Costumes: Illustrations, Costume Designs: | Name: Leon Bakst (born Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich Rosenberg) Art Movement: Modern Art, Art Nouveau Born: 1866 in Russia. Died: 1924 Main medium: Costume Design, Illustration About the Artist: Leon Bakst produced lavish sets and costumes for the ballet stage. After graduating secondary school, he traveled to St. Petersburg to study at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as an unenrolled student, working as a book illustrator to support himself. In order to help pay the bills, he also taught art to the children of Grand Duke Vladimir. At his first exhibition, in 1889, he changed his surname, Rosenberg, which he was concerned would sound too Jewish and bad for business, to a shorter version of his mother’s maiden name Baxter: Bakst. By 1909, he was mainly producing stage and costume designs. [Source] At the time there were no specially trained theatre designers, so Bakst was one of several painters who turned their skills to theatre design. About the Artwork: As part of the Russian Ballet's very first program in Paris, Bakst designed oriental-style decor and costumes for the Egyptian themed ballet Cleopatre (1909). Parisian audiences went wild for their energy, color and exoticism in the ballets designed by Bakst. His depth of knowledge and feeling about period and place allowed him to absorb the spirit of a culture and translate it into theatrical terms. The changing mood of a scene could be reflected by introducing colors gradually or by suddenly introducing a violently opposing color, say, in a flash of brilliant skirt lining. His extraordinary designs spilled over into both fashion and interior design, introducing looser-fitting clothing styles and sweeping away drab colors. [Source] |
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