ANIMATION: A WORLD HISTORY. Volume I: Foundations— The Golden Age

Cartoons gather millions of viewers in cinemas, cartoon characters sometimes have no less adoring fans than live stars, animators create mind-blowing and incredibly realistic spectacles and practically do not recognize any limits - neither in terms of technological possibilities, nor in the field of application of their creations .

But it is not only about popular entertainment and not only about a huge industry - animation has become a testimony and the result of the path of development of art, technology and social relations, which has been passed by mankind since ancient times. She reflected how ideas about beauty, measure, expediency changed, as well as the constant - since ancient times - attempts to convey not only a static image and pose, but also movement - in fact, the artist's desire to "animate" his creation, that is, to literally breathe he has a soul

"The World History of Animation" by Giannalberto Bendazzi is a delicate and passionate story, first of all, about hundreds of such inspired creators, about their searches, achievements and disappointments, about how often they radically changed the world around them, without even realizing it (much less being able to their contemporaries will evaluate this). Such respectful authorial attitude to the work of numerous innovators, inventors and artists, as well as deep immersion in the context, provides the reader with the opportunity to learn a lot of unexpected things about world culture and the evolution of our society.

Giannalberto Bendazzi's three-volume work on the history of animation continued his book published in 1994 - "Cartoons. One hundred years of animated cinema" (Cartoons - 100 Years of Cinema Animation), and became the largest and most comprehensive study devoted to this topic. Such scope of work was determined by the author's conviction that animation is a full-fledged art form, worthy of separate academic studies. Instead of limiting himself only to Disney, Bendazzi gives the reader a glimpse into the unknown world of animation in Africa, Latin America, Russia and other places that are rarely mentioned in thematic literature.

The book presents many never-before-published facts from the three-hundred-year world history of animation and mentions more than fifty personalities who might otherwise have been forever forgotten. In "The World History of Animation" you will find in particular the following: - more than two hundred high-quality large-format photographs and film stills that provide a vivid visual accompaniment to the text - detailed information about hundreds of little-known animators and unfairly forgotten films - key facts about animated works produced in more than ninety countries of the world - a comprehensive overview of the history of animation, arranged chronologically and geographically, which allows you to quickly find the necessary information.

Book one deals with the origins of modern animation, what preceded it, the history of Emile Kohl's Phantasmagoria, and two decades of silent cartoons. First, the formative years of animation are covered, and then the so-called Golden Age, which lasted until the middle of the last century. Not only well-known masterpieces such as "Steamman Willy" are mentioned, but also little-known animated works from Egypt or Germany during the Third Reich.

The huge amount of new material acquired in the author's research, hundreds of photos and frames, simple and logical arrangement of information make this book a must-read for anyone who wants to get to know the history of animation in detail. The book was published with the funds of an institutional support grant