André Levinson

“ Today Bakst is completely absorbed by this forgotten world which rises about him on a background of a distant past. He is consumed with an appetite for Russian memories, emotions and visions. Each day in his studio a population of Russian figures keeps multiplying—models and groups of which not only their costume but their very attitude has something indefinably national about them, something profoundly popular, in short, something authentic. And to what purpose? The artist as yet does not know. Once the actors are placed upon the stage, he says to himself, the play will start spontaneously. ”

“ Happy the blond student in green blouse who finds death as he pursues a dream of love; he will not see it. He will not know hunger or exile or disgrace. Who of us Russians would not envy him?
Such were the two faces of Russia which were exhibited by two painters who are more than painters,—Benois who has the power of retrospective divination, Bakst who possesses an understanding of modern life and of its tumultuous forces. ”

“ How the inevitable closes about us! Everything in this atmosphere of anguish and of hallucination becomes a latent menace. The day is near at hand—one feels it with one’s whole soul, nervous with fear—when this mass, inert, blind, crushing, will hurl itself upon quivering Russia. ”

“ Once again he brings out all the anguish in the fear of the ancients, the primitive hysteria of people bewildered by the cruel play of unfathomable forces—the hot wind which blows from the Asiatic desert and which leashes the blood almost into insanity, the triumph of Eros in the midst of fratricide and horror. He staged this “Helen of Sparta” by Verhaeren for Mme. Rubinstein—this play in which a great modern poet incarnates his intent, violent and prophetic soul in the characters of a legend which had already absorbed the Grand Old Man of Weimar. ”

“ Each road in this labyrinth of styles brought us back to the native land of the artist. Throughout, the exotic or “Eurasiatic”—to use a word coined by a group of Russian dreamers in exile—dominated. For the common herd Bakst is over and above all the creator of an oriental fairyland. Even his very name, monosyllabic, quickly pronounced, and cutting like the blade of a Turkish simitar, seems to call up a fleeting but intense vision of Asia.{218}
Bakst was bound forever to disconcert the lovers of convenient formulas. ”

“ Now, Bakst designed a bare and harsh setting for the martyrdom of Helen, who is condemned to be coveted unto death by all who come in contact with her: the ground reduced to lime, stones that have a burnt smell, heavy gates of the royal fortress, smoke of woodpiles—in short, everything in this volcanic landscape is a latent menace. ”

“ What seems like a stop, is in fact nothing but a turn of the road. And at each turn the circle widens. At Petrograd his task is completed. There is nothing left there except to follow. But there remains Paris and the universe.
In reality, I am at the end of my task, which is that of acquainting the reader with a Bakst who has not yet been written up, of speaking of his formative period and of the intimate and hidden sources of his inspiration. Once my hero had entered upon public life, I ought already to have left the domain of his private existence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In speaking today of the contribution made by Bakst, there is really nothing that one can add or improve upon. The inventory of his achievements has been completed; the unexampled influence which he never ceased to exercise has been rightly evaluated. Nevertheless, there remains a task which must not be neglected. Paris, to be sure, enthusiastically watched the development of his art;{14} but for us, Russians, has been reserved the most thrilling experience of all—that of chronicling the unfolding of his genius. ”

“ The artist imparts movement to them—the whole dynamic rhythm of the future ballet pre-exists there potentially. Jotted down upon a white sheet of Waltmann they energize and give life to this surface. More than that: they suggest the character of the particular role. ”

“ Russian rural life for one last time spends itself in these Slavic saturnalia. Even the dolls which are the protagonists of the grotesque drama try to shake off their mechanical torpor. They would like to become flesh and blood; they have a hungry desire to live; at times, indeed, they really do live.
The action of “Lâcheté”, likewise, is staged at St. Petersburg which, however, has become Petrograd—but not in the clear sunshine of a winter’s day ”

“ He has summoned back the ancient legendary tale and has restored it to the theater. This myth he has also projected upon a famous canvas. In his portraits his incisive line closely encompasses material and internal realities. In his romantic dreams he has been able to live again through what Stéphane Mallarmé has called “la grâce des choses fanées”. Later he makes a division of his artistic property among his enthusiastic students. How much there is in this to fill a beautiful life! One might think that the circle of such men as Bakst is completed in one harmonious curve. ”

“ 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”. ”

“ But on the other hand we also have the “dossiers” of these productions,—the sketches and models of the{146} decorations and costumes. These sketches are without a doubt the most authentic references. But besides having value as documents they possess an intrinsic value as works of art. These water-colors or emphasized sketches are more than mere guide-lines for the scissors of the costume maker or the brush of the stage decorator. These statuettes of odalisques, of girls of the street, of a marquis each have an existence of their own, each possesses an individual rhythm. ”

“ Into this virginal quietude of soothing colors, detaching itself from the sombre verdure of the background, the human flower projects itself—a flower of purplish pink, feverish and consumed with amorous languor. ”

“ This architectural conception, the best possible setting for the actor and for the “round relief” which the human body forms, especially determined the grandiose and graceful setting for the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty”,—this French masterpiece born of the soil of Russia which is fertile in miracles. In this work, the production of which was reserved for London, Bakst returns squarely to the surprises afforded by extraordinary short=cuts, to the harmony of masses that are organized, to the magic play of stage elevations raised in tiers, to the severe splendors of linear perspective. ”

“ The moving spirits of the school—a Kramskoi, or a Repine—would return from their western travels with nothing but contempt for the “futile” (as they called them) masterpieces of beautiful painting or else an infatuation for the virtuosity of the brush of a Fortuny or a Meissonnier.
Diaghileff and Benois flung the doors wide open. A motley crowd enters pell=mell; even the “decadents” of the Viennese Secession, with Renoir and Carrière. Mistakes are made; there is as yet no scale of values; the obscure Belgian, Léon Frederick, is put upon a pedestal while Cézanne is ignored until 1904. ”

“ The irritable old man at times scared the impulsive and vivacious urchin; kindhearted old grouch that he was, he often angrily charged the wretched disorder up to the young lad. Levoushka was therefore not sorry to see his grandfather leave for his customary Saturday promenade, for this was indeed the right moment for him to make the large clock, with its mechanical doll, ring, and to wind up the music boxes of every description that were to be found in the yellow drawing room. ”

“ And he insisted with such impetuosity that his parents, routed in the argument, decided by way of setting him right to seek the advice of the sculptor Marc Antokolsky, a friend of the family and a recognized authority on all matters pertaining to art. The late Antokolsky was little known in Paris where he used to live, nor do people care much about him in Russia today, although his works, which are quite numerous, fill the museums of Moscow and especially of Petrograd. So deceptive is artistic glory! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus he allowed himself to be carried away into enthusing over that atrocious “modern style”, the architectural vestiges of which today disgrace every large city in the world. Bakst together with his older friend Serov set himself against painting in the style of Gustav Klimt and against architecture à la Olbrich in the name of an honest, direct and robust art. ”