Moving inspiration!

Last week I used a lunch hour (and a bit) to visit an incredible exhibition GIANINI E LUZZATI - Cartoni Animati at the Mole Antonelliana which houses the National Cinema Museum in Turin. Read what I wrote about my favourite museum last year HERE.

An original detail of one of the Gazza Ladra (Magpie)

Giulio Gianini and Emanuele Luzzati are two artists at the forefront in the history of worldwide cinema animation. Their work received two Oscar nomiations and won a number of International film festival awards. A mix of talent which produced more than 30 films over 37 years of artistic collaboration. Giulio Gianini film director and animator, Emanuele Luzzati artist, painter, production designer and illustrator of children's books, were the perfect team. Together they created some of the most contemporary and innovative animations ever produced. Luzzati's colourful characters made of paper cuttings, his paintings, collages and mixed media backdrops, came to life with Gianini's ability to animate with elegance and simplicity. One of their greatest successes is the La gazza ladra (1964), the first of three films set to the music of Rossini. The common element in these films being the absence of dialogue and the perfect timing and harmony of the images to the music. Fifty years on their work still continues to remain unique in bringing together sound and vision to tell fascinating and emotional stories.

An illustration from the book La gazza ladra 1964

The exhibiton contains a wealth of original material and showcases for the first time, over two hundred characters, sketches, set-designs and story-boards. It also shows in detail the creative processes used by Gianini and Luzzati in their small studio in Rome to create these works of art. Whilst wandering around the exhibition I became more and more intrigued by the backdrops created by Luzzati for many of the animations. Colourful, textured and abstract... the perfect pattern maker! Here are just a couple of the patterns I picked up on.

 

Detail 1 from L'Italiana in Algeri 1968

Detail 2 from L'Italiana in Algeri 1968

I have been rather quiet on the blog front again. It is a struggle for me to fit things in at the moment and my blog seems to be way down on my list of important things to do. So just allow me a little more time to finish some projects and cross a few very important things off my never ending lists! I actually have a new Dream Design post lined up for the near future so please pop by again soon.