In 1938-1939 Fischinger was hired by the Disney studio as a “motion picture cartoon effects animator”, earning $60 a week. Having animated the sparkle of the blue fairy’s wand in Pinocchio, and thereby converted his abstract powers directly into Disney magic, he produced sketches and try-outs for Bach’s toccata and fugue section in Fantasia. In one major sequence, turquoise and green-grey waves were superimposed by a flow of geometric figures in browns, orangey-red and yellow oranges. His twenty seconds’ worth of film was worked over by Disney staff and the shapes made simpler, for the assumption was that only then would audiences accept them. Just one figure moved at any one time, and in the background floated clouds in a sky. The non-figurative forms were concretised, conjuring up real-world objects. While Fischinger thought he was utilising the insights of the colour theory he had studied, Disney objected to too extreme a palette and altered the colours. Fischinger’s deformed contribution was set among kitschy images derived from jabbing violin bows, ethereal cathedrals and doomy shafts, with the anchoring spectacle of the black-suited conductor who marshals all this energy. Fischinger quit the film in disgust.

This is fascinating. We’re talking about abstract images and colors set to instrumental music — but clearly both parties (Disney and Fischinger) feel that something more is at stake. And whatever it is, it probably has something to do with whatever it is that gives art meaning.