"The oil-on-plexiglass technique of MOTION PAINTING NO. 1 has been described in the main text. By all odds so delicate and difficult a process for a ten-minute film might well have resulted in a failure or a weak film. At one point, Fischinger painted every day for over five months without being able to see how it was coming out on film, since he wanted to keep all conditions, including film stock, absolutely consistent in order to avoid unexpected variations in quality of image. Thus it is a tribute to Fischinger's skill and artistic vision that MOTION PAINTING NO. 1 turned out, in fact, excellent.

"Volumes could be written about this film which stands in length and complexity as Fischinger's major work. It is perhaps the only one of his films which is truly and completely (or purely) abstract (or absolute). Its images are actors in a complex being which modulates and transforms itself before our eyes, an object and an experience at the same time, something we must feel and contemplate, and meditate through." - Dr. William Moritz, Film Culture