Fantasy on modern costume 1910

Léon Bakst made this fashion plate, Fantasy on Modern Costume, using watercolor and graphite. The rendering is so simple, like he’s just marking the paper. It's all about shapes and colors. Like he starts with the idea, not the specifics, and then paints his way in. Look at the red dress, it’s covered with these teardrop shapes, like seeds fallen on the surface. The colors are flat, almost like they are cut from paper and pasted down, but the graphite line work gives definition. It makes me think of Matisse. It’s as though the image is a stage set itself. Bakst designed sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes. His work shares something with Sonia Delaunay’s textile and costume designs, and recalls Picasso’s for the Ballet Russe, Parade. This is where art forms merge, exchange ideas, and converse with one another. We get to listen in.