Notes on Restoring the Aesthetics of Early Abstract Films (Moritz, 1988)
Overview and Context
The critical debate over abstract films of the 1920s often centers on primacy (who was first).
Hans Richter claimed to have created the first abstract, experimental films (along with Viking Eggeling’s Diagonal Symphony, which Richter dated to 1919 or 1921). He also insisted that Walther Ruttmann and Oskar Fischinger started later, and painted Richter as an artistic fraud whose films lacked rhythm or harmony.
Later scholarship by Louise O’Konor (biography of Eggeling) and Wulf Herzogenrath (Film als Film exhibition research) revealed Richter’s falsifications.
In late 1920/early 1921, Richter and Eggeling had UFA technicians animate (or shoot) tests of their scroll drawings. Richter’s test strip, about $30$ seconds long, he called Film is Rhythm and presented publicly; according to Richter, the strip was so short that a critic in Paris missed it because he took off his glasses and it ended before he could re‑focus.
Werner Graeff recalls Richter in 1922 still failing to grasp that the film frame format is basically horizontal, not vertical like the original drawings, and helped shoot additional seconds of footage (also unsatisfactory) which Richter added to Film is Rhythm and publicly screened as a now ~1 minute piece at the May $1925$ Absolute Film Show in Berlin.
By October $1927$, after Richter’s marriage to Erna Niemeyer (Eggeling’s animator for Diagonal Symphony), Richter had obtained another ~30 seconds of film, now titled simply Rhythm. This fragment is described by Richter as corresponding to the middle section of the erroneously titled Rhythm 23, while the rest of Rhythm 23 and the so‑called Rhythm 21 were shot in late $1927$–early $1928$ by Erna Niemeyer while preparing the Film Study (which Richter habitually dates $1926$, despite the Film Society’s program notes indicating the new film was completed after the previous year’s “less finished work”).
To correct Richter’s misinformation, Eggeling’s first UFA animation tests (circa $1920$–$1921$) from his Horizontal-Vertical Orchestra seemed unsatisfactory to him, and he appears not to have publicized this film. Eggeling tried several more Horizontal-Vertical Orchestra tests during $1922$ and $1923$, but these remained inadequate compared to his later vision when the scroll imagery became a storyboard rather than fully animated drawings. When Erna Niemeyer began animating his Diagonal Symphony scrolls in $1923$, Eggeling abandoned the Horizontal-Vertical Orchestra altogether.
Erna Niemeyer completed animation of Diagonal Symphony in fall $1924$; the film was publicly shown only in May $1925$ at the Absolute Film Show, just days before Eggeling’s death.
In the early $1980s$, the partial print of Ruttmann’s Light-Play, Opus No. 1 was discovered, clarifying why Richter’s claims were unfounded: Ruttmann had actually mastered filmmaking and animation techniques, unlike Richter, who relied on collaborators and operators. Ruttmann’s Opus No. 1 proves to be vivid, cogent, dynamic, and rhythmic, qualities Richter lacked. Ruttmann had also mastered film technique (not just scroll painting) by $1919$, shot and tinted Opus No. 1 in $1920$, and worked with composer Max Butting to prepare a tightly timed musical score performed in public in $April 1921$ at a cinema.
The discovery also showed Richter’s integrity as a filmmaker was undermined; Eggeling’s and Ruttmann’s films remain irreproachable. The goal of this paper is to scrutinize Opus No. 1 and Diagonal Symphony to understand their aesthetic qualities.
Both animators started as painters. Ruttmann studied architecture at $age ext{ 19}$ in Zurich in $1906$, then switched to painting and music in $1909$, moving to Munich where he befriended Klee, Feininger, and Corinth. He supported himself as an artist before World War I, was drafted to the Russian front where he endured distress and was released as unfit in $1917$, and by $late ext{ 1917}$ produced wholly abstract canvases. By late $1918$, he abandoned still paintings in favor of animation of abstract imagery in space and time.
Ruttmann’s first animations for Opus No. 1 were painted with oil paints on glass plates under an animation camera (frame by frame after each brush stroke), later combined with geometric cut‑outs on a separate glass layer. He had met composer Max Butting in school, and played cello in the string quintet Butting wrote for Opus No. 1’s premiere.
