<g>execution</g>; the brush became a means of interpreting a history perceived
with a sort of sentimental homesickness mixed with irony. Is it
surprising, then, that the retrospective attitude got the upper hand
more and more, and that the offshoots of this movement were sacrificed
to a propaganda for the past?
As a matter of fact, discovery followed upon discovery. Preceding
generations, going into Russian extremes, became infatuated with the
idea of progress. Accordingly they either ignored or misunderstood their
national past. Then, under Nicholas I the czar-gendarme, the old
architecture was disfigured by German builders. As for the unique and
grandiose beauty of the structures in the style of the Empire and of
Louis XVI,--buildings without parallel in the occidental world--these
were confounded by the public with that implacable hatred that it bore
toward the regime that had erected and that was maintaining them. An
educated Russian could not possibly find anything beautiful about the
Winter Palace, this fine masterpiece of Rastrelli; he would decline to
admire the Admiralty Building because the defeat of Tsushima was
prepared within its formidable walls. The writer of this sketch was
himself brought up in this atmosphere of hateful contempt for the
“official ugliness” and the “style of the barrack.”
Benois and his friends discovered this slandered beauty and became
enamoured of it. Later on we shall see how Bakst discharged his debt of
gratitude to old Petrograd, this wonderful city which rose miraculously
from the surface of the waves.
But the surprises were not yet over. In his history of modern Russian
painting, Benois with boldness and with charming eloquence recalled the
founders of this style of painting, the portrait-painters of the
eighteenth century, especially Levitzky and Borovikovsky. He cast
[Illustration: XV
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR HINDU BALLET (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XVI
MME. IDA RUBINSTEIN AS ST. SEBASTIAN]
[Illustration: XVII
THE IMPERIAL PALACE (“THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN”)]
[Illustration: XVIII
MME. IDA RUBINSTEIN IN “THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. SEBASTIAN”]
[Illustration: STAGE DECORATION FOR D’ANNUNZIO’S TRAGEDY “LA
PISANELLA”]
overboard all existing estimates and showed up the emptiness of the
“wanderers” school. But his justified and impetuous enthusiasm
proved--or nearly so--the undoing of “Mir Iskousstva”.
The magazine deteriorated before one’s eyes. Side by side with it Benois
brought out a collection, or analytical inventory, called “The Art
Treasures of Russia”. The creator became a collector. Ceaselessly he and
his friends collected. Bric-a-brac occupied a prominent place. Icons of
the school of Novgorod were dug up, likewise family portraits done by
serfs in the old households of the nobility, mahogany furniture dating
back to the Peace of Tilsit, and popular likenesses.
For a time Diaghileff allowed himself to drift. As usual he treated this
craze for the past on a grand scale. He even resumed it in a definite
effort of which I shall speak later. But for the present he and his
friends felt themselves reduced to the role of custodians of a museum
or of benevolent guides, a thing that was repugnant to his ambition and
his temperament. He looked for a way out. The stage alone seemed to
offer it.
Naturalism had just won its greatest triumphs, thanks to the Moscow Art
Theater. But if comedy was taken possession of by the naturalists, the
opera and the ballet could react. Already Mamontov, the famous mæcenas
who discovered Shaliapin, had ordered stage decorations from the Moscow
painters, Vroubel and Golovin. At Petrograd everything was given a
trial. I cannot, without exceeding the limits set me, speak at greater
length of what became of this movement; some day, perhaps, I shall be
able to strike its balance. As a matter of fact, I have already had to
enlarge considerably upon my subject in order to set the subject of my
sketch down in his proper surroundings, in that unique atmosphere,
created by historical and personal contingencies, which is ignored for
the most part by the Russian people, and which entirely escapes the
attention of the foreign reader. Besides, this union of a handful of men
who were determined to restore the artistic greatness of their country
was so brotherly, so fraternal that it would be wrong to differentiate
between their respective roles and artificially to isolate their
efforts.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: AN ALMEE. “SHEHERAZADE” BALLET]
THE THREE KNOCKS
Resolutely Diaghileff turned his co=workers towards the theater. The
time was propitious. Vsevolojsky, the director of the Imperial theaters,
had just resigned his position which he had filled so brilliantly.
