Friday, October 20, 2023

Dance (decorative)

Anonymous Photographer
Pets of the Ballet
ca. 1865
hand-colored albumen silver prints
(stereograph)
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Léon Bakst
Costume Design for Bacchante in Narcisse
(Ballets Russes)
ca. 1911-16
halftone reproduction of gouache on paper
(book illustration)
New York Public Library

Cecil Beaton
Costume Sketches for Les Illuminations
choreographed by Frederick Ashton

ca. 1950
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Albrecht Dürer
Masquerade Dance with Torches
ca. 1516
woodcut
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Alfeo Faggi
Ballet Dancer
1931
watercolor
Princeton University Art Museum

Paul Gavarni
Costume for the ballet Stradella
ca. 1837
lithograph
Yale University Art Gallery

Paul Gavarni
Costume for the ballet Stradella
ca. 1837
lithograph
Yale University Art Gallery

Harry Lachmann
Backstage before a performance of Parade
(Ballets Russes costume by Pablo Picasso)
1917
gelatin silver print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Harry Lachmann
Backstage before a performance of Parade
(Ballets Russes costume by Pablo Picasso)
1917
gelatin silver print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Pierre La Mésangère (publisher)
Les Préparatifs du Bal
ca. 1801-1802
hand-colored etching
(fashion plate)
British Museum

Pierre La Mésangère (publisher)
La Walse
ca. 1800
hand-colored etching
(fashion plate)
British Museum

Wellington Lee
Dance with Candles
1949
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

George Platt Lynes
A Balanchine Ballet
before 1955
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

Henri Matisse
Ballet Dancer
1927
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Montenegro
Vaslav Nijinsky in Carnaval
(Ballets Russes)
ca. 1912
drawing, with gouache
(print study)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Robert Montenegro
Vaslav Nijinsky in Daphnis and Chloe
(Ballets Russes)
1912
hand-colored print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

from Terra Nullius

The poem in which we drive an hour to the beach and Uncle Dave doesn't get out
          of his lawn chair once.
The poem in which we left the yellow plastic shovel behind and everyone is bereft.
The poem in which I can't stop talking about how you walked deep into Lake Erie
          and the water was still only up to your knees when you turned into a speck 
          past the rock jetty.
The poem in which everyone listens to celebrity gossip in the car on the way back.
The poem in which I pontificate on how ugly the fiancée of that Jonas brother is,
          and how they're too young to get married, and how my grandmother's old
          neighbor would have said, "Ugly? She can't help that she's ugly. It's that she's
          so stupid," and I would have yelled at her for assuming that all former hair-
          dressers are dim.
The poem in which I turn into my grandmother's old neighbor.
The poem in which I remember very clearly how they both stored tissues in their 
          bras.
The poem in which I think about how this would horrify your mother – the 
          pendulous breasts, the moist tissues, the dipping into the cleavage to retrieve
          anything.
The poem in which your mother tries not to wince when I order whatever I want
          from the menu despite her coupon for two medium 1-topping pizzas. 

– Erika Meitner (2014)