This study considers the figure of the female dancer in French literary, visual, and performing art from 1830 to 1930. It explores how manifestations of the la danseuse shape notions of Modernism and asks why dance occupies a privileged position in a variety of Modernist media.
Whether in the pages of a trashy novel, under the glow of gaslights, in a dance hall, or on the walls of art galleries, the figure of the female dancer haunts nineteenth-century French culture. Artists and writers of all kinds took on la danseuse as an emblem of their own artistic prowess.
