THE RETURN OF LÉON BAKST: SLAV MAGIC OR ORIENTAL OTHER?
2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 12; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14725886.2013.796158
ISSN1472-5894
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics
ResumoAbstractSeeing “The Return of Léon Bakst” in the Berlin-based Russian illustrated review Zhar ptitsa (Firebird) in 1922, what “return” might its readers have assumed to be intended? Was it about a return to Judaism that Bakst had abandoned 20 years earlier? Or perhaps a return to Russia, a dream of so many Russian Berliners in that year? Or knowing that the article's author, André Levinson, was a dance critic, could it be about the artist's return as a stage designer to Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes? In a figurative sense, all three assumptions were true. However, there lies a good deal more behind the depicted return of Léon Bakst. This article explores those three possibilities within the context of the ambivalence created around the figure of Léon Bakst that swayed between the magic of Slav folklore and Western perceptions of the Oriental Other. Notes1. Anonymous, “Monografiia o L. Bakste.”2. Levinson, “Bakst (K vychodu v svete polnoi monografii ego tvorchestva).”3. Levinson, Bakst. The Story of the Artist's Life.4. Anonymous, “Monografiia o L. Bakste.”5. Levinson, Bakst. Histoire de Léon Bakst.6. Levinson, Léon Bakst.7. Levinson, “Bakst (K vychodu v svete polnoi monografii ego tvorchestva).”8. Ibid.9. Bakst, Serov i ia v Gretsii. Dorozhnye zapisi.10. O. V. [sic], “L. S. Bakst i teatralnyj kostium,” 32–3.11. Bakst, Serov I ia Gretsii.12. Fuks and Fuks, “Yiddish Publishing Activities,” 417–34.13. Marten-Finnis, “Outsourcing Culture,” 61–86.14. “Zum Geleit,” Zhar ptitsa No. 1 (August 1921) international part, 1; this mission statement is part of the German supplement only.15. Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennaia Biblioteka, “Otdel Literatury Russkogo Zarubezha,” 353.16. Loukomsky [sic], “Exposition des Artistes Russes,” n.p.17. Lukomskii, “Mir Iskusstva,” 17–18.18. Marten-Finnis, “Outsourcing Culture.”19. Kagan, “Russkaia Kniga Zagranitsei,” 3–5.20. Ibid.21. Marten-Finnis and Dukhan: “Dream and Experiment.”22. Winestein, “Quiet Revolutionaries.”23. Kennedy, The Mir Iskusstva Group and Russian Art, 340–1.24. Shestakov, Iskusstvo i mir.25. In contrast to Realism stressing the relevance of an artifact to its social and political environment Symbolism, prevailing during the 1890s until ca. 1910 provided an escape from everyday reality; it was concerned with the evocation of mood and subjective vision and used the intrinsic elements of painting such as colour, line, and light, besides fabrics, for highly emotional, psychological expression.26. Bridgman, “Mir Iskusstva Origins of the Ballets Russes,” 26–43.27. Bowlt, Theater of Reason, 25–26.28. Kiselev, “Graphic Design and Russian Art,” 50–67.29. Cherny, “Iskusstvo,” 6.30. Benois, Reminiscences, 160, 161.31. Healy and Lloyd, From Studio to Stage, 18.32. Spencer, “Women, Fashion and Decoration.”33. Spencer, “Erotic Dreams.”34. Järvinen, “The Russian Barnum.”35. Woodcock, “The Evidence of the Backcloth.”36. Ibid.37. Järvinen, “The Russian Barnum.”38. Ibid.39. Benois, Reminiscences, 294–7.40. Anonymous, “L.S. Bakst i teatralnyi kostium,” 32–3.41. Spencer, “Erotic Dreams.”42. Birnbaum, “Léon Bakst.”43. Carter, “The Art of Léon Bakst,” 525.44. Bowlt, Theater of Reason, 59.45. Einstein, “Léon Bakst,” 481.46. Bakst (A Conversation), “Dressing the woman of the Future,” quoted in Bowlt, Theater of Reason, 156.47. “Monografiia o L. Bakste.”48. Spencer, “Erotic Dreams.”49. Johnson, “Bakst on Classicism,” 171.50. Mayer, “Ida Rubinstein.”51. Péladan, “Les arts du theatre.”52. Moussinac, La Decoration Théatrale, 51–2.53. Davis, Ballets Russes Style.54. Thomas, “Le Peintre Bakst parle de Madame Ida Rubinstein.”55. See e.g. Bowlt, Russian Stage Design, 25.56. Roche, “Considerations on Leo [sic] Bakst's Art”, 59–78.57. Letter from Léon Bakst to Diaghilev dated 28 April 1922. Quoted from Pruzhan, Léon Bakst, 130.58. Golynets, Lev Bakst, 32–6.59. Boguslavskaia “Marc