ABSTRACT
Reductionism and minimalism are leitmotifs in 20th-century visual arts, expressions of a revolution that had started with such Modern movements as cubism, futurism, expressionism and constructivism, among others. Graphic design’s relationship with Modern art, from which it took inspiration, began in the 1920s, and these new trends spilled over into UPA animation: UPA animators, layout men and story men learned from the Modern masters and incorporated Modern art and Modern graphic design into their films, thus developing a simplified audiovisual language in animated cartoons. This chapter focuses on the Modernist stylistic features of painting, graphic design and poster advertising, tracing their influence on UPA films. It finally considers animation as a graphic cinematic medium that, in the case of UPA animated cartoons, was born from the cross-fertilization between all these art forms.
