# Oskar Fischinger [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Fischinger) [oskarfischinger.org](https://www.oskarfischinger.org/) (1900–1967) ## Description German-American animator who synchronized hand-drawn and painted abstract imagery to music across the *Studies* series and later films, and experimented with drawn/synthetic sound; his abstract, musically driven animation is one of the central bodies of work in the visual music tradition and reputedly influenced Disney's *Fantasia* (uncredited, after a brief and frustrated stint at the studio). ## Key Tags #visual-music #absolute-film #animation #german-avant-garde #drawn-sound #color-organ ## Essential Works - [An Optical Poem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Optical_Poem) (1938, MGM) - abstract shapes animated to Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, his one studio-produced short - [Motion Painting No. 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Painting_No._1) (1949) - single continuous abstract painting built up and filmed frame by frame to Bach - Studies series (1929-34) - sequence of black-and-white abstract shorts set to jazz and orchestral recordings, his best-known early work ## Details Trained as an engineer before entering the Munich and Berlin avant-garde film scenes of the 1920s; built a wax-slicing machine for early abstract-animation experiments before turning to hand-drawn and painted forms synchronized to music. Emigrated to the US in 1936, briefly worked at Disney on effects for *Fantasia* before a frustrated departure over creative control, and continued his *Motion Painting* series and abstract "Lumigraph" light-performance instrument into the 1950s–60s. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Visual Music]] - among the central historical figures of visual music, synchronizing abstract animation directly to musical structure ### Creative and Technical Practices - [[Drawn Sound]] - experimented with synthetic, hand-drawn sound alongside his abstract animation practice ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - German Absolute Film movement - emerged from the 1920s German abstract-animation circle alongside Walter Ruttmann and Viking Eggeling ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Fischinger, Oskar. "Sounding Ornaments." *Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung*, 1932. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Moritz, William. *Optical Poetry: The Life and Work of Oskar Fischinger*. Indiana University Press, 2004.