporting now could easily reinforce the sense that "life is a bitch and then you die." Surely, there's is more (or less?) to it than that? To Chris Robinson: I will be very politically incorrect and publicly claim that there is indeed a difference between art and entertainment, one is capable of helping us awake, the other one has for mission to keep us asleep. There is such a thing as "Quality," and very few people have written better about that than Robert Pirsig in his "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." When you say: "Whether it's Disney, Pixar, Parn or Svankmajer it's all art" it amounts also to saying that nothing is, and I cannot accept that. You've probably heard me claim during a panel discussion at an Ottawa Animation festival that we now need to choose between South Park and Rembrandt, and the only thing I would rephrase in that is that we don't need to choose, we are choosing, we have chosen, no matter what! Nietzsche was almost right when he said that "there is no objective reality." What he missed when saying that is the fact that if he was right, then he also was wrong! Where was he talking from if he was right? (Wasn't he then stating an objective truth?). There is a form of objective truth, but it is to be found in "the objective science of subjectivity" as phenomenology was once defined by José Huertas-Jourda, founder of the Centre for Advanced research in Phenomenology" I thank you both for commenting on the first article, I am now working on the next installments (5 more to go) and hope that it will be worth your while to "stay tuned."

I thought this article was very true and almost enlightening. I've always disliked disney stuff in a way, but couldn't put a finger on it. Now I can. After finishing a compacted sort of Art History class, it has sort of opened my eyes again. I feel like I don't know anything anymore. This article was easy to relate to this class, and to the dreams of all great artists.

Nice piece Jean...but i do quarrel with this desire to suggest that we can say THIS IS ART vs THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT (granted u dont really go into much here). Whether its Disney, Pixar, Parn or Svankmajer its all art. It is crafted and produced by human beings. They may have different goals---sensory vs logic---but they're all art. Parn or Kovalyov might be called 'art' but I get an amount of sensory pleasure as well (both are quite funny)--just as I do from South Park or Daffy Duck-- and really regardless of the intent of the author---I can read lots of stuff that reflects the 'reality' of the world within which these works are being made--- Pinky and the Brain or Care Bears tells me as much about the world I live in as the latest Quay Brothers film....maybe more. Plato said that a state will reflect the nature of its citizens and without doubt we can say the same of art....so it comes back to 'you are what you eat" or 'you reap what you sow' 'ya get what ya earn' But...I do agree with this weird notion of the 'real'. Nietzsche said there is no objective reality, only our subjective perceptions but MANY of us seem to have lost SIGHT of this (subjective) truth and presume that there is some sort of common objective reality....and the result are these damn walls some find themselves within.