In my collection, there are of course also off-stage private images of Nijin-
sky. One is touched, for example, by the strong gentleness of Gustav Klimt’s
portrait of the dancer. Drawn with a minimum of soft pencil lines, Klimt’s
sketch is reminiscent of the Dover Street Studio portrait of Nijinsky, taken
at the beginning of the century in London. Wearing a fashionable suit and
tie, the dancer sits in a conventional pose but his eyes are intense, looking at
us directly, with a mysterious expression of dreamlike contentment. Georg
Kolbe’s exciting bronze nude sculpture done in 1913 is clearly an idealized in-
terpretation of his body. Froedman-Cluzel’s earlier bronze undoubtedly gives
a more accurate account of Nijinsky’s anatomy, proportion and physical ap-
pearance. However, sketches in the Kolbe Museum in Berlin prove the dancer
did in fact pose for the artist. Also, the astounding similarity to the pose in
Druet’s 1910 photographs indicates clearly the sculpture was intended as a
portrait. Kolbe’s dynamic, archaic figure projects the impression of physical
harmony, vitality and power the dancer’s presence must have given and por-
trays therefore another aspect of Nijinsky.
Occasionally, drawings not of but by Nijinsky would turn up for sale during
my years of collecting. Several of these works – arcs and segments drawn
in crayon, symbolist-like portraits in precise pencil lines or India ink paintings
of frightening masks staring from a blackened paper, became part of my col-
lection. Although I was aware of other Nijinsky drawings seen in auction cata-
logues or as book illustrations, the isolated works I owned seemed at first
an enigmatic curiosity. In 2005, however, with the discovery of an enormous
collection: several series of drawings belonging to the Nijinsky family, I be-
came aware of the vast extent, variety and extraordinary artistic quality of
Nijinsky’s own drawings, which gave an entirely new aspect to Nijinsky’s many
faceted genius. Not only was he the most famous dancer of the first half of
the 20
th
century, not only a choreographer opening new directions toward
modern ballet, not only a humanitarian thinker, philosopher and theologian
whose diary records concerns far beyond those of the theatre, but Nijinsky
was also a visual artist – a painter. Just as the groundbreaking concepts of
his ballets were before their time in comparison with that which had come
before and much which followed, so do his drawings seem a shocking con-
trast to the visual representations of Nijinsky by other artists. If we compare
the first known porcelain
image of Nijinsky as the God of the Winds in Marius
Petipa’s ballet “Le Talisman” by Ackermann & Fritze, molded in 1909, with one
of his drawings, executed just 10 years later, the contrast in style, vision,
energy and intensity is astounding. It is exactly this discrepancy that seems
to me the most important theme of the present exhibition, which might be
called “Eye on Nijinsky – Nijinsky’s eye.” The title asks: how was Nijinsky seen
through the eyes of his contemporaries, and how, on the other hand, did
Nijinsky, at this very same moment, see the world through his own eyes? This
dual point of view – multiple impressions from the outside and concrete in-
terior visions – gives a unique and complex, much more complete picture of
this amazing artist.
No one now living has ever seen Nijinsky dance. His legendary stage magne-
tism cannot be experienced in the present tense. There are no films. Recon-
structions of his ballets gives impressions and intimations but taunting open
questions remain. Can it be that witnessing Nijinsky’s cosmos, through his
own eyes, in his own drawings, gives immediacy – gives a sense of the living
present to this great enigma of the past?
Published for the exhibition catalog of “Tanz der Farben. Nijinskys Auge und die
Abstraktion”, Kunsthalle Hamburg 2009, Germany
7
HARRIS THEATER
Eye on Nijinsky – Nijinsky’s Eye
EYE ON NIJINSKY – NIJINSKY’S EYE cont.
