BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Portraits of the World: Switzerland

DC -- Donald W. Reynolds Center (NPG) -- Exhibit: Portraits of the World: Switzerland:

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Description of Pictures: Portraits of the World: Switzerland
December 15, 2017 – November 12, 2018
Portraits of the World: Switzerland is the inaugural exhibition of a series that will highlight the global context of American portraiture. Each year, the National Portrait Gallery will showcase a portrait created by an international artist affiliated with the lending country. The featured work for 2017-18 is Femme en Extase, a portrait of the Italian dancer Giulia Leonardi by the great Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler, on loan from the Museum of Art and History in Geneva. Hodler’s experimentation with the abstract elements of color, line and expression created a vibrant new mode of Swiss art at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Femme en Extase embodies the Swiss modernist approach to expressing emotion through movements of the body—a theory known as eurhythmics—which had an international impact and transformed dance in America. The Swiss painting will be complemented by works from the Portrait Gallery’s collection representing American dancers influenced by this theory of eurhythmics.

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[1] SWITZ_171216_005.JPG	[2] SWITZ_171216_009.JPG	[3] SWITZ_171216_012.JPG
[4] SWITZ_171216_021.JPG	[5] SWITZ_171216_038.JPG	[6] SWITZ_171216_040.JPG
[7] SWITZ_171216_043.JPG	[8] SWITZ_171216_048.JPG	[9] SWITZ_171216_061.JPG
[10] SWITZ_171216_072.JPG	[11] SWITZ_171216_076.JPG	[12] SWITZ_171216_090.JPG
[13] SWITZ_171216_097.JPG	[14] SWITZ_171216_104.JPG	[15] SWITZ_171216_110.JPG
[16] SWITZ_171216_120.JPG	[17] SWITZ_171216_130.JPG	[18] SWITZ_171216_148.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SWITZ_171216_005.JPG: Portraits of the World
2. SWITZ_171216_012.JPG: Femme en Extase (Woman in Ecstasy) Giulia Leonardi This painting of the Italian dancer and guitarist Giulia Leonardi is a prime example of Ferdinand Hodler's distinctive combination of realism and abstraction. It it both a faithfully observed depiction of a specific person and a symbolic representation of the emotional state of ecstasy. The nonspecific drapery and gold background cast Leonardi in a timeless, universal light. Fascinated by new theories of emotional expression through movement, Hodler chose to position her as if she were rotating in space, and the optical vibration created by the contrasting blue and red drapery enhances this sense of movement. Hodler frequently used the gesture of both hands resting near the heart to signify the experience of deep feeling. Unimpeded by ladylike decorum or the precision of ballet, the earthly freedom with which Leonardi moves her body would have struck contemporaries as being remarkably uninhibited and sensuous -- appropriate characteristics for an embodiment of ecstasy. Federinand Hodler, 1911
3. SWITZ_171216_021.JPG: Portraits of the World: Switzerland Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)
4. SWITZ_171216_043.JPG: Modernizing Dance in America
5. SWITZ_171216_048.JPG: Michio Ito, 1893-1961 Born Tokyo, Japan Growing up in Japan, Michio Ito was trained in traditional Noh theater. When he traveled to Paris in 1911 and saw both Isadora Duncan and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, his interest in dance was sparked. By 1916 he was creating choreography that combined Eastern techniques with Western movement, music, lighting, and costuming. He immigrated to New York and eventually formed a troupe of six dancers that toured the country. Landing in Hollywood in 1929, he created "symphonic choreographies" that were performed in such outdoor spaces as the Hollywood Bowl; he also contributed to six movies, including Madame Butterfly (1933). After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Ito was interned in New Mexico until 1943, when he repatriated to Japan as part of a prisoner exchange. After the war, he choreographed revues for American occupation troops at the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo. Nicolas Muray, 1921 (printed 1978)
6. SWITZ_171216_061.JPG: Ruth St. Denis, 1879-1968 Born Newark, New Jersey Along with Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis created a theatrical and spiritual basis for modern American dance. She was discovered in 1898 by Broadway producer David Belasco when she was a "skirt dancer" in vaudeville, and joined his company as a featured dancer. Touring the world with Belasco, she became intrigued by Eastern philosophy and began forging ideas about using dance and melodrama to express a kind of mystical spirituality. In 1906 she caused a sensation by performing a solo dance based on Hindu mythology: her exotic barefoot dance Rhada dazzled society matrons and launched her to fame. Subsequent national tours established her as a pioneer of the emerging modern dance movement. From 1915 to 1929, she organized and ran the Denishawn School with Ted Shawn; the school was recognized as an important training ground for such key dancers as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. Hegeman Print, after Soichi Sunami, c 1930
