Film
Certainly penalised by the outbreak of World War II, the second Classic was not appreciated as much as it should have been. Considered a flop despite its revolutionary animated effects, Pinocchio was long overshadowed by Disney's other, much better-loved feature films. The inspiration in this case came from Carlo Collodi's novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio - Story of a Puppet (1883), but adapted to a late 19th century sensibility too far removed from Walt Disney's typically American one. Although the story more or less follows the Collodian scheme, the puppet is here stripped of all malice and represented as a child about to discover the world and is amazed by everything, since everything is new to him. One of the elements that shines brightest is certainly the wishing star, an emblem of Providence that is ready to help us but only up to a certain point, because then it is up to us to roll up our sleeves to do the rest. This theme underlies the film right from the opening song, When You Wish Upon a Star, which became the very symbol of Disney's future opening theme song.
Art
When the second Disney classic was released in cinemas, it was 1940 and Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa had by then conquered the world. A portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the young bride of Francesco Bartolomeo del Giocondo, painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1506, it is now, as we all know, kept in the Louvre Museum. After it was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911, the photographed image of the Mona Lisa travelled overseas and became so viral that it became a popular icon. Leonardo's lady was on a par with Marylin Monroe, so much so that contemporary artist Andy Warhol chose both as subjects for his most famous silkscreen prints. Walt Disney also wanted to represent her in his own way in the film, although not exactly at her best. In fact, we see her appear in Toyland, stolen and plundered, used by Lucignolo to light a match. For all we know, we don't know what exactly happened from the moment it was stolen to the moment it was found; it could really have ended up there, for all we know. It certainly lit the fire for millions of people, who still today acclaim it as one of the most appreciated works of art.
The one depicted in Pinocchio, however, is a Mona Lisa that has very little to laugh about, especially because she is the victim of the greatest crime one can commit against a painting: drawing on it. In fact, we see her in a state of complete disrepair and with a scribble on the canvas, and Leonardo was certainly not the author of that. It is certainly not the first time someone scribbled on it, think for instance of when Marcel Duchamp wanted to embellish it with a moustache and goatee in L.H.O.Q. (Elle a chaud au cul). This gesture is consistent with the ideas of the Dadaist movement, which uses an image that is institutionally academic and considered an icon of official art to perform a childish, derisory and desecrating graphic action on it. It therefore refuses to produce art in the traditional way by creating images. The rejection is directed towards real representation as well as abstract representation. The traditional activity of the artist in creating images is, in fact, questioned.
Also in Pinocchio, as was previously the case in Snow White, the illustrations of the books from which the stories depicted by Disney were taken formed a fundamental model for the animators. If in the previous film we saw Arthur Rakham's trees, Attilio Mussino's illustrations have the same kind of influence in the feature film. The Italian Mussino had previously illustrated Collodi's text, published in the 1911 edition by R. Bemporad e figlio. His Little Man of Butter, for example, has the exact same appearance as the Cocchiere who takes Pinocchio and Lucignolo to Toyland. A character that in the live action of 2022 we find decidedly different, at times discordant, being played by a much more handsome Luke Evans.
Pinocchio by artists
Naive, gullible, dreamer, immature, liar as evidenced by the nose that stretches with every lie. Thus Pinocchio has entered the collective imagination worldwide, leaving his mark on culture and, in particular, on art. There are several artists who have decided and still decide to pay homage to him; in these few lines we will give just a few examples. The first is Alberto Giacometti, an Italian sculptor who lived through the horrors of a flood of hatred, conflict and destruction. How could he see the world? It must have seemed to him full of lies, hypocrisy and anxiety. For him, Mr Geppetto who showed unlimited love and forgiveness to the lying Pinocchio could only exist in a children's story. Instead, reality was another kind of war where people lie to each other, inevitably triggering more lies that somehow end up caging us in. This is what we see in his bronze work entitled The Nose (1947-49).
Another example is Jim Dine, who has executed drawings, sculptures and paintings on Pinocchio, bringing the wooden boy to life through his creations, just like Pinocchio's imaginary creator, Geppetto. Standing atop a bronze cart with four wheels, Pinocchio proclaims his boyhood with outstretched arms in the sculpture Big White Gloves, Big Four Wheels. Instead of focusing on the evils of lying, as Pinocchio's frequent lies and the moral of the story seem to suggest, Dine emphasises the wonder of an inanimate object coming to life. Although his sculptures and paintings may look like simple, light-hearted works of Pop art, Dine's pieces contain several layers of meaning that instil a sense of wonder in the viewer.
External Links
Watch Pinocchio on Disney +
Artworks:
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