page_title: Charles Allan Gilbert
section_title: Work as an animator
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Allan Gilbert / Work as an animator
caption_attribution_description: English: Silhouette by C. Allan Gilbert for the animated film “Inbad the Tailor,” 1916. “The jinni appears in answer to the call of Inbad’s wishing ring.”
context_page_description: Charles Allan Gilbert, better known as C. Allan Gilbert, was a prominent American illustrator. He is especially remembered for a widely published drawing titled All Is Vanity. The drawing employs a double image in which the scene of a woman admiring herself in a mirror, when viewed from a distance, appears to be a human skull. The title is also a pun, as this type of dressing-table is also known as a vanity. The phrase "All is vanity" comes from Ecclesiastes 1:2 It refers to the vanity and pride of humans. In art, vanity has long been represented as a woman preoccupied with her beauty. And art that contains a human skull as a focal point is called a memento mori, a work that reminds people of their mortality.
  It is less widely known that Gilbert was an early contributor to animation, and a camouflage artist for the U.S. Shipping Board during World War I.
context_section_description: As an early contributor to animated films (Grant, p. 49), Gilbert worked for John R. Bray in 1915–16 on the production of a series of moving shadow plays called Silhouette Fantasies. These Art Nouveau-styled films, which were made by combining filmed silhouettes with pen-and-ink components, were serious interpretations of Greek myths (Crafton 1993, p. 865; Bachman 2002, pp. 261–262).
caption: Silhouette by Gilbert for the 1916 animated film Inbad the Tailor
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