Ballet Russes I

August Macke was a German Expressionist painter. He was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art: he saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements that were forming in the rest of Europe. Like a true artist of his time, Macke knew how to integrate into his painting the elements of the avant-garde that most interested him.

Since his days as a student in Düsseldorf, Macke harbored a special love for dance. In Cologne in 1912, he saw the ballet Carnaval, set to music by Robert Schumann. It was performed by the famous Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, with superfamous Vaslav Nijinsky in the leading role as Harlequin. Macke attended the performance several times, creating no less than four paintings, a sculpture, and around forty drawings on this subject. In Ballet Russes I, he allows the viewer to relive the dramatic climax of the piece: the dashing Harlequin’s abduction of the coquettish Columbine. The third figure, Pierrot, who has been abandoned, raises his arms plaintively—a gesture echoed by the caryatid below the parapet of the loge. The woman with the hat at the right serves as a compositional link between the darkened audience and the brilliantly lit stage. In its formal reduction and strong colors, Ballet Russes I bears witness to the strong influence the Fauves exerted on Macke.

P.S. Meet here Paula Modersohn-Becker, an unknown Expressionist female painter!