ART HISTORIAN AND ARTIST: THE AUTHOR’S METHOD OF ALEXANDRE BENOIS IN WORKING ON THE SKETCHES OF COSTUMES FOR THE BALLET “ARMIDA’S PAVILION”
The article is about the relationship between the art studies of Alexander Nikolaevich Benois and his work as a stage designer. Unlike his decorative art, his work on creating costume designs has not been studied in detail yet. The main focus of the study was on the production of the ballet “Armida’s Pavilion”, which was the first performance of the Ballets Russes by Sergei Diaghilev. The libretto based on the novel by the romantic writer Théophile Gautier was created by Benois himself. He decorated the stage in the French Rococo style. Before this work the artist made a lot of gouache paintings, inspired by two voyages to Paris and Versailles. The caption texts to the sketches outline the significant impact of costume designer Louis-Rene Boquet (1717-1814) who created the decorations for Jean-Georges Noverre’s ballets at the French royal court. Comparative analysis of the ballet costumes by the two artists illustrated significant similarity between the authors’ aesthetic. It is an example of the method of retrospective stylization in theater design that distinguished Benois among his colleagues and gave him an opportunity to enrich Russian and European cultural traditions. The article contains a description of costumes designed for the ballet “Armida’s Pavilion”, survived to the present day, created according to Benois’ sketches.