Harald Giersing “Fokin and Fokina”, 1918 The art historian, Dr Lennart Gottlieb discusses the background of Giersing’s “Fokin and Fokina”, one of the last central works in private ownership from Giersing’s Cubist/Expressionist period between 1917 and 1920. When Harald Giersing painted “Fokin and Fokina” let dancers was not only natural for Giersing to in 1918, he was at the height of his career. He was paint because it was modern, but also because both Denmark’s most famous modernist and determined football and Russian ballet interested him person- to remain so. There were others who painted in a ally. It is quite telling of Giersing’s person, that he modern style and also used modern motifs, but no could watch a football match between a Swedish one did it as radically as Giersing did. He painted and a Danish team on Sunday 12 May 1918 and football players and ballet dancers, and he did it in then in the evening attend the premiere of Mikhail an increasingly simplified, decorative, Cubist- and Fokin and Vera Fokina’s sensational guest perfor- Expressionist-inspired style with strong colour con- mance at the Royal Danish Theatre, which resulted trasts – red against blue especially, black against in “wild excitement – with a number of encores that white, etc. In 1918 these contrasts were considered presumably is without equal in the history of the very hard – or rather too hard. This was also the Royal Theatre,” as the Danish newspaper Berling- intention, as Giersing wrote in one of his aphorisms, ske Tidende wrote. The journalist Andreas Wind- which he published in the Danish art magazine Klin- ing wrote a feature article entitled “Cubist Ballet. gen (The Blade) in November 1917: “Beautiful co- Modernism in Dance” in the newspaper Politiken on lours are an enemy of good painting. A good paint- 27 July 1918. The article was about the choreogra- ing is always beautiful in its colour.” And we can pher Leonide Massine and the ballet “Parade” with be sure that Giersing himself also considered “Fokin text by Jean Cocteau, music by Eric Satie and sets and Fokina” to be an extraordinarily fine painting designed by Picasso, which was a continuation of since he exhibited it no less than three times in “what Fokin and Nijinski had begun – the unifi- 1919. Firstly, in January as cat. no. 1 at the exhi- cation of ballet and Modernism”. Giersing certainly bition ”Skulptur Maleri Musik” (Sculpture Painting also viewed Fokin’s ballets in this way. Music), which he created together with the sculptor Johannes C. Bjerg, while Carl Nielsen supplied the Mikhail Fokin and Vaslav Nijinsky were the most music. Secondly, in October as cat. no. 1 at Grøn- famous and most innovative of the Russian chore- ningen’s exhibition in Aarhus and finally again in ographers and ballet stars, who in Paris from 1909 November and December at a large exhibition with and until the beginning of World War I, under the contemporary Danish art in Stockholm. leadership of Diaghilev, created the Russian ballet’s breakthrough on the world stage and at the same Giersing had already painted about half a score of time a renewal of modern ballet. Fokin, who had paintings with dancers during the previous year, already choreographed “The Dying Swan” for Anna when he noted in his calendar on 25 September Plova in 1907, created a string of modern classics 1918: “Painted Fokin and Fokina”. This can only be in quick succession, including “Le Carnaval” in 1910 a reference to the present painting. Just as when with costumes by Léon Bakst, in which the figures he painted football motifs, the subject of the bal- Harlequin and Columbine and the pose in Giersing’s 18 MORE PHOTOS AND DETAILS AT BRUUN-RASMUSSEN.DK BRUUN RASMUSSEN’S 70TH ANNIVERSARY AUCTION 883 19 onds in a photographer’s studio – those were the This colouristic rawness – without any sign of in- conditions. gratiating decorativism – was not to the liking of Giersing’s friend, Leo Swane, who wrote the first Giersing’s simplification and conversion of the small book about him. Leo Swane even allowed source material to a painting is about something himself in his introduction to Giersing’s memorial else than photography, namely to create decorative exhibition in 1927 to explain that Giersing, in what cohesion and picturesque life through lines and co- Swane called the “blue and red period”, “seemed to lours in a process where the minimal space of the get somewhat off the path he was on” as if Giers- photographed scene was compressed so the figures ing followed and had to follow a certain path. A nearly become as flat as playing cards. Giersing’s few years later, Leo Swane became director of the tight division of the background in planes – above National Gallery of Denmark, where he made a large a dark red, light violet, light blue and a darker blue, number of purchases of Giersing’s works. But