EPISODE · Jun 22, 2025 · 55 MIN
Juliet Bellow — Rodin's Dancers: Art and Performance in Belle Époque Paris - with Mary Morton
from Politics and Prose Presents · host Politics and Prose
Juliet Bellow traces Rodin's interactions with dance makers and performers during his late career (1890-1912) through a series of interrelated case studies. His exchanges with Loïe Fuller, Vaslav Nijinsky, and members of the Cambodian Royal Ballet troupe were central to Rodin's development of a modern sculptural aesthetic and the construction of his artistic celebrity. But this was not a simple case of one-way influence. These performers actively courted an affiliation with Rodin, wielding sculpture's cultural authority to move dance from the realm of commercial entertainment to that of "high art."Bringing together art history and performance studies, Rodin's Dancers demonstrates that in their search for innovation, dancers and sculptors experimented with one another's means of expression, sites of display, and techniques of publicity. The book provides more than a new interpretation of Rodin's art: it considers how and why the name "Rodin" came to stand for a powerful constellation of ideas about art, authorship, and creative genius within the vibrant spectacle culture of Belle Époque Paris.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780300275162?ic_referral=V2Y9e2-sCXQlcUKEAyImN-JpKiZ5Hay5p7CT8SyRoakwM5Tv9UxP_8ECUBwf9KnIVmabHUs2xzmN4uSX2mAEhaxBVmKg_9u9PXn9OENPi2aMJizwAy9lawqgX62amFM9XVPN1QJuliet Bellow is Associate Professor of Art History at American University. She is author of Modernism on Stage: The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde and served as a Consulting Scholar for the 2013 exhibition 'Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced With Music' at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has published articles in the Art Bulletin and Art Journal, among others, and contributed to The Cambridge Companion to Ballet as well as international exhibition catalogues on Sonia Delaunay, Merce Cunningham and Henri Matisse.Bellow is in conversation with Mary Morton. Morton received her PhD in the history of art and architecture in 1998 from Brown University. The former associate curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum (2004–2010) and associate curator of European art at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Houston (1998–2004), she joined the curatorial staff of the National Gallery of Art in 2010. She is currently Curator and Head of the Department of French Paintings at the NGA.*recorded 6/12/2025
What this episode covers
Juliet Bellow traces Rodin's interactions with dance makers and performers during his late career (1890-1912) through a series of interrelated case studies. His exchanges with Loïe Fuller, Vaslav Nijinsky, and members of the Cambodian Royal Ballet troupe were central to Rodin's development of a modern sculptural aesthetic and the construction of his artistic celebrity. But this was not a simple case of one-way influence. These performers actively courted an affiliation with Rodin, wielding sculpture's cultural authority to move dance from the realm of commercial entertainment to that of "high art."Bringing together art history and performance studies, Rodin's Dancers demonstrates that in their search for innovation, dancers and sculptors experimented with one another's means of expression, sites of display, and techniques of publicity. The book provides more than a new interpretation of Rodin's art: it considers how and why the name "Rodin" came to stand for a powerful constellation of ideas about art, authorship, and creative genius within the vibrant spectacle culture of Belle Époque Paris.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9780300275162?ic_referral=V2Y9e2-sCXQlcUKEAyImN-JpKiZ5Hay5p7CT8SyRoakwM5Tv9UxP_8ECUBwf9KnIVmabHUs2xzmN4uSX2mAEhaxBVmKg_9u9PXn9OENPi2aMJizwAy9lawqgX62amFM9XVPN1QJuliet Bellow is Associate Professor of Art History at American University. She is author of Modernism on Stage: The Ballets Russes and the Parisian Avant-Garde and served as a Consulting Scholar for the 2013 exhibition 'Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced With Music' at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She has published articles in the Art Bulletin and Art Journal, among others, and contributed to The Cambridge Companion to Ballet as well as international exhibition catalogues on Sonia Delaunay, Merce Cunningham and Henri Matisse.Bellow is in conversation with Mary Morton. Morton received her PhD in the history of art and architecture in 1998 from Brown University. The former associate curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum (2004–2010) and associate curator of European art at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Houston (1998–2004), she joined the curatorial staff of the National Gallery of Art in 2010. She is currently Curator and Head of the Department of French Paintings at the NGA.*recorded 6/12/2025
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Juliet Bellow — Rodin's Dancers: Art and Performance in Belle Époque Paris - with Mary Morton
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