Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/97

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THE BALLETS

with a chorus trained in odd attitudes by Miss Margaret Morris. It would seem that the aim has been, in these choruses, to copy exactly images from the antique, images of woe, with long despairing arms and a monotonous faculty of lamentation borrowed from Ireland. Now and then we have caught at a gesture and exclaimed, "That's very like!" till the moment has passed, and we have seen only a woman, scantily clothed, and in a strange posture.

In spite of good intent, this mode of production has failed on the visual side, for the reason, no doubt, that models taken from the two-dimensional surface of old vases and bas-reliefs were transferred wholesale to a three-dimensional stage, thus abandoning the plastic convention which, on urn or frieze, was so beautifully adapted to the effect desired. Some

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