Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Graphic Dancers (Twentieth Century)

Leonard Beaumont
Dancing Nymphs
1934
linocut
British Museum

Henri Fantin-Latour
Three Maenads Dancing in a Landscape
1903
lithograph
British Museum

Jean-Louis Forain
Dancer
before 1931
drawing
British Museum

from Crossing Disappearing Behind Them

Being minor means that an era haunts a phrase of ruined memorabilia,
floral commemorative move across you.
A quoted feeling hangs over the ruin, the vinyl, the rain,
each in its landscape. The vinyl, the ruin, each
has memorized the original one in each of us
who wears a paraphrasable vastness
in virtue of arriving late.

– Marjorie Welish, from The Windows Flew Open (1991)

Ethel Gabain
Colombine à sa toilette
1916
lithograph
British Museum

Ethel Gabain
Dancer Resting
1916
lithograph
British Museum

Ethel Gabain
Sylphide - the Dancer
1912
lithograph
British Museum

Barbara Hepworth
Two Figures of Ballet Dancers
1950
drawing
British Museum

Barbara Hepworth
Scènes de Ballet 
(proof-cover for exhibition catalog)
1950
photolithograph
British Museum

Ambrose McAvoy
Study of Ballet Dancer
before 1927
drawing
British Museum

Rolf Nesch
Dance on the Quay - Midnight Sun
1948
lithograph
British Museum

An Emptiness Distributed

                    Without people,
a train station, an auditorium
seems visionary. The lower level
smells of insulation, and wind
from a still lower level, but no one is applying it.
You can feel the paths blowing through pores,
evaporating.

                         A slow torrent
falling headlong like escalators, or
perhaps streams run by electricity.
Have you ever seen escalators from the side?
Only the handrails move.

                                             Levels,
each with its own set of handrails, 
where the farther level is
not necessarily the deeper.                           

                                                Someone is coming up
wearing a cap. Looking where his is facing
he would be the man striking
the match in the small room on stage.
Acting is more candid seen from the side
because it is pitched to someone else.
Another man is coming up
on another escalator. A few people
are stepping onto a Down escalator, a dance consisting of –
there could be a dance
consisting of bunches of people stepping
onto and riding banks of escalators
into fresh water, and having pushed off,
becoming slowly sedate.

– Marjorie Welish, from Handwritten (1979)

John Wells
Dancer
1951
linocut
British Museum

John Wells
Dancer
1951
linocut on blue paper
British Museum

Fred Williams
Dancer
1955-56
etching, aquatint, drypoint
British Museum

Fred Williams
The Can-Can
1955-56
etching, aquatint, engraving
British Museum