Studio: international art (60.1914)

Leon Bakst's Designs for Scenery and Costume

The illustrations to this article demonstrate the
extraordinary facility with which Bakst modifies
treatment and design in accordance with the
character of his subj ect. Look at the pencil drawing
for the first act of Pisanelle, with its great three-
masted ship, its bales of treasure stowed upon the
quay, its crowd of detail in such little compass, the
whole compact and childlike as a mediaeval woodcut;
or the lovely, subtly simple dress of Likenion in
Daphnis and Chloe; or the truculent swagger of
of the Pole from Boris Godounow; or the wasted
fakir, blue and yellow draped, part of the very
spirit of the East. Each is of its world, and
though the mind may turn to memories of
the Morte D’Arthur, or the Greek vase-painters,
or of that splendid Bakstian masterpiece Sidonia
the Sorceress, each drawing lives by something
more than the stimulus of past art.

It is perhaps only natural that so
versatile a master of theatrical design
should have tried his hand on
modern dress. Yet I cannot think
that he has achieved a real success.

However much we may lament the
fact, we live in a democratic, utili-
tarian age. Trousers are trousers,
skirts are skirts for all the world. It
is true that some words of Chaucer’s
'“poor parson” concerning “ dis-
ordinate scantitee of clothinge ” are
not altogether inapplicable even to
the present time : but the days when
men and women made themselves
picturesquely ridiculous by wearing
almost nothing, or trailing the
“ superfluitee of their gowns in the
dong and in the myre,” merely in
order to furnish an advertisement of
their social status, are gone to return
no more. There are no more
Sumptuary Laws, and, to speak
broadly, the dressmakers’ “matcher”
may come out to-morrow in just
such another costume for shape and
style as her employer has been
“creating” to-day for the greatest
lady in the land.

The problem, then, for the original
designer is hedged about with limi-
tations. He can do no more than
ring the changes on a round of styles
that can be harmonised with the
thing we call a “ skirt,” and when
he attempts to take a flight beyond

the experiments of the past he will generally land
himself in an impossible situation. The most
practical of Bakst’s designs for modern costume
are merely charming adaptations of past styles.
The lovely drawing, reproduced in colour for this
article, differs but little in idea from a creation
of any well-known house, save for the arrange-
ments of lace upon the arms—a point designed
to lend originality to the dress, but in reality the
sole feature which in any other pose but that of the
drawing itself would be impossible.

Yet, when all is said, it would be unseemly to
carp in any serious spirit at the experiments of an
artist to whom we owe so much pure enjoyment,
and whose genius for design ranging over so wide
a field finds almost nothing which it cannot at once
assimilate and adorn with some original feature of
its own making. Gerald C. Siordet.

BY LEON BAKST

UN POLONAIS (BORIS GODOUNOW)

6