Leon Bakst and the Ballets Russes

Leon Bakst and the Ballets Russes by Spencer, Charles. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781854903488.

Leon Bakst was the most brilliant and daring costume designer of his time, his influence so radical and pervasive that the first two decades of the twentieth century have been called the Bakst era. When published in 1973, Charles Spencers biography of Bakst, the greatest designer of the Ballets Russes, was the first full-length study of the artist since his death in 1924. It was accompanied by the first one-man exhibition of Baksts work at the Fine Art Society, London for some forty-five years. The authors compulsion to re-write the story, twenty years later, arises both from the desire to incorporate important new material, and also to place both the Ballets Russes and Bakst firmly within the context of Russian art and culture. In retitling the book Bakst and the Ballet Russes, Spencer provides an invaluable assessment of the great art renaissance of Slavophilism, in literature, music, art and the theatre as the background which produced and influenced its founder, the enigmatic Serge de Diaghilev and Bakst in their extraordinary careers. Above all the totally re-written and enlarged text, plus more than 300 illustrations, explore the complex personality and decorative genius of Leon Bakst - from childhood to his puzzling death in Paris at the early age of 58. His obsession with erotic imagery is carefully analysed, and his influence on fashion, interior decoration, design and the decorative arts is fully evaluated. In addition to Bakst, the book is packed with remarkable personalities - Diaghilev, Benois, Pavlova, Nijinsky, Proust, Ida Rubinstein, the Marchesa Casati, Ethel Levey, Thomas Beecham, Erte and many others. Their involvement in the history of the Ballet Russes, perhaps the most remarkable theatrical event of the twentieth century, is described with historical judgement, sympathy, wit and awe.