Dance – No. 275 of 550 – SOLD

Tiffany’s Research Notes on “Dance”:

This limited edition facsimile etching has been faithfully reproduced from the original etching created by Norman Lindsay in 1923.

A complex work, Dance takes its inspiration from Norman Lindsay’s love of Classical music, particularly that of the composer Beethoven.  Dance was inspired by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major from 1812.

At the bottom of the etching we see the orchestra in full swing playing with gusto and above them the swirling mass of figures all intent on the dance.

In a letter to his son Jack, Norman wrote of his workings for Dance: “I have been thinking of the key of that drawing phase in the 7th Symphony, where all restraint, even the restraint of a dance measure, is thrown to the devil; and all hearts and feet leap with ecstasy.  But how to get it in a picture.  The 7th is not only the dance but all that the dance means.  I am trying to express not only the mad whirl of figures dancing into an infinity of light, but that inevitable interlacing of couples that leads them out of the dance room.”

Original etchings of Dance are held by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, the National Trust Norman Lindsay Gallery & Museum and the Mitchell Library in Sydney.