Eyvind Earle and the Sleeping Beauty
As I popped the platinum edition of Sleeping Beauty into my DVD player, I remembered how many times I used to watch this animated feature when I was five years old. I am not sure why I was so obsessed with that animated film but as I started watching it again the memories started flowing back, reminding me of the many reasons.
Obviously as a kid I was fascinated by the animated characters, monsters and the basic story line but there was more to it. The art and design of that film always swept me away and occupied a very special corner in my head along with those russian stamps that I used to collect.
So as I watched this classic film once again I began to notice how visually different it is from other animated feature films made by Disney. The amount of details, the crisp edges, the explosion of colors, the layout design and most of all its unique medieval look and feel. After some research I learned the story behind this special animated film.
It was the Background Artist Eyvind Earle who effected pretty much the entire look of this movie. His astonishing paintings for the background settings in the movie didn’t match the soft and round look of Disney’s characters. The designers and artists publicly protested Earle’s interpretation of the movie’s settings and style.
Earle somehow won the support of Disney, which in turn forced the artist to go back to the drawing board and start over to create a new style for the characters to make them fit within Earl’s world. Eyvind Earle was an incredible artist who had a unique vision and style. He passed away in the year 2000. I think we all agree that we are lucky that Earle had his way with the design of Sleeping Beauty.
Sleeping Beauty Images : Lyris Lite | Eyvind Earle artwork: http://www.eyvindearle.com
Great post!