"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.

What a wonderful and beautifully made short. Personally, I couldn't think in any better tribute to the great masterpieces of art from different ages (Referencing several classic paintings, but also some works of modern art, and there is even a brief reference to comic books) than this, resulting in one of the most incredibly and fascinating animations ever made. This is absolutely beautiful, being a magnificent homage of the timeless artistic creations from different eras and places.A must see for everyone, not only the animation fans.The Academy Award was more than well deserved.

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.

This is an incredible piece of work and just had me groping for words after I saw it the other day. I'm not terribly visually oriented (my skills are more in the verbal realm), so when an almost completely visual short burns itself onto my brain the way this has, that's quite a feat! It begins and ends with Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and has her morph into another piece (I think it's a Picasso, but don't bet the farm on that-I'm not an Art History expert) which morphs into a third and so on. There were more than 30, of which I recognized about ten and could name five or six. Someone more versed in paintings than this humble scribe would probably do much better than I could. But this is an exceptionally fine piece of animation that deservedly won the Academy Award for Animated Short. It moves quite fast (it's only about seven minutes long) and can be a bit overwhelming with its transitions, but well worth watching and most highly recommended.