Reading Visual Art: 200 Dancing, myth and folk

There are few greater challenges to the figurative artist than painting figures in movement when they’re dancing. This week’s two articles about reading visual art consider the significance of rising to that challenge, and how we should read that dancing. I have already looked at paintings associated with death in the Danse Macabre, and won’t be revisiting that here.

As a rhythmic physical activity, dance has long been associated with the natural rhythm of time, particularly the hours of the day.

Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), A Dance to the Music of Time (c 1634-6), oil on canvas, 82.5 × 104 cm, The Wallace Collection, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Nicolas Poussin’s brilliant Dance to the Music of Time (c 1634-6) shows four young people dancing, who are sometimes interpreted as being the seasons. That probably isn’t the case, as they’re most likely Poverty (male at the back, facing away), Labour (closest to Time and looking at him), Wealth (in golden skirt and sandals, also looking at Time), and Pleasure (blue and red clothes) who fixes the viewer with a knowing smile. Opposite Pleasure is a small herm of Janus, whose two faces look to the past and the future. Above them, in the heavens, Aurora (goddess of the dawn) precedes Apollo’s sun chariot, on which the large ring represents the Zodiac. Behind the chariot are the Horai, the hours of the day.

Gaetano Previati (1852–1920), Dance of the Hours (1899), oil and tempera on canvas, 134 x 200 cm, Gallerie di Piazza Scala, Milan, Italy. Wikimedia Commons.

Gaetano Previati’s Dance of the Hours from 1899 shows the Horai dancing in the air around a golden ring, with the orbs of the moon in the foreground and the sun far beyond. Every fine brushstroke is rich in meaning: in the Horai they give the sensation of movement, elsewhere they form a third dimension, or give texture to the ether.

In addition to this association with the Horai, when they’re not playing their musical instruments, the Muses are often depicted as dancing.

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), Parnassus (Mars and Venus) (1496-97), oil on canvas, 159 x 192 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Andrea Mantegna’s Mars and Venus, known better as Parnassus, (1496-97) refers to the classical myth of the affair between Mars and Venus, the latter being married to Vulcan, who caught them in bed together and cast a fine net around them for the other gods to come and mock their adultery. The lovers are shown standing together on a flat-topped rock arch, as the Muses dance below. To the left of Mars’ feet is Venus’ child Cupid aiming his blowpipe at Vulcan’s genitals, as he works at his forge in the cave at the left. At the right is Mercury, messenger of the gods, with his caduceus and Pegasus the winged horse. At the far left is Apollo making music for the Muses on his lyre.

Hans Thoma (1839–1924), Eight Dancing Women with Bird Bodies (1886), oil on panel, 38 × 58.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

More unusual is Hans Thoma’s Eight Dancing Women with Bird Bodies from 1886, which most probably shows the sirens dancing to their alluring voices.

Putti and their relatives such as amorini are also prone to dance, usually in the sky, presumably with the joy of love.

Hans Thoma (1839–1924), Spring Fairytale, An Allegory (1898), oil on canvas, 120 × 75 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Thoma’s Spring Fairytale, An Allegory (1898) shows a woman who may have been influenced by the figure of Flora in Botticelli’s famous Primavera (c 1482). She’s surrounded by meadow flowers, two small fawns, and sundry winged putti dancing in the sky.

Similarly, the little people in ‘faery’ paintings are adept at formation dancing.

Richard Dadd (1817–1886), Come unto These Yellow Sands (1842), oil on canvas, 55.3 × 77.5 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Richard Dadd’s Come unto These Yellow Sands (1842) refers to William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, rather than A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and was exhibited with the descriptive quotation:
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands,
Curt’sied when you have, and kissed
(The wild waves whist).
Foot it featly here and there,
And sweet sprites the burden bear.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898), Death and the Maiden (1872), oil on canvas, 146 x 107 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Wikimedia Commons.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’ Death and the Maiden from 1872 is most probably based on Schubert’s song of the same title, expressing the inevitability of death, almost in terms of vanitas, that had last been popular during the Dutch Golden Age. This linked with the recent war, when so many young French and Prussian people had died, and with contemporary scourges such as tuberculosis resulting in so many deaths of young people. The maidens are seen dancing together, and picking wild flowers, as the personification of death is apparently asleep on the grass at the lower left, his black cloak wrapped around him and his hand resting on the shaft of his scythe.

This leads us to country and folk dancing, which in northern Europe has long been associated with traditional mid-summer feasts.

Jules Breton (1827–1906), The Feast of Saint John (1875), oil, dimensions not known, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Wikimedia Commons.

One of Jules Breton’s major paintings from the 1870s is The Festival of Saint-Jean, shown in the Salon of 1875; I’ve been unable to locate a suitable image of that finished painting, but this study for it, The Feast of Saint John (1875) may give you an idea of its magnificence.

Anders Zorn (1860–1920), Midsummer Dance (1897), oil on canvas, 140 x 98 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden. Wikimedia Commons.

Anders Zorn’s major painting of 1897 was Midsummer Dance, capturing the festivities in his home town in Sweden, with women and men dancing outdoors in their uniform country dress.

Teodor Axentowicz (1859–1938), Kołomyjka, Oberek Taniec ludowy przed domem (Oberek Folk Dance in Front of a House) (1895), oil on canvas, 85 x 112.5 cm, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland. Wikimedia Commons.

The title of Teodor Axentowicz’s painting of folk dancing, Oberek Folk Dance in Front of a House, appears confusing. Although it names this dance as the Oberek, the second most popular Polish folk dance after the polka, the first word Kołomyjka makes it clear that this is what’s now known as kolomyika (Ukrainian: кoлoмийкa). That’s a combination of a fast and vigorous folk dance with music and rhymed verse. It originated in the Hutsul town of Kolomyia in Ukraine, but has also become popular in north-eastern Slovenia and parts of Poland.

Hans Thoma (1839–1924), Children Dancing in a Ring (1872), oil on canvas, 161 × 115 cm , Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Hans Thoma’s eight Children Dancing in a Ring (1872) are set in a Bavarian alpine meadow, with pastures and high mountains in the far distance.

Tomorrow I’ll start with the most formalised expression of dancing, at the ballet.