Loie Fuller

From a letter by Auguste Rodin, Meudon, 19 January 1908

“ Mme. Loie Fuller, whom I have admired for a number of years, is , to my mind, a woman of genius, with all the resource of talent,” etc.

From an Introduction by Anatole France 1913

I had seen her only as she had been seen by multitudes from every corner of the globe, on the stage, waving her draperies in the first light, or transformed into a great resplendent lily, revealing to us a new and dignified type of beauty.  I had the honour of being presented to her at a luncheon of the tour du monde at Boulogne.  I saw an American lady with small features, with blue eyes, like water in which a pale sky is reflected, rather plump, quiet, smiling, refined.  I heard her talk.  The difficulty with which she speaks French adds to her power of expression without injuring her vivacity.  It obliges her to rely on the rare and the exquisite, at each moment to create the requisite expression, the quickest and best turn of speech.  Her words gush forth, the unaccustomed linguistic form shapes itself.  As assistance she employs neither gestures nor motions, but only the expression of her eyes, which changes like the landscapes that are disclosed along a beautiful highway.  And the basis of her conversation, now smiling and now serious, is one of charm ad delightfulness. 

      This brilliant artist is revealed as a woman of just and delicate sensibility, endowed with a marvelous perception of spiritual values.  She is one who is able to grasp the profound significance of things that seem insignificant, and to see the splendour hidden in simple lives.  Gleefully she depicts, with keen and brilliant stroke, the humble folk in whom she finds some ennobling and magnifying beauty.  Not that she is especially devoted to the lowly, the poor in spirit.  On the contrary she enters easily into the lives of artists and scholars.  I have heard her say the most delicate, the subtlest things about Curie, Mme. Curie, Auguste Rodin and other geniuses.  She has formulated, without desiring to do so, and perhaps without knowing it, a considerable theory of human knowledge and philosophy of art. 

    But the subject of conversation which comes closest to her is religious research.  Should we recognize in this fact a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, of the effect of a Protestant education, or simply a peculiarity of temperament of which there is no explanation ?   I do not know.  At all events she is profoundly religious, with a very acute spirit of inquiry and a perpetual anxiety about human destiny.  Under various guises, in various ways, she has asked me about the cause and the final outcome of things.       …

Fifteen years of a dancer's life : with some account of her distinguished friends
by Loie Fuller ; with an introduction by Anatole France.
Boston : Small, Maynard, 1913, pp. vii - ix.

From Fifteen years of a dancer's life by Loie Fuller 1913

A VISIT AT RODIN’S

Many people are not acquainted with the temple of art at Meudon, which the great sculptor.  Auguste Rodin, has built near his house.  The temple is situated at the top of a little hill, and the outlook embraces one of the most beautiful prospects around Paris. 

      The view to be obtained from Flammarion’s observatory at Juvisy made a great impression on me.  The view, however, which one has from Meudon, though it is less sublime, stirs one more perceptibly.  Juvisy simply impresses through its atmosphere of grandeur, its calm, its suggestion of the past. 

      At Meudon, on the other hand, everything seems to aspire towards a new life, towards new times.  One feels oneself leap for joy, like the dog that precedes one in quest of the master of the house.  This is the impression that you get when you reach the gate, after having walked along an avenue that is not very wide and is lined with newly-planted trees.  You arrive at a fence, a very ordinary fence, that incloses nothing and which is there, I fancy, only to prevent wandering animals from getting in and those of the household from getting out.  The moment you draw the latch, which causes a bell to resound in the distance, a dog rushes wildly from the house and gives you a most joyous welcome.  Then Rodin appears in his turn.  In his rather unwieldy body and his features, which are a trifle heavy, great kindliness and sweetness of disposition are evident.  He walks slowly.  His gestures are kindly, his voice kindly.  Everything about him breathes kindliness. 

      He receives you by extending both hands, very simply and with a friendly smile.  Sometimes a movement of the eyes and some words to which you pay no great attention may hint that the moment has perhaps not been well chosen for a visit, but his instinctive good nature gets the upper hand.  He places himself by your side and shows you the path that leads to the top of the hill. 

      The panorama seems so extraordinary that you pause to take it in. 

      The temple stands at your right, the landscape spreads itself before your feet, and if you turn your glance to the left you note a forest of ancient.  Trees. 

      Then we look at Rodin.  He breathes deeply in silence while he admires the landscape.  He surveys everything with such an air of tender interest that you realize he is passionately attached to this spot. 

      His temple, too, is wonderful, so wonderful that this accessory easily becomes the central feature in the landscape. 

      Rodin opens the temple door gently and then in a friendly way bids you enter.  There truly silence is golden.  Words are powerless.  We know that we are unable to express in words some of our sensations, unless as a preliminary we have experienced them profoundly. 

      One ought to see Rodin at Meudon to appreciate him at his true value.  One should see the man, his surroundings and his work, to understand the breadth and depth of his personality. 

      The visit of which I am writing occurred in April, 1902.  I had taken wit me a well-known scholar—he has since died under tragic circumstances, having been run over by a carriage—and his wife, who was not less scholarly than he.  They had never been at Meudon before, and they were not acquainted with Rodin.  They were just as simple as the master himself.  When I introduced them not a word passed.  They grasped each others’ hands, and looked at each other.  Then, when we left, they grasped each others’ had, again, and held them for some little time.  That was all. 

