2906 Burton fast final

11
efore The
“Willy Wonka” by Tim
Burton (2004)
A
world full of contradictions, both
dark and light, frightening and
welcoming, cruel and tender. A
world where darkness cohabits with
bright colours, where weird-looking
people and monsters are brave and generous
and where the horrible becomes
poetic. Tim Burton has his own style
that remains inimitable and his extravagance
has become extremely popular.
The audience is more familiar with his
film work but few are aware of the origins
of his films and of his creativity in
general. Tim Burton is an artist before
anything else. He is a talented drawer
who expresses himself through his art.
With him a film is often born from a little
drawing at the corner of a page. The
drawing already sets up the tone of the
film, the colours of the set or the personality
of a main character. This article
pays tribute to the art of Tim Burton,
not always well-known but always so
rich and so meaningful.
A Compulsive Drawer
Drawing has always been part of Tim Burton’s
life. He expresses it as a need and a
way to communicate his feelings and ideas.
It is part of his everyday life and he always
travels with a pencil in his pocket. He draws
everywhere, at all time and on everything
he gets his hands on. In Leah Gallo’s and
Holly C. Kempf ’s wonderful book The Art
of Tim Burton (based on the exhibition at
the MOMA) many of Burton’s personal
acquaintances pick on this compulsive need
to draw and as his partner Helen Bonham
Carter states ‘with him, everything starts
with a drawing’. He draws on at least ten
notebooks at the same time and if he doesn’t
have paper he will use napkins, tissues,
tables or walls. Extremely diverse
and prolific, he uses different techniques
and material – crayons, paints (oil, acrylic,
watercolours), markers, pens, glitters
and pastels… And with this he succeeds ➤
Photo: Tim Burton