Chagall.”60. Järvinen, “The Russian Barnum.”61. Said, Orientalism, 17.62. Depository in a synagogue used specifically for worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics that were stored there before they could receive a proper cemetery burial.63. Currently in the possession of Cambridge University Library, T-S Ar. 36.68.64. “Cinéma. Un film sur la communauté juive interdit au Caire,” Le Monde, Paris, 14 March 2013, p. 23; Ingy Hassieb, “Egypt allows showing of ‘Jews in Egypt’ documentary,” Los Angeles Times, 22 March 2013.65. Svietlov, “The Art of Bakst,” 17.66. Reau, “Leo [sic] Bakst.”67. Tolstoj, “Pered kartinami Sudeikina.”68. Benois, “Khudozhestvennye pisma.”69. Evans, Stravinsky, 9.70. Ghéon, “Propos divers sur le ballet russe.”71. Misler, “Siamese Dancing and the Ballets Russes.”72. de Lustrac, “Exotisme et nationalisme.”73. Ibid.74. Schouvaloff, The Art of Ballets Russes, 39.75. Tolz, “Orientalism, Nationalism and Ethnic Diversity,” 127–50.76. 1200 meter high pass in North Georgia, Central Greater Caucasus.77. Quoted from “Thamar,” in Les Saisons Russes XXI, Program of Diaghilev Festival London Coliseum (12–17 April 2011), 14.78. Levinson, Bakst, 217.79. Kahane and Wild, Les Ballets Russes à l'Opéra, 23.80. “Léon Bakst tells of his Expulsion. Noted Painter Arriving in Paris from Russia. Says it All Seems Like a Huge Farce,” New York Times, 24 November 1912, Special Foreign Dispatches, 2.81. Ibid.82. Quoted in Spencer, “Erotic Dreams,” 169.83. New York Times, 24 November 1912.84. Ibid.85. Reau, “Leo [sic] Bakst.”86. Healy and Lloyd, From Studio to Stage, 26.87. Auclair, “Introduction.”88. Spencer, “Women, Fashion and Decoration,” 160–66.89. Healy and Lloyd, From Studio to Stage, 26.90. Ibid.91. Bakst, Serov I ia Gretsii, 57.92. Ibid., 9.93. Ibid., 10.94. Ibid., 45.95. Ibid., 33.96. Ibid., 25.97. Ibid., 9.98. Ibid.99. Ibid., 19.100. Ibid., 33.101. Ibid., 45.102. Ibid., 51103. Richard Capell, Daily Mail, 3 November 1921, 9.104. Levinson, Bakst, 108.105. Green, The Greco-Persian Wars, 3.106. http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/mediterranean/classicalgreece.html107. Kolesnikov-Jessop, “Walking in Nijinsky's Footsteps,” The New York Times, 23 June 2010.108. Tolz, “Orientalism, Nationalism and Ethnic Diversity.”109. Reau, “Leo [sic] Bakst,” 44.110. Pruzhan, Léon Bakst. Set and Costume Designs, 16.111. Bakst, “The Paths of Classicism in Art.”112. Levinson, Bakst, 146.113. Quoted in Massie, Land of the Firebird, 438.114. Mourey, “Le Robes de Bakst.”115. Sitwell, Great Morning! 258.116. West, “The Russian Ballet.”117. Lancaster, Home Sweet Home, 58.118. The Designs of Léon Bakst for The Sleeping Princess, 13119. Bénédite, “Welcoming speech,” n.p.120. “Ballet in five scenes after Perrault's tale The Sleeping Princess (La belle au bois dormant); music by P. Tchaikovsky, choreography by Marius Petitpa,” Programme of the Alhambra Theatre London, 2 November 1921, 3.121. Levinson, Bakst, 230–31.122. Svietlov, “The Art of Bakst,” 26.Additional informationSusanne Marten-Finnis studied Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Translating and Interpreting, and Russian Language and Literature at Leipzig University. Following her PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Tübingen, she became interested in the study of Jewish literary activities in Central and Eastern Europe. Her academic career includes 10 years at Queen's University Belfast, UK. Since 2005 Susanne has held the Chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Portsmouth. Her publications include Der Feuervogel als Kunstzeitschrift. Žar ptica. Russische Bildwelten in Berlin (1921–1926) (Vienna: Böhlau, 2012) (original in German); Vilna as a Centre of the Modern Jewish Press, 1840–1928: Aspirations––Challenges––Progress (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2004); Sprachinseln. Jiddische Publizistik in Vilna, London und Berlin (1880–1920) (Cologne: Böhlau, 1999) Co-authored with Heather Valencia (original in German); and Pressesprache zwischen Stalinismus und Demokratie (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994).
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