A partial print of Opus No. 1 was found in $1976$ via Enno Patalas of the Filmmuseum Munich, found among Lang and Murnau footage from the Moscow archives intended for restorations of Metropolis and Nosferatu. The Moscow print was a positive‑print release that had been tinted and color‑toned, with some scenes hand‑tinted frame by frame. This print likely represents the only complete copy that existed.
The Moscow print indicates that there would have been many small negatives and spliced positives to create the final print with variable hand tinting; this implies a complex production process with multiple identical negative pieces used to create variations in color and timing. The hand tinting would have required separate lab prints for different color schemes in the same shot.
Opus No. 1 was not shown much after $1921$ and was not included in the Absolute Film Show of May $1925$, whereas Opus No. 2, Opus No. 3, and Opus No. 4 (which used general mood tinting with no specific soundtrack) were included. Some commentators inferred that Opus No. 1 was too primitive or outdated compared to the later Opus films, but the author argues the opposite: Opus No. 1 is complex and the music and color are integrally tied to its experience.
The music by Butting is not only a score but a set of timing and color cues; the Butting sheet music includes precise metronome and timing indications for each musical phrase, guiding the synchronization between music and imagery. A live performance of a thirteen‑minute print with a string quintet would have been difficult due to risk to the hand‑made print and rehearsal time, so the integral form could not be easily performed again with the same fidelity.
The Russian copy of Opus No. 1 is shorter by about $3$ minutes, lacking certain repetitions (often in alternate colours) that exist in other prints. This supports the idea that the original version was not static, but rather sequences and colors were repeated or altered across prints.
The author reconstructed Opus No. 1 from the Moscow print using the Butting sheet music as a guide, and discusses potential reasons for missing pieces (chemicals in dyes causing decomposition, or Ruttmann using footage in other commercials in $1922$ and $1923$). The author considers the Moskva print as representing the most faithful version for restoration purposes.
The restored Opus No. 1 with original music shows several aesthetic principles: (a) a deliberate rejection of depth perception; (b) animation of a painting in time and space; (c) a three‑movement structure with visual silences between movements; (d) color as a structural element for mood, atmosphere, and differentiation of shapes and movements; (e) color coordination not tied to specific objects but to choreography and overall composition.
Color and music together shape the expressive drama in Opus No. 1. For example, the long, all‑blue nocturne in the second movement yields to a yellow‑based scherzo; color serves as stage lighting and as a formal, compositional device rather than a literal coloristic representation.
Richter’s and Eggeling’s differing approaches: Eggeling sought a Theory and Counterpoint of Visual Elements to provide an audienced‑free experience (film in silence, no depiction of music), aiming to treat the screen as an overt field for painting where the frame is self‑contained without entrances or exits. He focused on a master shape occupying the frame and derived variations (inversions, variations, fugues) from it, often with hundreds of basic variations drawn on scrolls and then traced onto tin foil by Niemeyer and animated frame by frame, sometimes planned to be reversed for movement growth. He intentionally limited animation (no sound or color) as a conscious aesthetic choice, not a technical deficiency.
In contrast, Ruttmann’s approach aligns with a dynamic, movement‑driven, color‑rich expressionism: use simple geometric shapes to choreograph elaborate sequences of movement, color, and timing; entrances/exits and conflicts between shapes create a cumulative narrative in which new forms appear up to the film’s end. Ruttmann partnered with Butting to time the musical score to the imagery, although performing a full thirteen‑minute version in a live setting was cumbersome.
The paper argues that both filmmakers offer valid, though different, pathways for animation. Ruttmann is described as more romantic (emphasizing mood and spectator participation) while Eggeling is described as more classicist (emphasizing analytic perception and structural patterns).
The legacy discussion traces later artists who explored similar tensions between movement and form:
Oskar Fischinger’s black‑and‑white studies (late 1920s–early 1930s) and his later works (e.g., Radio Dynamics 1943, Motion Painting No. 1 1947) develop full‑screen grids of imagery and tension between movement and stillness, echoing both Ruttmann and Eggeling.
James Whitney’s Yantra (1955) and John Whitney’s later digital works expand the canon by using minimalist building blocks (dots, points of light) and new perceptual aspects of intermittence and choreography.
Larry Cuba’s 1970s computer graphics works (e.g., 3/78, Two Space) continue the exploration of points of light in dynamic patterns.
