''Dance'' (''La Danse'') is a painting made by

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

in 1910, at the request of Russian businessman and art collector

Sergei Shchukin Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin (; 10 January 1936) was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Early life and family Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin was born on in Moscow, one of ten c ...

, who bequeathed the large decorative panel to the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...

, in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. The composition of dancing figures is commonly recognized as "a key point of (Matisse's) career and in the development of modern painting". A preliminary version of the work, sketched by Matisse in 1909 as a study for the work, resides at

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, where it has been labeled ''Dance (I)''. ''La Danse'' was first exhibited at the Salon d'Automne of 1910 (1 October – 8 November), Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris.

''Dance (I)''

In March 1909, Matisse painted a preliminary version of this work, known as ''Dance (I)''. It was a compositional study and uses paler colors and less detail. The painting was highly regarded by the artist who once called it "the overpowering climax of luminosity"; it is also featured in the background of Matisse's ''Nasturtiums with the Painting "Dance I"'', (1912). It was donated by Nelson A. Rockefeller in honor of Alfred H. Barr Jr. to the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York.

''Dance''

''Dance'' is a large decorative panel, painted with a companion piece, ''

Music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

'', specifically for the Russian businessman and art collector

, with whom Matisse had a long association. Until the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

of 1917, this painting hung together with ''Music'' on the staircase of Shchukin's

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

mansion. The painting shows five dancing figures, painted in a strong red, set against a very simplified green landscape and deep blue sky. It reflects Matisse's incipient fascination with

primitive art Tribal art is the visual arts and material culture of indigenous peoples. Also known as non-Western art or ethnographic art, or, controversially, primitive art, Dutton, Denis, Tribal Art'. In Michael Kelly (editor), '' Encyclopedia of Aesthetics' ...

, and uses a classic

Fauvist Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

color palette: the intense warm colors against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and

hedonism Hedonism is a family of Philosophy, philosophical views that prioritize pleasure. Psychological hedonism is the theory that all human behavior is Motivation, motivated by the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. As a form of Psycholo ...

. The painting is often associated with the "Dance of the Young Girls" from

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

's famous 1913 musical work ''

The Rite of Spring ''The Rite of Spring'' () is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky ...

''. The composition or arrangement of dancing figures is reminiscent of Blake's watercolour " Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing" from 1786. ''Dance'' is commonly recognized as "a key point of (Matisse's) career and in the development of modern painting". It resides in the

in St. Petersburg. It was loaned to

H'ART Museum H'ART Museum is an art museum located on the banks of the Amstel river in Amsterdam. Formerly a satellite of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg, Russia, the museum cut ties with the Hermitage after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. H ...

for a period of six weeks from April 1 to May 9, 2010.Hermitage.nl �
De Dans

''La Danse'' (''Verve'')

The French art periodical ''Verve'' published a lithographic version of the Hermitage ''La Danse'' in its Volume 1, Issue 4, January–March 1939. On page 50 of this issue, it is stated: "Henri Matisse has painted for ''Verve'' a replica of his large painting, ''La Danse'' . . .. This is reproduced lithographically on the following pages ook-ended by two linocuts of skaters in motion" The lithography was carried out by Mourlot Freres (Paris). This lithographic version is, with margins, 14" × 25" and therefore much smaller than the painted versions. The lithographic version is hardly a "replica" of the Hermitage version, as several differences can be readily observed: (1) the green area in the lithographic version is a lime green. (2) the sky is virtually black (but with some blue near borders and edges of figures), (3) color areas are internally uniform, eschewing any painterly effects, (4) the lines in the figures are thicker, giving the image - with its uniform color areas – somewhat the appearance of a woodcut, and (5) the entire image is surrounded by a "frame" consisting of flat yellow, blue, and black color areas. The entire lithograph has the look of a genre that Matisse invented in the late 1930s, namely, the colored-paper cut-out and lithographic versions thereof.

Notes and references

External links

Two versions of ''The Dance''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dance 1910 paintings Post-impressionist paintings Paintings in the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Paintings in the Hermitage Museum Paintings by Henri Matisse Nude paintings of women Dance in art Oil on canvas paintings

''Dance (I)''

''Dance''

''La Danse'' (''Verve'')

See also

Notes and references

External links