Performers - I

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Circus Poster
(proof before lettering)
ca. 1900
lithograph
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Lucien Simon
Circus Parade
1919
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Charles Demuth
Three Acrobats
1916
watercolor on paper
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Harry C. Rubincam
In the Circus
1907
photogravure
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Auguste Renoir
The Clown
1868
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Josef Steiner
Passage-Theater - Marietta Olly
1910
lithograph (poster)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Jane Avril
1899
lithograph
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Music Hall Dancer
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Isaac Israëls
Café-chantant in Amsterdam
ca. 1893
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Georges Berges
Tango
1902
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Pierrot
1899
lithograph
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Edgar Degas
Harlequin and Colombine
ca. 1886
pastel on paper
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
In the Wings at the Folies Bergères
ca. 1960
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Jacques Callot
Balli di Sfessania
1621
etching
(title-page to portfolio)
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Caspar Luyken
Stage Performance
ca. 1700
engraving
(book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Laura Gilpin
Lillian Gish taking a Curtain Call, after
performance of Camille in Central City, Colorado
1932
platinum print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

A magpie I, that oft of old screeched in answer to the speech of the shepherds and woodcutters and fishermen. Often like some many-voiced Echo, with responsive lips I struck up a mocking strain.  Now I lie on the ground, tongueless and speechless, having renounced my passion for mimicry. 

No longer, locust, sitting in the fruitful furrows shalt thou sing with thy shrill-toned wings, nor shalt thou delight me as I lie under the shade of the leaves, striking sweet music from thy tawny wings. 

I am the locust who brought deep sleep to Democritus, when I started the shrill music of my wings. And Democritus, O wayfarer, raised for me when I died a seemly tomb near Oropus.

Wayfarer, though the tombstone that surmounts my grave seems small and almost on the ground, blame not Philaenis. Me, her singing locust, that used to walk on thistles, a thing that looked like a straw, she loved and cherished for two years, because I made a melodious noise. And even when I was dead she cast me not away, but built this little monument of my varied talent.

Bird, nursling of the Graces, who didst modulate thy voice till it was like unto a halcyon's, thou art gone, dear elaeus, and the silent ways of night possess thy gentleness and thy sweet breath.

I was a swift-footed long-eared leveret, torn from my mother's breast while yet a baby, and sweet Phanion cherished and reared me in her bosom, feeding me on flowers of spring. No longer did I pine for my mother, but I died of surfeiting, fattened by too many banquets. Close to her couch she buried me so that ever in her dreams she might see my grave beside her bed.

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)