Himself a dilettante nobleman and a man of good taste he had personally
designed most of the costumes that, under his direction, were built for
the ballet and the operas. He had to a large extent reconstructed the
Russian and foreign repertoire, devoting himself to Tchaikovsky and
making a place for Wagner. A galaxy of stars surrounded him. Marius
Petitpas, the greatest living choreographer, exercised his successful
dictatorship over the ballet. A brilliant young woman, just out of
school, was about to eclipse the celebrated Italian virtuosos. Highly
respected painters--the Shishkovs and the Botcharovs--who were experts
at the art of stage decoration, executed the ideas of their director. In
short, he did everything. Was it his fault that his activity fell within
the worst epoch of a century that was called the stupid century? Is he
to be blamed that the sources of his inspiration and the quality of the
documents consulted by him bore the marks of that terrible decadence of
the artistic instinct of which the year 1900 marks the climax and
presages its end? However that may be, he prepared a glorious end for an
obsolete art. The old opera passed away in beauty.
Yet with all the extraordinary perfection of execution, a certain
uneasiness was germinating. Vague manifestations of independence were
threatening the rigorous traditional discipline. In the midst of this
crisis the helm was given to a young man. Prince Serge Volkonsky, who
had distinguished himself in the Court theater by his splendid bearing
and his clever acting, belonged to one of the noblest Russian families.
His grandfather had taken part in the famous “Decembrist insurrection”
of 1825; his grandmother had followed her husband to his Siberian
convict prison with a devotion that inspired Nekrasov to write a
celebrated poem. Volkonsky let the dead bury their dead and from the
very first made his appeal to the young men and women--to Diaghileff and
his friends. They plunged into their work: a revival of Delibes’
“Sylvia” was decided upon.
The Mir Iskousstva painters agreed to make their first attack upon the
stage together. Accordingly, they divided up the work by acts, Alexander
Benois leading--Benois who even today, after his successful
collaboration with Stravinsky, retains a real feeling of reverence for
Delibes whom he places, without hesitation, in a class with Wagner.
Bakst and Serov also collaborated.
But the opera was never put on. There is a veritable hoode about this
“Sylvia”, which kept haunting the Russian artists and yet was never
produced. The late Andrianov, an exceedingly good dancer, was about to
show an abridgement or sketch of this piece, but the attempt came to
naught; Fokine dreamed about it vainly for many years.
As to this first attempt at cooperative work, it failed for personal
reasons. From the beginning Volkonsky felt his prestige as manager
[Illustration: XIX
THE “WOMEN OF GOOD HUMOUR” BALLET. RINALDO. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XX
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR “PHÆDRA”. (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XXI
A COSTUME. “NARCISSUS” BALLET]
[Illustration: XXII
THE PILGRIM (“BLUE GOD” BALLET). (GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: DRAWING OF A LIVING MODEL FOR A PICTURE]
threatened by the consuming energy and the unscrupulous ambition of his
“employé”, Diaghileff. To be sure, Diaghileff, conscious of his actual
superiority, carried himself as though he were the boss. Fearing he
would be supplanted by this <g>maire du palais</g>, the director requested
Diaghileff to resign voluntarily. Diaghileff would do nothing of the
sort. Exasperated, Volkonsky promptly discharged him, by applying the
famous “paragraph three” of the rules and regulations to his case, by
the terms of which the “government secretary Diaghileff” was forever
barred from all public appearance. Who knows but that to this act of
administrative jealousy we owe the grandiose effort of the “Russian
Season”? Excluded from official life, Diaghileff, the great <g>condottiere</g>
of art, could unfold his full power!
Diaghileff left, his friends followed, a great gap closed in about the
director, and several months later, not being able to have the last say
in a quarrel with a star who was both famous and powerful, Volkonsky had
himself to resign and leave.
Bakst, however, had not participated in this boycott of the prince; he
plunged into his work for its own sake. But it was not at the Marie
Theater that he made his real <g>debut</g>. Grand-Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch
had brought back with him from one of his frequent trips to Paris the
text for a pantomime, the author of which was Fèvre, the comedian. This
play, The Heart of the Marchioness”, found favor with the directors. It
was decided to play it at the Hermitage Theater, an auditorium reserved
exclusively for the Imperial family and the members of the Court. It was
connected with the Winter Palace by a passage. The French actors of the
Michel Theater, under the direction of the <g>maître de ballet</g>, Enrico
Cecchetti, executed the pantomime before an audience of grand dukes and
chamberlains.