none below reds – single out the figures whose clothes of these purchases included the figure paintings in a powerful contrast are dominated by the blue from the period 1917-20, nor were these paintings colour. The figures have no facial features, and in among the purchases of Swane’s successor, Jørn terms of colours, there is no connection to that of Rubow, who was the director of the National Gal- the two ballet figures’ costumes in the ballet, where lery until 1978. Meanwhile, the art museums in the Columbine’s dress is white for instance. Giersing has provinces, as they were called, acquired Giersing’s completely taken over and created his own paint- most important works from the wild years. It will be ing, which he therefore quite logically did not call interesting to see where this painting – one of the “Fokin and Fokina” when he exhibited it. He chose last important and central works in private owner- the more abstract titles “Dansende par” (Dancing ship from Giersing’s “Cubist/Expressionist” period – Couple) and “Danser og danserinde” (Male and Fe- will end up. male Dancer), although, as mentioned, he noted Fokin og Fokina i en stilling fra Fokins “Le Carnaval”. Foto gengivet i Vore Damer den 15. februar 1916 og Hver 8. Dag den 17. maj 1918. that he had painted Fokin and Fokina, and although one could see a connection at the time. When the “Fokin and Fokina” are found. Just as with Giers- painting was exhibited at Giersing’s memorial exhi- ing’s other ballet paintings, and also the football bition after his death in 1927, it was given the title paintings, the motif was not something created in that has stuck with the work since then, even after his own mind. Instead, it was based on a black and I suggested in a monograph about Giersing from white fan photo of Fokin and Fokina in a position 1995 to use the artist’s own title “Danser og dan- from “Le Carnaval”. The photograph was reproduced serinde” (Male and Female Dancer). in the Danish magazine Vore Damer (Our Ladies) already on 15 February 1916, but it was probably a The Danish literary historian Torben Jelsbak has picture in the weekly magazine Hver 8. Dag (Every recently concluded in an international publication 8th day) from 17 May 1918 that Giersing used. that a “work such as Fokin and Fokina is emblemat- ic for the decorative formalism and eminently eclec- Both the photograph of the two dancers and Giers- tic character of Danish Expressionism,” and there is ing’s painting were abstractions in each their own some validity to this argument. Nevertheless, Giers- way. As in most of the contemporary fan photos of ing’s “Fokin and Fokina” is also an excellent exam- ballet, there is not much trace of the movements ple of both a rawness in its painterly and decorative of the modern choreography, just as the black and quality, which is not inherent to French Expression- white photograph could not give an understanding ism and of a striking distance and coolness that is of the colours of the costumes and sets. They were absent from German Expressionism. “Fokin and Fo- not photographs of the performances. At the photo kina” is Danish and a classical Giersing. session, Fokin and Fokina stood still for several sec- Verso 20 MORE PHOTOS AND DETAILS AT BRUUN-RASMUSSEN.DK BRUUN RASMUSSEN’S 70TH ANNIVERSARY AUCTION 883 21 1055615-1 Exhibited: Grønningen, October 1919 (Aarhus), HARALD GIERSING cat. no.1. b. Copenhagen 1881, d. s.p. 1927 Exhibited: "Nyare Dansk Konst", Liljevalchs Konsthall, "Fokin og Fokina" (Danser og Danserinde), 1918. Stockholm, November-December 1919, cat. no. 688. Signed monogram; signed on the reverse. Oil on Exhibited: Harald Giersing, auction 11 October 1921, wooden board. 150 x 115 cm. Den frie Udstilling, no. 61. Literature: Arist Pander: ”Harald Giersing - Minde- Exhibited: "Harald Giersing Mindeudstilling", Charlot- udstilling”, Samleren, January 1928, p. 3. tenborg, Copenhagen, October 1927, cat. no. 245. Literature: Leo Swane: "Harald Giersing - Vor Tids Kunst Exhibited: "Rundskue. Journalistforbundets retro- 1", Copenhagen 1931, p. 17. spektive udstilling af moderne dansk malerkunst 1910- Literature: Jan Zibrandtsen: "Moderne Dansk Maleri", 1936", Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, August-Septem- Copenhagen 1948. ber 1936, cat. no. 35 Literature: Winkel & Magnussen (ed.): "Kunst i Privat Exhibited: "Dansk Kunststævne", Fyens Forum, Odense, Eje”, vol. II, Copenhagen, 1945, ill. p. 371. September-Oktober 1936, cat. no. 144. Literature: Herman Madsen: "200 danske malere og Exhibited: Biennale, Venice, 1948. deres værker", vol. 2, Copenhagen 1946, ill. p. 214. Exhibited: Trefoldigheden, Copenhagen, 1950. Literature: "Aarstiderne", vol. 9, no.2, December 1951, ill. Exhibited: Danske Kunstforeninger udenfor Køben- Literature: Jan Zibrandtsen: "Moderne Dansk Maleri", havn, travelling exhibition 1951.