Jules Engel’s computer‑graphics based works (Times Square) and students such as John Adamczyk (color‑mapping in fractals) and Michael Scroggins (Studies with cycles of geometric balance) show how Eggeling’s classicist approach can be revisited with modern technology.
The text emphasizes that the coexistence of Ruttmann’s movement‑driven, color‑charged expressionism and Eggeling’s formal, master‑shape, pattern‑driven classicism remains a viable framework for understanding animation history today. The synthesis is that both approaches continue to influence contemporary animation and videography.
The conclusion states that restoring and understanding these two films within their historical context broadens the continuum of experimental film and animation. The two films are not merely artifacts but living traditions that inform current and future creative practice.
Key Figures and Chronology
Walther Ruttmann
Early life and training: began in architecture studies in Zurich at age 19 (1906), switched to painting and music in 1909, moved to Munich; connected with Klee, Feininger, Corinth.
Pre‑war activity: supported as an artist; drafted in World War I; served on the Russian front; released as unfit in 1917.
Post‑war shift: returned to painting, then by late 1917 began producing abstract imagery; by late 1918 abandoned still images for animation of abstract imagery in space and time.
Opus No. 1: first animations for Opus No. 1 were painted with oil paints on glass plates, frame by frame after each brush stroke; later integrated geometric cut‑outs on a separate glass layer.
Collaboration with Max Butting: met in Munich; Butting composed the score and played cello in his quintet for Opus No. 1; the score provided precise timing for the film’s visual motion.
Print history and restoration: a partial print was discovered in $1976$ among Moscow archives in a tinted positive print; the print’s multiple color layers imply a complex negative and printing process.
Original print logistics: the original was intended to be performed with live musicians; the complexity of performing a 13‑minute version with a live quartet made it impractical; the printed version exists in several variant prints due to tinting and hand coloring.
Aesthetic principles observed in Opus No. 1: refuses depth illusion; painting in time; three movements with visual silences; color as a structural, choreography‑like element; color and music interplay to shape mood and action.
Later developments: Opus No. 1 was not shown in the $1925$ Absolute Film Show, but Opus Nos. 2–4, which used more general mood tinting, were.
Viking Eggeling
Background: painter and key Dada figure; sought to establish a Theory and Counterpoint of Visual Elements to underpin non‑objective imagery in movement; had strong ties to music (a friendship with composer Busoni).
Early animation attempts: engaged in Horizontal‑Vertical Orchestra concept; initial tests around $1920$–$1921$ were unsatisfactory in Eggeling’s view; he did several more tests in $1922$–$1923$ but they remained inadequate compared to his final vision.
Diagonal Symphony: Erna Niemeyer completed animating the Diagonal Symphony scrolls in $1923$; the film completed in fall $1924$ and shown publicly in May $1925$ at the Absolute Film Show; Eggeling died shortly after.
Animation technique: relied on cut tin foil pieces traced from master shapes, created through meticulous slicing and frame‑by‑frame shooting; this method may have been intended to be reversible by shooting in reverse, turning the artwork over for movement growth.
Aesthetic choices: deliberately limited animation scope (tin foil cuts) and rejected sound and color as aesthetic elements; believed that the screen should function as a painting field with its own internal logic, not as illustration for music.
Conceptual aim: to balance visual forms with an audial analogy (music) while keeping the screen as a self‑contained field; the work emphasizes “diagonal tension” and interlocking patterns, with master shapes giving rise to solos, variations, and interrelationships among elements.
Hans Richter
Early claims of primacy and discussions around his works and their relationship to Eggeling and Ruttmann; corrections of historical record noted in the Moritz text; later scholarship reduces his standing as a primary innovator due to evidence of Eggeling and Ruttmann’s earlier mastery and the collaborative nature of Richter’s projects.
The Restoration, Filmmaking Techniques, and Evidence
Discovery and analysis of Opus No. 1’s print history
A partial print of Opus No. 1 was found in $1976$ (Enno Patalas, Filmmuseum Munich) among other Ruttmann opuses and advertising footage.
Moscow prints were tinted and toned; some scenes were hand tinted; the color technique suggested there could have been three or four colors in certain sequences, not a single consistent color scheme across the whole film.
The existence of multiple negatives meant that there could be numerous prints with different colorings; Ruttmann would have had to assemble prints by hand, tinting certain shapes to align with musical cues and repeated phrases.
