|
''Russian Ballet'' is an artist's book by the English artist David Bomberg published in 1919. The work describes the impact of seeing a performance of Diaghilev's ''Ballets Russes'', and is based on a series of drawings Bomberg had done around 1914,〔(Tate Online )〕 while associated with the Vorticist group of avant-garde artists in London. Centred on Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, the movement flourished briefly 1914–1915, before being dispersed by the impact of the First World War. The only surviving example of a vorticist artist's book, the work can be seen as a parody of Marinetti's seminal futurist book ''Zang Tumb Tumb'', using similar language to the Italian's work glorifying war, (''Methodic discord startles ...''),〔''Russian Ballet'', Bomberg, Henderson's, 1919〕 but instead praising the impact of watching the decidedly less macho ''Ballets Russes'' in full flow.
The book was the last time that Bomberg would work in a vorticist idiom. After witnessing the carnage of the First World War at first hand, he was to lose his faith in modernism and instead develop a looser, expressive style, based predominantly around landscapes.〔 ==Vorticism and the English avant-garde== Bomberg had been expelled from the Slade art school in 1913 due to his modernist leanings, and after a brief flirtation with Futurism, had put on a major one man exhibition of Abstract art at the Chenil Gallery, Chelsea, July 1914. The exhibition included paintings such as ''The Mud Bath'' and ''Ju-Jitsu''. The show was enthusiastically reviewed by T. E. Hulme.〔 Visited by Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Brâncuși and Marinetti among others〔David Bomberg, Lipke, Evelyn Adams & Mackay, 1967.〕 the exhibition earned 'him the admiration of many experimental artists both in London and abroad'〔 The foreword of the Chenil Gallery catalogue, 1914, contained a defiant text not dissimilar to Wyndham Lewis' Manifesto in ''Blast 1'', and one that could just as easily apply to the drawings done around this time that would serve as the basis of ''Russian Ballet'';
While usually considered a vorticist, Bomberg had refused to sign the Vorticist manifesto published in ''BLAST'', July 1914, or allow Lewis to reproduce his work in the magazine alongside contributions from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Edward Wadsworth, Ford Madox Ford and Jacob Epstein, among others. The only official connection was when he agreed to exhibit with the Vorticists at their single English exhibition at the Doré Gallery, London, July 1915. His work was placed in a separate room as part of the 'invited to show' section.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Russian Ballet (book)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|