Vladimir entrusted the scenery to Bakst. The latter conceived a
semicircular pavilion as stage setting. For costumes he went straight to
authentic sources and utilized the elements for devising a good
ensemble. He brought a new idea to the theater: that of style. That is,
at least, what eye-witnesses claim; nothing has been preserved of this
work of his.
As the pantomime was tremendously successful, the Emperor had this show
put on at a gala benefit performance in the Marie Theater--and this is
how Bakst for the first time appeared on the most famous of all Russian
stages. This winter of 1900, then, when for the first time he went upon
the stage that, according to Goethe, “means the universe”, decided his
future. Who could today imagine what the fate of modern scenerie would
be without the contribution of Bakst? And who could conceive of a Bakst
remaining a stranger to the theater? It took him ten years to find his
place. The three knocks struck home. For the first time the curtain
rises over a work of Bakst. Ten years later Paris will crown
“Sheherazade”.
THE THEBAN GATE
Meanwhile Colonel Teliakovsky had succeeded Volkonsky. He owed his
appointment as director to the fact that he had been in the Horseguards
with Baron (later Count) Freedericksz, minister of the Court. A
ludicrous figure he was--this horseman promoted
[Illustration: A ROAD IN THE FIELDS (SAVOY). DRAWING]
to be stage manager--, without either ideas or prestige and consequently
unable to contribute anything of value. But he gave others a free
hand--and that is a great deal during a period of fermentation and
revival.
Thus, soon after his appointment, he authorized an experiment of
far-reaching importance. Alexander Theater was preparing to bring out
Euripides’ tragedy, “Hippolytus,” the attempt being made to produce it
as nearly like the ancient original as possible. The young stage
director, Osarovsky, hoped to make a grand <g>coup</g>. The play was translated
by Merejkovsky in exceedingly beautiful verse and with an extremely
intense modern feeling. Among the Russian intellectuals of that time,
Nietzschean ideas were held in great fascination. Now, in this early
masterpiece the philosopher had transfigured the whole conception of the
spirit of the ancients. Under the marble-like and placid guise of the
Greece of Apollo’s time he had revealed the Dionysiac ecstacy, the
pathetic distress and the mystic impulse of the masses. What had been
considered as the key to their souls, viz., this sovereign and plastic
art, was but a sham emancipation.
For a quarter of a century the government had tried to curb turbulent
youth by means of the classical ferule. Greek was loathed as much as was
the royal blue of the gendarme uniform. But the translation by
Merejkovsky and the enthusiastic eloquence of Professor Zielinski,
scholar and poet, who commented upon it as “the birth of tragedy”,
caused great surprise and soon extreme fondness for it. It was
necessary, however, in order to bring about this rehabilitation of
antiquity, to make use of the best possible medium, namely, its
consecration by the stage.
The scenery and costumes for “Hippolytus” were ordered from Bakst. After
an interval of four years there followed “Oedipus at Colonnæ” and
Sophocles’ “Antigone”.
It was an arduous task indeed, for the problem was that of adapting the
essential dualism of the Greek tragedy--its lyric choruses and its
active players, its dithyrambs and its dialogue, Dionysius and
Apollo--to the arrangement of the modern theater, with its odd-shaped
stage, like a box opened toward the side of the spectators. Bakst made
the attempt. Once having entered upon the road to Thebes he solved the
enigma of the Sphinx without stumbling and forced open the gate. By
raising the background of the stage he made the foreground available for
the <g>proscenium</g>, with the altar of the god of the tragedy in the middle.
On this <g>proscenium</g> the choruses executed evolutions, the choristers
chanted the strophes and anti-strophes rhythmically, while the ensemble
of supernumeraries scanned certain final verses. At the end the leader
of the chorus would ascend the steps which connected the <g>proscenium</g> with
the platform in order
[Illustration: XXIII
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR ACT 4th OF D’ANNUNZIO’S “ST. SEBASTIAN”
(GOUACHE)]
[Illustration: XXIV
THE CZAREVITCH’S COSTUME (“THE BIRD OF FIRE”)]
[Illustration: XXV
PROJECT OF STAGE DECORATIONS FOR “SLEEPING BEAUTY”]
[Illustration: XXVI
STAGE DECORATIONS FOR THE VAULT SCENE (“ST. SEBASTIAN”)]
to pronounce Fate’s supreme sentence upon the protagonist who had been
prostrated by the gods.
