FULLER VS. BAKER: MUSES OF THE ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF THE MOVEMENT AT THE DAWN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

At the end of the 19th century, the American dancer Loïe Fuller became a muse of the Parisian avant-garde. Although thirty years later, her context had changed radically, a similar phenomenon was repeated with her compatriot Josephine Baker. Deco artists, symbolists, futurists and first filmmakers materialized the evolutions of both on stage. They not only aroused the interest of the public from all social classes but also that of important intellectuals and artists. The research has involved the critical review of specific studies on both, autobiographies, newspaper archives or recent studies that claim the innovative figure of Fuller, as well as the evolution of dance and its relationship with other arts. The impact that these two contemporary muses caused in artistic disciplines such as painting, sculpture, illustration, cinema or architecture is analyzed in parallel, paying special attention to how the representation of movement materialized in each of them. From this review, coincidences, parallels and divergences are verified that show that the authentic common bond and real attraction for the artists were not precisely the two dancers and their own art, but the revolutionary, innovative and suggestive dynamic interpretations of the scenarios: subtle and elegant in Fuller, dizzying and electrifying in Baker. The parallel impact of both on the artists of their times is the backbone of the research. Beyond their well-known role as performance artists and promoters of avant-garde art, they personified something that was not valued in its proper measure at the time due to a lack of temporal perspective. Without knowing it, they represented a turning point towards a modern conception of the arts that broke with the classicism of static artistic models to evolve towards a growing interest in much more dynamic phenomena.