Poultry and Poetry

Another lovely animation of a French folksong by Norman McLaren.

This time he used chalk and pastels on cardboard to create his delicate 

and dreamy interpretation of an old lullaby about little hens laying eggs

in various places, from the church to the moon. Made in 1947.

How will the blackbird sing?

In 1958, the great Norman McLaren utilized paper cut-outs to transform 

a French–Canadian nonsensical folk song into this playfully surrealistic animation.

In 1940, the same song had inspired a book project by Bruno Munari.

Published for the first time in 1987, it was recently reprinted by Corraini

using silk-screen printing on transparent plastic sheets.

Two lovely examples of genius in simplicity!