Cleopatre greek dancer 1910

Léon Bakst made this costume design for “Cleopatre greek dancer” in 1916 using watercolor. The way Bakst applies these washes of pale color and simple, repeating shapes gives you a sense of the movement of the dancer's dress. I just love that this is a process made visible, and I feel very close to the artmaking here, it is raw and immediate. The color palette is so subtle, almost muted, except for the intense greens and reds that Bakst layers. I am intrigued by how Bakst uses the medium of watercolor in such a detailed, almost obsessive way - look at the spirals, like stylized eyes. It's all about the surface, the flatness, that he is playing with here. I think of Sonia Delaunay whose textiles also explored this language of shape and color, in order to animate the forms of the human body. But here, in Bakst's work, it's more like a playful conversation, an invitation to create and recreate.