Modern stage design and Greek antiquity

There are numerous examples of the ways in which encounters with ancient Greek material culture have inspired innovation in modern scenic design and performance styles. Léon Bakst’s trip to Greece in the first decade of the twentieth century, which resulted in his now-iconic designs for the Ballets Russes’ Narcisse, L’Après midi d’un Faune, and Daphnis and Chloé, fuelled a huge wave of Modernist energy devoted to the translation of ideas of Greekness onto the stage; and Nijinsky’s black-figure, profile dance movements against these designs in turn led to numerous dancing choruses that resembled animated Greek friezes. Equally transformative in terms of theatrical design were the early sketches and objects brought back to northern Europe from the Grand Tour, which laid the foundations for Modernism’s stage Naturalism at the end of the nineteenth century. This chapter touches on these later transformative encounters in order to shed light on the earlier, less discussed Baroque period during which the trade in antiquities led to a huge burst in technological experimentation in scenic design. It focuses above all on the stage designs of Inigo Jones and their Greek models, which Jones encountered at Arundel Castle

Art · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Geography and Cartography · History · Geology