Thus, for the first time, an attempt was made at a logical dissociation
of the rhythmic and dramatic elements of the ancient theater. Years were
[Illustration: A BRANCH. SKETCH]
to elapse before the German Max Reinhardt invented the monumental
staircase and the <g>proscenium</g> of Lysistrata; and still a longer period
until that same intrepid pioneer let loose upon the arena of a circus
the hysterical multitude of a chorus of wild persons. Bakst was the
first, not only in Russia, but in the world, to try to work out a stage
and a conventional plastic language that was in accord with our modern
conception of ancient art.
The Greeks who faced each other in the tragic dilemmas of “Hippolytus”
and especially of “Oedipus” were no longer those classical personages
[Illustration: A ROAD IN UPPER SAVOY. DRAWING]
with rounded gestures, draped in white, blue or red tunics that looked
like a schoolboy’s drawing after a plaster=cast relief of Phideas. They
displayed the angular shoulders of the warriors on one of Aegina’s
bas=reliefs; the conical helmet with a visor protecting the brow and the
nose, as well as the metal shin protectors, tended to simplify the
lines of the actor. On the other hand the garments were brightcolored;
the purple robe of Creon was resplendent with its ornamentation copied
from Ionian pottery. The sixth century dispossessed the fifth, archaic
art crowded out the classical canons, the intense colors of many hues
[Illustration: PROJECT OF LANDSCAPE (UPPER SAVOY). DRAWING]
obtained preference over the marble whiteness of the statues. People
breathed again; they felt themselves freed.
The great age of Pericles, which for three centuries had been exploited
by every academy of Europe, which had been vulgarised, debased,
enervated by the Alma=Tademas and the Siemiradskis, seemed gloomy,
formal, deathly cold. Besides, an art that is perfect and definite, and
that has reached its zenith affords no occasion for further research,
for further development. It condemns its followers either to imitating
it or else to diminishing it. Instinctively Bakst took issue with the
academic rules. The fact that he possessed this divination of the right
road to take is what placed him several years ahead of his
contemporaries.
For he was quite alone in his passion for this Greek antiquity which at
every new turn seemed different from every preconceived notion. His
friends of the “Mir Iskousstva” were entirely taken up by their craze
for rococo curios or for the majesty of imperial architecture;
Diaghileff was looking for Russian portraits of the eighteenth century
and was preparing the famous exposition of the Tauride Palace; Alexander
Benois was living at Versailles, fascinated by the sight of regal
splendor. The only one who followed his efforts with solicitude was
Serov. So that, when Bakst felt the urgent need of testing his
intuitions by direct observations, of knowing positively what he had
merely guessed at, he succeeded in persuading the great portraitist to
join him on his voyage of exploration into archaic Greece--a journey
that was one of the outstanding events of his intellectual life.
Our great master has reserved to himself the task of some day telling in
detail the thrilling events of this journey. With that devotion to
friendship that is characteristic of him he has kept a minute account of
the utterances and impressions of Serov’s manly and delicate mind. It
will make a splendid volume some day.
Serov had guided Bakst’s first steps. This Greek expedition was Bakst’s
return gift. With the help of these antique realities, which served him
as striking arguments, he turned the tormented realist, the sensitive
psychologist that Serov was, to a study of syntheticized painting
expressing itself in broad and severe forms. And so Serov, pupil of
Repine the “wanderer”, portraitist of important Moscow merchants and of
great Russian intellectuals, brought back from this voyage a memorable
“Abduction of Europa”. His days, however, were counted. And once again
Bakst had to continue his solitary way unaided.
[Illustration: XXVII
“TERROR ANTIQUUS”.
