XXX And the Changing Ballet Aesthetic; 1828-32
1984; Edinburgh University Press; Volume: II; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/1290778
ISSN1750-0095
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Art and Culture Studies
ResumoBallet criticism was a well developed activity by the time XXX began to write for Journal des Debats, a daily newspaper of liberal persuasion which was widely read by the bourgeoisie. For more than fifty years papers had been reviewing ballet and other theatrical events on a regular basis. Ballet reviews usually appeared after a new ballet, a debut, a benefit or a final performance. In 1800 some papers were printing upwards of 25 reviews per year, though by the 1830s numbers of articles decreased as word lengths increased (to roughly 2,000 for a new ballet). The five years XXX worked for Journal des Debats represent a relatively short period compared to the long careers of writers such as Jules Janin (1804-74), Theophile Gautier (1811-72), Hippolyte Prevost (1808-73) or S . . . , all of whom wrote for at least two decades. Nevertheless these years were of great significance to the development of ballet and ballet criticism, for the accumulated benefits of 30 years of intensive technical experimentation gave rise to a style of dancing in the late 1820s which was recognized as new and outstanding by critics and audiences alike. The appreciation of this style demanded from critics non-traditional ways of assessing the art, and some responded with a new aesthetic emphasis. A brief survey of the development of dance is necessary if the significance of the events of the late 1820s is to be understood. Dance in the eighteenth century inherited from the court of Louis XIV an emphasis on grace, elegance, dignity and nobility. The execution of difficult technical feats was secondary. This emphasis on the quality of dancing was reinforced by a demand that art should edify, a requirement intensified towards the end of the century by the growing dominance of neo-classical thought. Neo-classicism placed
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