Danse Macabre turns 75 oil paintings into nightmare take on Disney's Fantasia

An apocalyptic nightmare comes to life in the latest work from prolific Dutch animator and artist

What's the best answer to the proliferation of AI slop? Why, amazing, human-made art realized with innovative techniques, of course, and Hisko Hulsing understands the assignment perfectly. The Dutch artist is a director, animator, composer, and painter, a true Renaissance man whose latest work draws inspiration from a popular art that originated not far from that same age.

Danse Macabre is an upcoming animated short film that will premiere on June 22 in competition at the Annecy Film Festival. Based on the second movement of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, the film is made of over 75 hand-painted oil canvases, animated through 2D and CG techniques. You can even watch a making-of video here. A short trailer released today, but its one-minute runtime is enough to melt your brain.

A "danse macabre" (French for "dance of the death") is an artistic allegory that became popular in the Late Middle Ages. It depicts a personification of death summoning dead people from different social orders to dance, usually on a grave or in a graveyard. Likely inspired by the mass outbreaks of disease in Europe, it was meant to remind people of their mortality, be they commonfolk or kings.

Hulsing takes this imagery to modern times, showing a host of skeleton soldiers descending from the Heavens to bring chaos and destruction upon the world of mortals. It reminded me of The Triumph of Death, the famous painting by 16th-century artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which depicts a similar apocalyptic scene. Clearly, Hulsing took inspiration from the painting and from other, similar Late Middle Ages or Renaissance-era depictions of death and the Final Judgment.

The Dutch artist has an impressive filmography. He was director and production designer for the first season of Prime Video's beautiful sci-fi trip Undone, directed the unforgettable bonus episode of Netflix's The Sandman, A Dream of a Thousand Cats, and his animated short film Junkyard won too many awards to list.

According to the description of the trailer for Danse Macabre on YouTube, "This was one hell of a complex production, but we are convinced that we made something extraordinary, something beautiful, intense and frightening at the same time." Hard to disagree.