Art: Grim Disney

Last week the dignified old matriarch of U. S. museums, Manhattan’s Metropolitan, bestowed a grandmotherly kiss on the forehead of art’s guttersnipe youngster, Walter Elias Disney. Everyone was pleased that the Metropolitan should accept a picture by Walt Disney’s studio, and call him “a great historical figure in the development of American art.” But many who saw the picture were surprised at the Metropolitan’s choice.

Not Mickey Mouse, not the foolish pigs, not Donald Duck in a snit, not the awkward Goof nor Horace the hopeless horse, not Dopey, no wide-eyed, tender creature of the field or wood was chosen. The choice: a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs wherein two cadaverous vultures—black, grey, just a tip of vermilion on their cruel beaks—watch for the witch’s death through sleet and gloom. Taken from their delicate context, the ominous birds seemed to be looking down on Europe.