From Beatrix Potter to Disney: why do we find talking animals (and teapots) so irresistible?

Two exhibitions – ‘Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature’ and ‘Inspiring Walt Disney: the Animation of French Decorative Arts’ – invite us to explore the grit behind the magic of human creativity.

Vase 'à tête d'éléphant', Manufacture de Sèvres, Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis, the Elder (designer), Charles-Nicolas Dodin (painter), 1757 (C247 detail) © The Wallace Collection

Beatrix Potter had a splendid idea. As far back as the cave paintings, human image making revolved around three main themes – depiction of beasts, humans, and human-like deities. Potter brought the three together. Her illustrated tales about Peter Rabbit and his friends are known worldwide, beloved as printed books and more recently as animated movies. Today, charming animals are a norm in visual forms as diverse as animation, advertising, and social media reels. During Beatrix Potter’s time, it was a novel idea.

Her idea continues to stand notably aside from what is produced even now. The anthropomorphic animals of modern animation tend to be assigned human characteristics while ignoring their true biological nature. In drawing attention to the animal world, these images can create misconstrued notions of it. Potter’s animals were significantly different. They may have dressed and talked human, but their tales were governed by the true laws of nature. She based her stories and images not solely on her imagination, but rather on her keen and prolonged observation of animal life. Mr Tod the fox is trying to catch her rabbits, not befriend or even marry them – unlike the couples in movies such as Madagascar and Zootropolis.

The Mice at Work Threading the Needle, The Tailor of Gloucester artwork, 1902. Watercolour, ink and gouache on paper © Tate

The V&A exhibition traces how Potter’s abilities in highly realistic drawing techniques, combined with her interest in nature and science, plus her wild imagination, led to the creation of one of the most successful series of children’s stories ever. If there is a book that could compete with animated films in terms of audience, it would be The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Currently celebrating 120 years since publication, it counts 46 million copies sold worldwide, and a further 2 million sold each year.

Two of the largest Beatrix Potter collections – that of the V&A and the National Trust – have been brought together in ‘Drawn to Nature’. As a result, it becomes genuinely an exhibition about her life, rather than an exhibition solely dedicated to her books and illustrations.

Man's court waistcoat, 1780s, English or French; white silk, embroidered, in Beatrix Potter, Tailor of Gloucester © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

There is always a sense of awe in seeing the original artwork for a familiar book illustration. The show includes many other original documents too – such as letters and nature drawings. It presents an image of a woman who was well ahead of her time not only in terms of children’s literature, but women’s rights and, more significantly for her, nature conservation. While Beatrix Potter is a name widely associated with Peter Rabbit, much of her life was spent not writing about, but caring for, animals. She had 92 pets, became an award-winning sheep farmer, and bought and protected land in the Lake District – which she then bequeathed to the National Trust.

Having grown up in South Kensington, Potter had easy access to the V&A collections – examples of the garments that inspired her illustrations are on display here too. Similarly, the Wallace Collection brings up its own links to the Disney Studios in its exhibition linking French decorative arts with animation.

Beatrix Potter Drawn to Nature, installation image (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London (16)

Walt Disney was born in 1901 – a year before Peter Rabbit appeared in print. He lived in a world where the new technologies of animation allowed children’s stories to be brought even further to life than in Potter’s delightful drawings. The link between science and art is a characteristic of both these creatives: Potter brought nature and illustration together, Disney did the same for technology and storytelling. Potter gave us talking animals, Disney’s studios made household objects come to life.

While the V&A’s show traces the life of an extraordinary individual, the exhibition at the Wallace Collection relishes in the juxtaposition of the art of two diverse periods and genres – French 18th-century decorative art and American 20th-century animation. It is almost like a game of spot the difference – or rather, spot the similarity.