7. SWITZ_171216_072.JPG: Ted Shawn, 1891-1972 Born Kansas City, Missouri The Denishawn School combined Ruth St. Denis's interest in Eastern mysticism and Ted Shawn's belief in the Delsartian theory of body movement, which incorporated movements of the body to express emotional concepts. Shawn was particularly fascinated with American themes, which he introduced in such works as the Aztec dance-drama Xochitl, the Hopi ballet The Feather of the Dawn, and the celebratory O, Libertad! When Denishawn dissolved in 1929, Shawn organized "Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers" to emphasize the importance of the male dancer. He founded Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 1933, and in 1942 built the first theater in the United States to be used expressly for dance. As the resident impresario at Jacob's Pillow, he pioneered the presentation of such important American dancers as Alvin Ailey, Arthur Mitchell, Carmen de Lavallade, and Geoffrey Holder. Called "the father of American dance," Shawn gave all dancers classic advice: "When in doubt, twirl." Edwin F. Townsend, c 1925
8. SWITZ_171216_090.JPG: Loie Fuller, 1862-1928 Benjamin Joseph Falk, 1901
9. SWITZ_171216_097.JPG: Loie Fuller, 1862-1928 Born Fullersburg, Illinois In the 1890s, Loie Fuller's genius was to create an electrifying style of dance that harnessed technology with the emerging physical culture movement. She became famous for her Serpentine Dance, an undulating performance enacted amid dazzling visual staging. For this dance, Fuller clothed herself in a voluminous, transparent costume consisting of 500 yards of thin China silk and bathed herself in multicolored stage lighting of her own design. Critics reported that the dance regularly swept audiences "into an emotional frenzy" that required twenty or more encores. Touring made her internationally famous, and consumers everywhere lined up to buy Loie Fuller hats, shoes, and petticoats. She became a star of the Folies Berg�re, and her Fire Dance sparked a sensation at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. A modern dance pioneer, Loie Fuller paved the way for such other women dancers as Isadora Duncan. Jules Cheret, 1897
10. SWITZ_171216_104.JPG: Martha Graham, 1894-1991 Considered the mother of modern dance in America, Martha Graham brought dance into the vortex of the machine age: the idea of motion was a fundamental tenet of modernism, and Graham was determined to extract dance from its balletic-and European-classicism and infuse it with "significant movement, . . . with excitement and surge." She studied at Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's Denishawn School from 1916 to 1923 and then worked at the Greenwich Village Follies, where she began to design and choreograph her own dances. By 1935 she had established the Martha Graham School for Contemporary Dance, and its first performance, "Frontier," reflected her notion that "life today is nervous, sharp and zigzag." Graham continued to perform until she was seventy-six and created new ballets until her death. Paul R. Meltsner, 1938
11. SWITZ_171216_110.JPG: Isadora Duncan, 1877-1927 Dancer Isadora Duncan scorned the rigid rules of classical ballet and instead defined her art as an expression of natural instinct and inner feeling. Raised in a bohemian atmosphere that almost preordained her departures from convention, she began devising spontaneously choreographed pieces in the 1890s. By the early 1900s she was touring Europe, where her work won a considerable following. In the United States, however, many were scandalized by her minimal costumes and the sensual quality of her performances. Nevertheless, she had her American defenders. The maker of this picture, Arnold Genthe, was a friend and great admirer of Duncan. "Her body was not beautiful," he recalled in his memoir. "But when she danced, the nobility of her gestures could make it into something of superb perfection and divine loveliness." Arnold Genthe, c 1916
12. SWITZ_171216_120.JPG: Isadora Duncan, 1877-1927 Attributed to Edmond van Saanen Algi, 1917
13. SWITZ_171216_130.JPG: Martha Graham, 1894-1991 Born Allegheny City, Pennsylvania A pioneer of modern dance in America, Martha Graham brought dance into the vortex of the Machine Age. The idea of motion and dynamism were fundamental tenets of modernism, as was the quest to "make it new." In this spirit, Graham saw herself as both "a dancer and an inventor." She studied at Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's Denishawn School from 1916 to 1923 and then worked as a solo dancer at the Greenwich Village Follies. She also taught at the Eastman School and, with some of her students, established the Martha Graham School for Contemporary Dance in 1926. In her 1944 signature piece, Appalachian Spring, she presented a "quintessentially American" scenario that conveyed "a dance of hope." It was a perfect vehicle for Graham, who once described dancing as "an affirmation of life through movement." Edward Steichen, 1931
14. SWITZ_171216_148.JPG: Doris Humphrey, 1895-1958 Born Oak Park, Illinois Like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey pioneered a style of dance that reflected modern life in America. She began studying at Denishawn in 1917 and became a principal dancer and choreographer before launching an independent career in 1928. Partnering with dancer-choreographer Charles Weidman, she focused both on choreography and on movements that explored the body's response to gravity. Humphrey became known especially for her emphasis on breathing rhythms and a technique of "fall and recovery" that incorporated balance, breath, weight, and spatial orientation. She retired from performing in 1944 and became artistic director for the Jos� Lim�n Dance Company after World War II; her most notable work was Day on Earth (1947). In 1951 Humphrey became director of the Juilliard Dance Theatre, where she served as a tireless mentor and initiated efforts to document the evanescent art of dance through "Labanotation," a system that captures dance movements on the page so they can be shared. Barbara Morgan, 1938
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