The Three Dancers is widely seen as a painting full of hate and violence,inspired by the shootings and suicide that befell a trio of Picasso’s friends. But is it also approximately the artist’s own turbulent relationship with dance? Now a new ballet is telling its macabre narrative
In the spring of 1925, Pablo Picasso was in Monte Carlo, and celebrating Easter with the ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev. The painter had very close ties with the ballet world: his wife Olga Khokhlova had been a dancer with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes,while he himself had contributed several designs to the company’s repertory. And, at a cursory first glance, or the masterpiece that Picasso completed on his return to Paris,with its trio of dancing figures and its jostling colours, might seem to be a lively, and affectionate homage to that world.
In fact,The Three Dancers carries much darker mysteries. As choreographer Didy Veldman points out: “There is so much tension in this picture, so much hate and violence. whether you look at those three people, or they seem to be holding hands as whether they’re unable to let depart.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com