Inspiring Walt Disney exhibition at the Wallace Collection 2022 © The Wallace Collection

We learn of Walt Disney’s fascination for French art, furniture, and architecture and how this was reflected in some early animated films. Otherwise, the show is divided into two sections – dedicated respectively to Cinderella, 1950 and Beauty and the Beast, 1991. We learn about the behind-the-scenes processes involved in creating an animated film. Twenty-four individual drawings are needed per second of film. This would explain why the most Rococo influences on dress and décor remained only in the initial drawings for Cinderella. The final version has much more drawing-friendly fashions of nineteenth century France. The exhibition also provides a social history of the period when Cinderella was created – showing examples of work by the first women to work in Disney’s Story Department.

The Wallace Collection has included one of its undisputed gems in this show: The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Recently out of conservation, the original painting is placed next to not one but three Disney versions of it. It inspired early drawings for both Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Tangled (2010), but some eagle-eyed fans (or their parents) out there may remember it finally appearing as a cameo of itself in Frozen(2013). This playful if somewhat naughty painting is famous for a reason: it mixes excellent storytelling with exquisite use of composition skills, creating a sense of movement and an overall feeling of life. In some ways, it is a precursor of animation.

Lisa Keene and Kyle Strawitz, Rapunzel on a swing, CGI test for Tangled (2010), 2008 Film frame, Walt Disney Animation Research Library © Disney

While The Swing has escaped the Beaty and the Beast treatment, the Wallace Collection’s other items might have provided inspiration for the beloved characters Cogsworth, Lumiere and Mrs Potts. It may seem like an outlandish idea that went right, but this exhibition indicates that the source material was already halfway there. From cute legs on a rounded Sèvres porcelain milk jug and sturdy 18th century clock, to the swirls and twists of Meissonnier candlesticks. The latter were famous for not looking the same from any angle – there is zero symmetry, and every turn of the object provides a new scroll or a new wave. Playfulness and movement was built in to these objects. Bringing them to life through animation seems like a logical progression, which Disney studios did to superb effect. The original French tale of Beauty and the Beast was published in the mid-18th century, making the use of these sources even more relevant.

The Disney show has arrived at Wallace Collection from New York’s MET; however, it feels almost made for the space, with excellent examples of decorative art from the collection, but also considering that Beauty and the Beast was made in a studio only 15 minutes away from the museum. The V&A similarly seems the natural place to host the Potter exhibition as the author is known to have used the museum’s collections.

Bracket clock, attributed to Jacques Gouchon (movement maker), c. 1739 (F409) © The Wallace Collection. 1739 (F409) © The Wallace Collection

Both shows combine entertaining elements for children with enlightening ones for adults. They prove that creativity can stem from passions as diverse as nature, science, and historic household objects. And it is a close study of these subjects by Potter and Disney that made the final product – whether a book or a film – that much more unique and distinctive.

Beatrix Potter insisted on a small format for her books, which made them more affordable and therefore accessible to a wider public. Her stories not only bring joy and amusement, but have inspired interest in the animal world for generations of children. Disney films reach an even wider audience and in a subtle, implicit way introduce viewers to the art and style of the period that each story is set.

Beauty and the Beast, 1991, Brian McEntee, Concept art, marker and photocopy on paper © Disney

Homo sapiens is an inherently visual species. Images are as important to us as ever – the rise of Instagram and TikTok are just one element of our perpetual need for visual consumption. However, right now, we are entering a completely new age. Up to this point humans were the only image-creators; today forms of AI offer their own new, previously inexistent images.

I would argue that the AI still relies on image databases – albeit enormous ones – that were at some point created by humans. But so do we. In the Potter and Disney exhibitions we see examples of human creativity that took as their source materials nature and science in one example and decorative arts in another. Would AI have been able to create our beloved Peter Rabbit or Lumiere out of that? Would we love them just as much?

Beauty and the Beast, 1991, Disney Studio Artist, Concept Art, photocopy, marker and ink on paper © Disney

Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature, V&A, 12 February 2022 – 8 January 2023

Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, Wallace Collection, 6 April – 16 October 2022