Emile Cohl

The way in which early animations include the artist at work suggests that these works could have been their own special, emerging form of self-portrait. In a way, they glamorized and elevated the role of the animator, by melding the artists into creators, comedians, entertainers and magicians all in one. With this view of animator as genius, Cohl’s relative obscurity to his peers becomes all the more regrettable. Though artist as celebrity was not a new concept in the early 1900s, Blackton, et. al, were in a position to create their celebrity. Their drawings included their worlds brought to life, somewhat in the way that Velazquez depicted life in the court in Las Meninas as well as his role in it. Except, animators had the advantage of movement and simulation that painters and sculptors could forever try to emulate.

Here, animators have an interesting advantage over other artists. While giving life to an idea isn’t solely the prerogative of this type of artist, they were able to explicitly demonstrate their role, or their breathing as it were, in creation. As the text says, “By depicting themselves at work on the screen, engaged in the business of making magic moving drawings, the artists showed themselves imparting the anima—the breath of life.” As such, these early animators had a remarkable freedom in creating their own profiles. By choosing to depict themselves at their work animating stories, they could at the very least manipulate viewers’ idea of how their art was created, and the results were wondrous. It was as if they could simultaneously work and congratulate themselves for the work at the same time. When the hand or the figure of the artist is included in the work, one cannot help but acknowledge the artists’ responsibility for the transformation of something static into something with a voice or a history. Thus, it is always obvious that the animation is akin to a “theatrical performance.”