The Stonecutter (1960)

"The Stonecutter" is based on an old Japanese folk tale.

"The late Gerald McDermott made this, his first commercial film at the age of 19, an extremely complex animation short featuring approximately 2000 animation cels presented in six minutes. The production was handled by an uncredited Harrison Engle, later noted as a documentary filmmaker. Influenced by Klee and Matisse, McDermott used silk-screen as well as traditional painting techniques in crafting ethnographic folk tale animation shorts. With films that are startling in intensity, and majestic in execution, McDermott is clearly one of the outstanding film animators of his generation, despite having an output consisting solely of only five films, all of which are under 12 minutes in length. After retiring from film animation at the age of 32, McDermott began producing animated children’s books, eventually becoming one of the world’s best-known authors of books for young readers, winning numerous awards in the process. More about McDermott at http://www.afana.org/mcdermott.htm" from http://archive.org/

I found this video while reading about Hofstadter's strange loop