Because Opus No. 1 was rarely shown after $1921$ and was not included in the $1925$ Absolute Film Show, there was a perception that the film was too primitive. The restoration and study of the film suggests the opposite: its complexity, color, and musical integration argue for a sophisticated aesthetic that demands careful playback with original music.
Reconstructing Opus No. 1 for analytical study
The author used Butting’s score and timing instructions to reconstruct Opus No. 1 with a high degree of fidelity to the original, as the missing pieces may have decomposed chemically or been repurposed for other projects (e.g., advertising films The Winner and The Miracle in 1922).
The Russian copy’s shorter duration (by ~$3$ minutes) and the Moscow print’s color inconsistencies suggest that the original viewing experience was highly contingent on the specific combination of film print and live music, making reconstruction challenging but essential for understanding the film’s structure and rhythm.
Formal analysis of Opus No. 1’s aesthetic structure
Non‑depth illusion: Ruttmann’s abstract imagery avoids conventional perspective; the frame acts as a stage in which shapes enter, interact, and exit.
The film is envisioned as a painting that moves in space and time, akin to a classical concert piece with three movements and visual silences between them.
Color as choreography: colors differentiate shapes, movements, or repetitions; color also serves mood; the blue nocturne shifts to a yellow scherzo; color does not always correspond to a specific object but to the expressive design.
The relationship of music and image: music provides pacing, mood, and timing; the score’s precise metronome marks illuminate how rhythm and color work together to create meaning in the moving painting.
Eggeling’s Diagonal Symphony: technical and philosophical foundations
Eggeling sought to anchor non‑objective imagery in a musical analogy, with the screen treated as a field for painting and sculpture rather than for narrative or illusion.
The master shape dominates the frame; all other imagery is derived from this form through variations (inversions, variations, and fugues) and interlocking patterns.
The imagery evolves through the growth or decay of motifs like diagonal combs and interlocking shapes; figures grow or shrink, move in opposing directions, and interact visually like musical phrases.
The animation technique involved tracing hundreds of variations on scrolls (ten to twenty images per scroll) onto tin foil, then animating frame by frame; Niemeyer’s tracing and cutting of the foil produced the individual shapes.
Reversibility: Eggeling planned to shoot some sequences in reverse order (or orient the artwork-camera opposite) to allow a shape to grow or appear in reverse motion; this would make movement appear to develop in the opposite direction when re‑assembled.
Limitations and aesthetic intent: tin foil and cutouts were not a deficiency but a deliberate aesthetic choice to emphasize the purity of form and motion; Eggeling chose not to use sound or color for a purist, formalist experience, aligning with his music theory principles.
Comparative points on technique and aesthetics
Eggeling’s approach was more theoretical, aiming for a complete, self‑contained musical analogy with a master shape as the source material; the film’s evolution is built around the totality of resources and their variations.
Ruttmann’s approach was more kinetic, using a few simple geometric shapes to orchestrate intricate choreographies; color becomes a faculty of mood and movement, and the film unfolds as a linear, cumulative sequence.
Both filmmakers’ methods have influenced later artists across media, including Fischinger, James Whitney, Larry Cuba, Jules Engel, John Adamczyk, and Michael Scroggins, who continued to explore the tension between movement, form, and pattern using new technologies (from hand‑painted frames to computer graphics).
Aesthetic Principles and Implications
Opus No. 1 as expressionistic drama
The film is described as an expressionistic drama in which music and color are not mere embellishments but essential components that shape perception and narrative in abstract cinema.
The use of color to differentiate or intensify shapes reinforces the viewer’s perception of rhythm and motion, making color integral to the film’s choreography rather than decorative.
Diagonal Symphony as a master‑shape study
Eggeling’s film treats the master shape as a musical instrument in itself, with interlocking components acting as “solos” or “voices” within a larger composite “orchestra” of forms.
The film foregrounds the screen space as an arena for painting and pattern, rather than a window into representation; the motion is the core event, not a narrative of things seen.
Critical typologies and their relevance
The Moritz analysis positions Richter as a foil to Eggeling and Ruttmann; while Richter’s claims about primacy were discredited, his role in historical discourse remains a case study in misrepresentation and the importance of archival truth.
Moritz’s synthesis frames two distinct but compatible paths for animation: (1) the romantic, movement‑rich approach of Ruttmann, and (2) the classicist, structure‑driven approach of Eggeling. Both are essential to understanding the development of experimental cinema and continue to influence contemporary animation and media arts.
