Norman Mclaren: Between the Frames

Dobson, Nichola. "Influential Arts." Norman McLaren: Between the Frames. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 109–132. Animation: Key Films/ Filmmakers. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 30 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501328800.ch-004>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 30 September 2021, 11:41 UTC. Copyright © Nichola Dobson 2018. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 109 Chapter 4 I NFLUENTIAL ARTS McLaren found inspiration and infl uence in many aspects of his life, with early talent undoubtedly informed, by his family and their interior decorating busi- ness. A fl air for this could be seen in early examples of drawing and design completed while he attended Stirling High School and then Glasgow School of Art. It has been outlined elsewhere 1 that he was infl uenced by early interests in music and dance and these rather substantive aspects of interest are examined in more depth later in this chapter. Th is section considers some of the earlier, formative experiences that remained with him throughout his career, from his Art School education, through to some of the pioneering animators, and which he would later cite as being so infl uential to him. Th e chapter begins with a discussion of his painting habit; something which would remain with him throughout his life and would even be used as a meta- phor when describing his process of direct animation: ‘And so my militant phi- losophy is this: to make with a brush on canvas is a simple and direct delight – to make a movie should be the same’. 2 Th e animators most oft en cited by McLaren will be considered, followed by a section each on dance and music, arguably two of McLaren’s biggest perfor- mance art interests outside of moving image. According to his family, he was never terribly interested in popular culture (particularly later in life) but had keen interests in areas of culture, which he found most enjoyable; much of this can be seen in examples of his work, throughout his fi lmmaking career. Painting McLaren’s interest in the arts developed through his college days, where he found creative inspiration in fi lmmaking; however, his initial teachings of drawing and painting were maintained throughout. Th ough it has been suggested that McLaren favoured animation and the emerging fi lmmaking movement over painting, in part due to an inherent lack of movement in the still image, 3 McLaren continued drawing and painting as 9781501328817_pi-168.indd 109 16-11-2017 20:04:29 110 110 Norman McLaren Figure 4.1 School on the Rock , illustration from Stirling High School, c. 1928, not catalogued. both a pastime, and in early days of his time in New York, as a way to earn income. Th ree months aft er his arrival in New York, McLaren was commissioned by friends to paint murals, I went busy on three Mural pictures that I had got commissions (diminutive) to do. Two for one person, one for another. I worked for about six weeks on this latter . they are all in pastel and Conte Crayon. It is an elaborate 9781501328817_pi-168.indd 110 16-11-2017 20:04:29 111 Infl uential Arts 111 Figure 4.2 Stirling High School painting, c.1928, not catalogued. Figure 4.3 Norman McLaren painting, date unknown, not catalogued. 9781501328817_pi-168.indd 111 16-11-2017 20:04:29 112 112 Norman McLaren and symbolic scene done in somewhat a meticulous style a sort of still life – cum – landscape, or pictures of a preliminary type I had to do this serious abstract fi lm I am going to do some day. (23 August 1940)4 Th is early painting work set a trend for freelance work, which he would fall back on when fi lm work was scarce, but the above quote also demonstrates how keen he was to keep working in animation. Prior to working on new fi lms to submit to the Guggenheim, he had a job from September 1940 painting and decorating window displays in an unnamed department store. As discussed in the previous chapter, he enjoyed the nature of the job and was essentially more creative as a freelancer, but the commute did not suit him. In the early 1940s he returned to the pastels of his youth lamenting the cost of oil paints and the lack of fi lm. But maintaining this habit was important to earning an income as well as developing styles which would be useful later in his animation career as seen in such works as La- Haut sur ces Montagnes (1945), C’est L’aviron (1944) and La Poulette Grise (1947); these fi lms were all created as part of the Chants Populaires series of animated songs released by the NFB. Th e painterly style reveals the surrealist style seen in many of his draw- ings and paintings and discussed later in the chapter. Once McLaren moved to the Film Board in Ottawa and became immersed in fi lmmaking once more, he still continued with this practice in his spare time, but this time it had more of a social function. He attended drawing and painting classes at the board between 1943 and 1944, though noted that he was something of an accomplished member of the group, ‘All the others apart from myself are amateurs’ (15 November 1943) and his painterly skills caught the eye of Grierson, who commissioned him to paint for him a landscape of their Stirling home: I have got most of it done, but there is still a lot of work on the details, however; and thats what I was busy on today. I worked on the Wallace Monument (from memory, which was very diffi cult – if you can get any picture postcard of it, please send it in your next letter). (11 January 1943) Mrs Grierson also attended the classes and they oft en discussed the practice, with McLaren giving advice on improving her technique. In 1944 he began developing ideas for his new invention of ‘stereo paintings’, which excited him greatly and would form the basis of his later stereoscopic fi lms (this will be discussed further in the book). Once again though, he was essentially using hobby work to develop his animation. Th is connection between his hobby and work was reinforced when in 1946 ‘one of the boys in animation’, the up- and-coming animator George Dunning, made him a wooden easel for his painting work. At various times in his career his work space adapted to take on diff erent functions and his living space allowed for more work space. But this continuity of painting and drawing remained important throughout his career. 9781501328817_pi-168.indd 112 16-11-2017 20:04:30 113 Infl uential Arts 113 His vacation landscapes oft en inspired his painting style with doodles and letters decorated in a manner which would refl ect his latest travel destination. In one of his typically decorative notes to friend Biddy Russell in May 1952, he drew a delicate pen and ink sketch featuring Chinese temples on a moun- tainous landscape and inscribed with the title ‘Th e sun shining on Biddy’s pavilion with Einstein’s light’,. 5 He had only recently returned from his trip to China with UNESCO which ended with a trip down the Yangtze River. His painting- themed letters to Biddy oft en featured art postcards of old masters or unknown works. He occasionally included an infl uential image from one of his favourite painters, JWM Turner, who he noted had infl uenced his painting and which can be seen in many of his works, particularly in the use of colour. Th is is reinforced in the Creative Process documentary, ‘McLaren readily admitted to the painterly infl uence of the 19th century English artist, J. W. Turner, on his attempt to capture the seasons in this impressionistic manner.’ 6 During the mid- 1950s McLaren suff ered from overwork on his fi lms and wanted to spend more time on his paintings. Th is was seen as an outlet from the pressure of the fi lm board which was mounting on him following his Oscar suc- cess of Neighbours (1952). Once again he returned to his earliest creative outlet, free from demands, to rest. As his fi lm career was fi rmly established during the 1960s, McLaren continued with his hobby and began to exhibit his work. In 1962, he wrote about an invitation to show and, potentially sell, his paintings: I was asked if I would contribute one of my paintings to this (see enclosed clipping) exhibition, and of course was very glad to . It’s an oil painting 16” by 2 feet, called ‘the last days of Autumn’. Two fi gures sitting on the ground in front of an late autumn landscape and skyscape . and I’m pricing the painting at $150.00 I wonder if anyone will buy it! (28 April 1962) 7 In October 1963, he tells his parents that there will be a show of some of his paintings in Paris in the next year; a visiting collector chose some of his work, demonstrating the international appeal of his work. Th is was followed up in 1965 with an exhibition of his work in Montreal which was reviewed in the Montreal Star newspaper and which described some of his paintings as having a potential ‘sinister’ feeling and referred to his surrealism.

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