FIRST GOLDEN MEDAL. 1911 UNIVERSAL EXHIBITION (BRUSSELS)]
[Illustration: XXVIII
“TERROR ANTIQUUS” (DETAILED)]
[Illustration: A ROAD IN THE FIELDS. DRAWING]
TERROR ANTIQUUS
Bakst did not go to Greece in order to say his “prayer upon the
Acropolis”, to venerate the Attic serenity, “the sublime grace and the
sweet grandeur” discovered by Winkelmann and Goethe. He visited hot
Argos, and Mycenæ with its tomb of the Atrides which several years
before had inspired the poet d’Annunzio with the panting dialogue of his
“Dead City”; Mycenæ whose gates called forth in him something like a
homesickness for Egypt. He strolled about Crete, among the remnants of
the palace of Minos, dreaming about Medea the Sorceress, about the
Minotaur conquered by Theseus, about the monsters, the Titans, all those
brutal or mystic figures--the Gorgons, the Eurynies--who by their
incessant assaults shook the pedestal where the Divine Archer defied
them. The fantastic and passionate conception of the stage decorations
for the Greek tragedies and ballets which were to earn such applause in
Paris had its origin in these meditations of his in the occult presence
of Hellas’ clear sky.
But there was something else that made his heart beat fast as he
strolled among the cliffs of Crete. That was the wind which blew up from
the shore--a wind that was perfumed and that seemed to come from the
vast Orient hidden in the fog. Who knows but that in such moments the
call of the ancient Asiatic was indistinctly awakened in this Occidental
Jew? Certain it is that underneath the chisel and the polishing tool of
Greek culture he discovered the lavish, ardent and sensual oriental raw
material. And the archaic sculptures, massive, with rigid frontlets,
straightway transported him to Egypt. Then, too, his readings--Maspéro
and the book by Fustel de Coulanges about the “Antique City” which had
captivated him--confirmed his theories. He therefore did not hesitate to
take from the Egyptians the ornaments in live colors with which he
embellished the costumes for his “Oedipus”.
One cannot help but wonder, when one lets “Cleopatra”, “Helen of Sparta”
and “St. Sebastian” pass in review, what would have happened if this
extraordinary man had not been born on the banks of the Neva and in the
fullness of the nineteenth century! Would he, under the pharaohs, have
added new figures to the dancers on the tombs of Sakkarah? Or earlier
still, would he, as a Phœnician sailor, in his leisure moments have
designed the figures on the prows of the triremes of Hamilcar? He would
well have fitted into the brilliant, arid, implacable atmosphere which
forms the setting for Flaubert’s “Salambô”. But enough of these
digressions.
What he had observed and meditated upon during these feverish weeks he
intended to mass together in one single work, a decorative synthesis and
at the same time a philosophical symbol: Terror antiquus, ancient
terror!
In the foreground of the picture, cut off by the frame at knee-length, a
colossal archaic Cypris rises. The hair of the idol is draped about its
head in fluted curls; the large eyes with their distended pupils have a
magic fixedness; a ferocious grin plays about the corners of the lips.
The goddess carries a blue dove in the palm of her hand. Powerfully
modeled, she turns her back to the picture, to the fury of the elements,
to the panic distress of men. Impassive, implacable she turns away from
this world which is tumbling. Behind the statue the eye
[Illustration: A BLIND ALLEY IN FIESOLE. DRAWING]
beholds a landscape, an archipelago seen from a high elevation, and
displayed like a map in relief; cliffs submerged by the rising waves;
diminutive humanity seeking refuge under the porticos of the temples and
attempting to escape the inevitable; an enormous stroke of lighting
rending the air. It is the twilight of the gods, the last judgment of
the Greek world, the end of Atlantis.
With its mysterious mixture of congealed grandeur and mad anguish the
panel, when it was exhibited (if I am not mistaken) with the Association
of Russian Artists, created something of a sensation. People flocked to
the lectures of Viatcheslav Ivanov, the poet=philosopher and author of a
treaty on Dionysios and the religion of the gods, who explained this
Greek Apocalypse.
As for Bakst, this work of his constituted a striking but isolated
episode in his life as an artist. Man of the theater that he was, his
aim was that of utilizing and transforming <g>space</g> in accordance with his
vision; here he transformed a surface, in the sense of material and
philosophic depth.
THE SPIRAL ROAD
Into this period of researches and visions in Greece falls many an
episode that is entirely different but no less significant. Since 1903
Bakst had been using the ballet of the “Dolls’ Fairy” on the imperial
stage. It furnished the prototype of those romantic productions, of
those entertainments for children which are colorless reflections of
Hoffmann’s Coppelius or of Andersen’s tales and in which one sees toys
awakened to an artificial and mechanical life by a magic
wand--entertainments, furthermore, which have become vapid by their
being produced on innumerable German stages. Also, he rendered homage
thereby to that “old Petrograd” that was dear to the members of “Mir
Iskousstva”.