The Dance II

The Dance II by Henri Matisse is a triptych mural (15 ft high by 45 ft long) in the Barnes Foundation. It was created in 1932 at the request of Albert C. Barnes after he met Matisse in the United States. Barnes was an art enthusiast and long-time collector of Matisse's works, and agreed to pay Matisse a total of $30,000 for the mural, which was expected to take a year.

The mural was to be placed above three arches spanning the windows of the main hall of Barnes' gallery. In Nice, France, Matisse executed the mural on canvas provided by Barnes, as opposed to working on site. This was an unusual approach for such a work, but the patron had offered him complete artistic freedom, and working onsite would in any event have been impractical.

For Matisse, the project proved to be beset with difficulties, and would end up taking him two years, leaving him physically and emotionally drained. He was also profoundly disappointed to be told on installation that Barnes had no intention of exhibiting the work to the public.

Dance (Matisse)

The Dance (La Danse) refers to either of two related paintings made by Henri Matisse between 1909 and 1910. The first, preliminary version is Matisse's study for the second version. The composition or arrangement of dancing figures is reminiscent of Blake's watercolour "Oberon, Titania and Puck with fairies dancing" from 1786.

Dance (I)

In March 1909, Matisse painted a preliminary version of this work, known as Dance (I). It was a compositional study and uses paler colors and less detail. The painting was highly regarded by the artist who once called it "the overpowering climax of luminosity"; it is also featured in the background of Matisse's La Danse with Nasturtiums (1912).

It was donated by Nelson A. Rockefeller in honor of Alfred H. Barr, Jr. to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Dance

Dance, is a large decorative panel, painted with a companion piece, Music, specifically for the Russian businessman and art collector Sergei Shchukin, with whom Matisse had a long association. Until the October Revolution of 1917, this painting hung together with Music on the staircase of Shchukin's Moscow mansion.

The Dance (song)

"The Dance" is a song written and composed by Tony Arata, and recorded by American country music singer Garth Brooks as the tenth and final track from his self-titled debut album, from which it was also released as the album's fourth and final single in April 1990. It is considered by many to be Brooks' signature song. In a 2015 interview with Patrick Kielty of BBC Radio 2, Brooks credits the back to back success of both "The Dance" and its follow up "Friends In Low Places" for his phenomenal success.

Background

At the opening of the music video, Brooks explains that the song is written with a double meaning - both as a love song about the end of a passionate relationship, and a story of someone dying because of something he believes in, after a moment of glory.

Music video

The song's music video, directed by John Lloyd Miller, shows several American icons and examples of people who died for a dream. These include archive footage of the following:

The Dance

The Dance may refer to:

Art

Music

Other uses

See also

The Three Dancers

The Three Dancers (French: Les Trois Danseuses) is a painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, painted in June 1925. It is an oil on canvas and measures 84.8 in x 56 in (215.3 cm x 142.2 cm).

Description

The painting shows three dancers, the one on the right being barely visible. A macabre dance takes place, with the dancer on the left having her head bent at a near-impossible angle. The dancer on the right is usually interpreted as being Ramon Pichot, a friend of Picasso who died during the painting of Three Dancers. (Some critics believe it could well be Picasso's wife Olga Khokhlova.) The one on the left is claimed to be Pichot’s wife Germaine Gargallo with the one in the centre being Gargallo’s boyfriend Carlos Casagemas, also Picasso’s friend. Casagemas shot himself after failing to shoot Gargallo, twenty-five years before Pichot’s death, and the loss of two of his best friends spurred Picasso to paint this chilling depiction of the love triangle.

Background

Picasso painted The Three Dancers in Paris after a trip to Monte Carlo with his wife, ballet dancer Olga Khokhlova. At this time, Picasso was attracted to André Breton's Surrealism movement. In 1926 the painting appeared in Breton's work Le surréalisme et la peinture (Surrealism and Painting). Others link Three Dancers to Picasso's failing marriage to Khokhlova.