DANCE

Dance inspired Leopold Gottlieb as an iconographic motif as well as an intriguing formal question. According to the painter’s wife, Gottlieb developed numerous versions of the theme throughout the years which enabled him to explore it extensively. First of all, the artist attempted to render musical rhythm into the language of graphic and painterly forms.

This exquisitely executed woodcut dating back to 1921 depicts two female figures immersed in dance. The expression of their bodies is stressed by rhythmical carving that provides a contrast to their static impersonal faces. This dance is an expression of primeval Dionysian vitality, and the figures devoid of individual features are subject to the dynamism of the lines that make up the composition. Gottlieb’s preoccupation with rhythm as an artistic problem brought him close to the Association of Polish Artists Rytm [Rhythm] founded in 1921, which he joined in 1929. Members of the group also included two of the artist’s friends, Henryk Kuna and Eugeniusz Zak.