I recently travelled to Paris on a weekend break and checked out an animation exhibition on The Artistic Journey of the Saga How to Train Your Dragon at the Art Ludique Le MusĂ©e . On this occasion, the exhibition took place in Paris’ 7th arrondissement. Unfortunately, I only found out about this museum recently, so I missed out on visiting the previous exhibitions including; 25 Years of Pixar Animations (25 Ans D’Animation Pixar), Art in Video Games (L’Art Dans Le Jeu Video), Art of Super Heros (L’Art Des Super-Heros) as well as Drawings of Studio Ghibli (Dessins Du Studio Ghibli).
Had I known about this museum before, as I would have hopped on a Eurostar train to Paris for a day trip to see their past exhibitions (after all, Paris is just around the corner from London right?). I enjoyed visiting this museum as it showcases the creative works from movies, manga, anime and gaming that I have enjoyed and appreciated for a long time.
The exhibition was open to visitors between the 31 Jan-24 February 2019 (free entry) and displayed almost 200 of the original paintings and sketches by the animators and illustrators involved in the creation of the movie. Seeing all the works made me think about how talented the artists are and the amount of work that goes into creating animated films. This also had me wishing that I could draw and create works just as amazing as those that I saw. As someone who reads manga, watches anime and plays video games, I’m not as creative as I’d like to be, fortunately, I get to enjoy watching the works that are created by the real artists out there.

The museum was small so you could go around looking at everything in about 40 minutes which I did. I spent most of that time looking at the works from animators and illustrators like Simon Otto, Carter Goodrich and Nico Marlet. The were screens placed around the museum displaying videos of animators and directors talking about the different process involved in the making of the movies.
The exhibition was a great way to learn about how the artists transformed their sketches of dragons and characters into digital images and animations throughout the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy. It was refreshing to learn that artists were able to portray certain atmospheres and emotions in scenes using their own interpretations, simply from suggestions given to them by directors. Attending the exhibition made me aware that french artists and animators greatly contributed and collaborated with DreamWorks in the making of the trilogy.

As I finish up writing this post, I’m currently looking at screen times so I can watch this movie next week! Visit Art Ludique Le MusĂ©e on your next visit to Paris, who knows what exciting exhibition they’ll have on next! The British Museum’s upcoming Manga exhibition in London is the next exhibition that I can’t wait to check out this summer! If you’re a huge manga fan or you’re simply interested in learning more about it, the British Museum will definitely be the place to visit!
Which exhibitions have you been to recently? What did you enjoy about them? Comment below and share!
Leave a Reply