Page "California Institute of the Arts" Paragraph 18

The initial concept behind CalArts ' interdisciplinary approach came from Richard Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (" total artwork "), which Disney himself was fond of and explored in a variety of forms, beginning with his own studio, then later in the incorporation of CalArts.

He began with the classic Disney film Fantasia ( 1940 ), where animators, dancers, composers, and artists alike collaborated.

In 1952, Walt Disney Imagineering was founded, where Disney integrated artists from his animation studio and elsewhere, as well as formally-trained engineers and achieved creative critical mass in the development of Disneyland.

He believed that the same concept that developed WDI, could also be applied to a university setting, where art students of different mediums would be exposed to and explore a wide-range of creative directions.

Disney himself has stated of his memorial school: