The Dance (1909) is an ode to life and has become an emblem of modern art. ‘It was commissioned with its matching painting Music by the influential Russian collector Sergei Shchukin. Characterised by its simplicity and energy, this ecstatic bacchanalia left a lasting mark on 20th-century art. Dance was painted at the height of the Fauvism aesthetic and embodies the emancipation from Western art’s traditional conventions of representation. It can be seen at the Hermitage in St Petersburg.’ ( In 1909 Virginia Woolf was 27. She kept a notebook that year and it would be an interesting lockdown task to compare the observations in this notebook with what was happening to painting in France.)
13 May 2020
