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Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 5
Lesson 5: SculptureCarpeaux, Dance
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Dance, 1865-69, marble, 420 x 298 cm. (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Commissioned by Charles Garnier for the facade of L'Opéra. In 1964 it was replaced by a copy executed by Paul Belmondo. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- What is a Sea Nymph? because i hear it said a lot in art history.(7 votes)
- What's up with the horizontal line running through the hips of the two front nymphs?(3 votes)
- At2:59, who is the other lady behind the genie of dance? Is she another nymph? At0:56, Beth says that there are five nymphs.-padma(2 votes)
- I think Beth was just counting the nymphs she saw from the front (5) but there is a 6th one tucked in the back!(1 vote)
- What colour was the statue painted? (at about3:30)(4 votes)
- That looks white to me. Victor and Kaley, you two didn't even answer the question.(5 votes)
- Who is the baby on the floor between the feet of the dancers?(1 vote)
- I'd like to think of the baby as a representation of future dancers, or those still learning the craft.(1 vote)
- Is it known who the models were for the two dancers on the right side?(1 vote)
- Who carved this?(1 vote)
- Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux carved this dynamic sculpture over a period of four years (1865-1869).(1 vote)
- how long did it take to build this sculpture(0 votes)
Video transcript
(jazz music) Dr. Zucker: We're at the Musee d'Orsay and we're looking at Carpeaux's The Dance, which had been commissioned
in 1865 by Garnier for the exterior of the new opera house that was being built
under Napoleon the Third. This is the moment when
Paris is being reborn as the modern city that we now know it as. Dr. Harris: There's no
way no to feel thrilled when looking at this sculpture. It just expresses such
joyousness and pleasure. Dr. Zucker: Exuberance. Dr. Harris: Yeah, representing dance, but there's none of that
sense of discipline and rigor that one would think about
with classical ballet, which was what was being performed
inside of the opera house. Dr. Zucker: It's almost out of control. Dr. Harris: We have this
figure that represents dance that's wildly flinging
his hands and arms up with a tambourine in his
right hand, the genie, the allegorical figure representing dance and these five nymphs dancing
in a circle around him, breaking out of the space
of the sculpture in a way that I think of as very baroque in its
occupation and utilization of space. Dr. Zucker: Maybe because it was
baroque and it was not neoclassical, this sculpture actually received
a lot of negative criticism. It was part of the
naturalism and the honesty of the body and its
pleasure, but also the way that it broke beyond
the bounds of the space that it should be defining. Dr. Harris: You can see how it didn't look like an idealized neoclassical sculpture. The figures are grinning. There's just an emotional quality here that you don't get in
neoclassical sculpture. Dr. Zucker: It's really erupting. Dr. Harris: If you look at them having
such fun and their hair flying back. There's a real sense of wind
and atmosphere and movement, even the way the genie of dance
has wings and drapery flutter back, but this amazingly complex composition that he makes look really simple, I think. Dr. Zucker: You mentioned
before that the nymphs, that these women are circling the genie and we certainly see it as a circle, but they're also brought forward,
so it's not really a circle and what Carpeaux's able to do is
achieve two things simultaneously. He's able to create that
ring around the genie and we really do get that
sense, but the same time, there's this wonderful kind of
intimacy between the figures and this kind of pleasure
of their bodies together and that's the collapsing of that circle. Dr. Harris: We have a figure
springing forward vertically and then from the base of the sculpture, two figures that fan out diagonally. It's incredibly unstable, it comes
down on that upside down pyramid. Dr. Zucker: There is a
really delicate balance. The centrifugal force of
the figures is in danger of throwing them outward towards us, but their hands are
clasped, maybe just enough - Dr. Harris: To hold it in. Dr. Zucker: Right, so we're seeing
this as an exuberant expression of pleasure and energy and
the creative, the dance, but when the sculpture was first put
on the building, people were upset. In fact, so upset, that somebody
actually threw a bottle of ink at it. The sculpture has long since been cleaned and it was brought inside in 1964. Dr. Harris: To protect
it from the elements. Dr. Zucker: That's
right, because of course, the air pollution and the acids
in the atmosphere were starting to wash away the sculpture and
started to really dull its lines. You can sort of see,
especially on the left side, some of the real damage to the sculpture, but it still retains all of
its energy, all of its beauty, and all of its playfulness. (jazz music)