The Dancer Marietta di Rigardo

Max Slevogt's 'The Dancer Marietta di Rigardo' (1904) depicts a celebrated performer — his engagement with the world of performance and entertainment was consistent throughout his career, and the dancer as a subject combined the formal interest of the figure in expressive movement with the social world of the modern entertainment industry. Slevogt was among the most important German Impressionists, his loose, vivid handling bringing the immediate energy of the Impressionist touch to the specifically German and international cultural world he inhabited.

Slevogt renders the dancer with the energetic, confident brushwork that was his most characteristic quality — the performer's figure in movement captured with the summary but expressive touch that suited the dynamic subject. His palette tends toward vivid, warm colors, the performer's costume and the stage or performance setting rendered with the coloristic enthusiasm that distinguished his approach from more restrained German academic painting. His handling of the figure's specific movement quality creates the performance subject's physical energy.