One can say that this movie is pretty as picture. 'Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase' is wonderful short animation off 35 iconic art pieces melting and morphing into each other. Beautiful form of 2D clay animation (or clay painting) and wonderful music turns this short film into much more than just a collage and can definitely be appreciated even when you are not much of an art specialist. Just a beautiful movie. An art piece about art.This short can also be used a sort of a game - how many paintings can you name?

The 1992 winner of Best Animated Short features noted paintings morphing into each other. However, there was one scene in "Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase" that caught my attention in particular. At one point the sound of a commercial appears in the background. Author and political satirist Gore Vidal said of the so called War on Terrorism: "'War on terrorism' isn't a goal. It's a slogan designed for advertising, which is the only art form that the US ever created." Here we see art and advertising juxtaposed.Anyway, this is an interesting cartoon. I don't know of anything else that Joan C. Gratz did, but if she did I would like to see it. Worth seeing.

"Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase" is a 7-minute animated short film from over 20 years ago by Joan C. Gratz that won an Academy Award and a couple more honors all over the planet. It basically includes many famous painting, so if you are interested in the world of art, you will maybe like this one even more. However, I must say, I was not too impressed as a whole. Yes it was a creative idea and the style was nice as well, but in terms of story, it felt fairly empty to me and it got repetitive at some point as it's basically just a collection of known painting, no interactions, no dramatic tension, nothing. Cannot say I am too surprised that this is still Gratz' most known work as, apart from a solid idea, I see no huge talent in here. Not recommended.

My wife (an art major) and I saw this on PBS' series "The Territory", April 2006. As a hobbyist animator, I was very impressed by the "clay painting" technique (not really claymation, more 2D), and we both had fun trying to name the (many, many) iconic art works. Everything from Munch's "Scream" to Warhol's Marilyn.The technique involved more or less continuous "morphing" from one work to another, but artistically done rather than much of the mindless photographic morphing. It gives the impression of a "chain of thought" type dream tour through a really good modern art museum. Great stuff.