Connections to Foundations and Real‑World Relevance
Foundational connections
The work reflects early 20th‑century tensions between representation and abstraction, between painting and cinema, and between music and image—the core tensions that shaped modern visual art and experimental film.
The restoration work shows how film history relies on technical reconstruction (color tinting, frame rates, and scoring) to understand authentic viewing experiences.
Real‑world relevance for contemporary practice
The dialogue between Ruttmann’s movement‑driven form and Eggeling’s structure‑driven form provides a framework for modern generative art and algorithmic animation: movement can be choreographed in time, while form can be organized by a master structure.
The discussion of color as choreography rather than a representational cue mirrors contemporary discussions in digital art about color theory, mood mapping, and perceptual psychology.
The synergy between music and image in these early works informs contemporary multimedia installations, where timing, score, and visual rhythm must be tightly integrated for immersive experiences.
Ethical, Philosophical, and Practical Implications
Artistic integrity and historiography
The case demonstrates the importance of rigorous archival research and the risks of primacy myths in art history; correcting these myths helps preserve the integrity of the field and honors the actual inventors’ contributions.
Aesthetics and interpretation
The compare/contrast of two different artistic grammars—Ruttmann’s expressive motion versus Eggeling’s formalist constellations—illustrates how different aesthetics can lead to equally valid, enduring artistic legacies.
Technical constraints and artistic choices
The deliberate limitations (Eggeling’s tin foil animation, no color/sound) reflect a broader debate about technological capacity versus artistic intention; constraints can be a source of innovation when aligned with expressive goals.
Notes and References
Footnotes cited in the text:
1. Louise O'Konor, Viking Eggeling 1880-1925, Artist and Filmmaker - Life and Work (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1971).
2. Roger Manvell, Experiment in the Film (London: Grey Walls Press, 1949), 223.
3. Catalogue for Film als Film (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1977): 58.
4. Jeanpaul Goergen, Walter Ruttmann, eine Dokumentation (Berlin: Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek, 1988).
Works and films mentioned:
Walther Ruttmann, Opus No. 1: Light-Play (Opus No. 1)
Viking Eggeling, Diagonal Symphony
Erna Niemeyer (Eggeling’s animator for Diagonal Symphony)
Oskar Fischinger, Studies (notably black‑and‑white studies and later Radio Dynamics, Motion Painting No. 1)
James Whitney, Yantra (1955) and related work on points of light and perceptual patterns
Larry Cuba, 1970s computer graphics works (e.g., 3/78, Two Space)
Jules Engel, Times Square (and his influence on computer‑generated art)
Restoration and archival notes emphasize the importance of color tinting, frame by frame editing, and the role of music in shaping the viewing experience.
The overarching aim of the discussion is to restore these films to broader accessibility and to situate them within a continuum of animation studies that spans from early scroll animations to modern digital works.
A critical debate on 1920s abstract films revolves around primacy, particularly challenging Hans Richter's claims of being first. Later scholarship has revealed his falsifications, highlighting the earlier mastery of Walther Ruttmann and Viking Eggeling.
Walther Ruttmann, a painter turned animator, created Light-Play, Opus No. 1 in 1920. He mastered filmmaking and animation techniques by 1919, utilizing oil paints on glass and geometric cut-outs. His film was tightly synchronized with a musical score by Max Butting, featuring a dynamic, color-rich expressionism. A partial print discovered in 1976 led to its restoration, revealing sophisticated aesthetic principles like the rejection of depth perception, animation as painting in time, a three-movement structure, and color as a structural, choreographic element integral to mood and composition. Ruttmann's approach is characterized as romantic and movement-driven.
Viking Eggeling, also a painter, sought a "Theory and Counterpoint of Visual Elements" for a silent, audience-free film experience. His film Diagonal Symphony, completed in 1924 by Erna Niemeyer, derived variations (inversions, fugues) from a master shape, treating the screen as an overt field for painting. Eggeling deliberately limited animation to tin foil cut-outs and rejected sound and color, viewing them as a conscious aesthetic choice for formal purity. His approach is classicist and structure-driven.
While Richter's historical standing was diminished, Ruttmann's and Eggeling's films remain foundational. They represent two distinct yet valid pathways in animation: Ruttmann's kinetic