Musings & Blog

Disney castles. If you've ever watched a Disney animated movie or walked into a Disney Park, you know the castle is the icon we associate most with Disney besides a talking mouse. In many films, castles and royal palaces lend so much to the story, evoking distant, fantastical pasts. They feel both magical and timeless, yet their designs draw on real places.

What do Theodor de Bry’s map of the Caribbean, the Lindau Gospels, a Moche ear ornament, and Titian’s Venus of Urbino have in common? All find new life in the dimly lit, glittering caverns of the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, where global medieval and early modern objects have been reimagined and recontextualized for 20th- and 21st-century edutainment. This talk explores how the attraction’s visual culture pirates the past to create an immersive fantasy of the Golde

The Haunted Mansion is connected to early spirit photography and Spiritualism.

Knowing something about the real art that inspired Disney Imagineers adds another layer of magic to Disneyland