      Yet, no, that was not all.  In the looks they exchanged there was a world of intelligence, appreciation, comprehension.  Rodin, with his peculiar figure, his long beard, and his eyes that gaze right through you, was matched, as regards simplicity, by this husband and wife.  The former, brown, tall, and thin, the latter, slight, and blonde, had alike a single aim, that of not making themselves conspicuous. 

      In the temple there was silence—a silence profound, admiring, almost religious, the effect of which I should like to be able to reproduce. 

      Rodin led us to a work of which he was particularly fond.  Motionless and mute, the two visitors looked at the masterpiece before them.  Rodin in his turn looked at them, fondling the marble and awaiting from them some sign of approbation or of comprehension, a word, a movement of the head or the hand. 

      Thus, from work to work, from room to room—for there are three studios in Rodin’s temple—we made our way, slowly, silently, our artistic pilgrimage taking on something of the significance of a communion. 

      In the two hours we passed in the temple hardly ten words were spoken. 

      When the inspection of the here studios was finished, a gentleman and a lady walking across the garden came towards us, and Rodin, in a very simply way, mentioned the names of M. and Mme. Carrière, the great painter and his wife.  M. Carrière and his wife are also as free from ostentation as Rodin himself and the pair of scholars who accompanied me. 

      We left.  In the carriage that took us back I asked my friends if they could describe their impressions, their sensations.  They replied in the negative.  Yet on their faces there were evidences of great happiness, and I knew they had appreciated and understood Rodin.  These two people are known throughout the world.  They are the greatest chemists of our day, peers of the celebrated Berthelot.  Since then the husband, like Berthelot, has gone to his last rest and the wife carries on their common activities.  I would give a good deal to be able adequately to express the admiration I feel for her, but out of deference to her own desire for simplicity and self-effacement I must not even mention her name. 

      So far as I myself am concerned, I may say that Rodin is, like the great master, Anatole France, one of the men in France who have impressed me most strongly. 

      Anatole France has been so kind as to say some things about me at the beginning of this volume—words exquisitely expressed, and of which, although far too laudatory, I am naturally very proud. 

      I am not less proud of Rodin’s good opinion.  This opinion I have noted in a letter the great sculptor wrote to one of my friends.  Not for reasons of vanity do I reproduce it here, but because of the simplicity of its form and in grateful remembrance of the great pleasure it caused me. 

      “ Mme. Loie Fuller, whom I have admired for a number of years, is , to my mind, a woman of genius, with all the resource of talent,” so wrote the master from Meudon on January 19, 1908. 

      “ All the cities in which she has appeared, including Paris, are under obligations to her for the purest emotions.  She has reawakened the spirit of antiquity, showing the Tanagra figurines in action.  Her talent will always be imitated, from now on, and her creation will be reattempted over and over again, for she has re-created effects and light and background, all things which will be studied continually, and whose initial value I have understood. 

      “ She has even been able, by her brilliant reproduction, to make us understand the Far East. 

      “ I fall far below what I ought to say abut this great personality ; my language is inept for that, but my artistic heart is grateful to her."

      Less grateful, certainly, than I am to the man who wrote these lines.  I am, nevertheless, happy to have been able to bring together on the same page the names of two masters of form who have influenced me profoundly and whom I revere affectionately. 

Fifteen years of a dancer's life : with some account of her distinguished friends
by Loie Fuller ; with an introduction by Anatole France.
Boston : Small, Maynard, 1913 Chapter XI ( pp. 122 - 127 ).

Title Loïe Fuller : Getanzter Jugendstil / herausgegeben von Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. Publisher München ; New York : Prestel, c1995. Description 176 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 30 cm. ISBN 3791316311 Language German Note "Dieses Buch erschien anlässlich der Ausstellung ... im Museum Villa Stuck, München, vom 19. Oktober 1995 bis 14. Januar 1996"--T.p. verso. Note Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-174). Subject Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928 -- Portraits -- Exhibitions.

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928 Uniform Title [ Quinze ans de ma vie. English] Title Fifteen years of a dancer's life : with some account of her distinguished friends / by Loie Fuller ; with an introd. by Anatole France Publisher New York : Dance Horizons, [1978?] Description 288 p. : ill. ; 21 cm ISBN 0871270668 Language English Note Translation of Quinze ans de ma vie Reprint of the 1913 ed. published by Small, Maynard, Boston Subject Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Title Fifteen years of a dancer's life, [microform] with some account of her distinguished friends. With an introducation by Anatole France ... Publisher Boston : Small, Maynard & Co., 1913. Description xiii, 15-288 p. front., plates, ports. Language English Note "Originally published in French."

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Title Fifteen years of a dancer's life, with some account of her distinguished friends, by Loie Fuller, with an introduction by Anatole France ... Publisher London, H. Jenkins limited, 1913. Description xiii, 15-288 p. incl. front., plates, ports. 22 cm. Language English Note "Originally published in French."

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Title Fifteen years of a dancer's life : with some account of her distinguished friends / by Loie Fuller ; with an introduction by Anatole France. Imprint Boston : Small, Maynard, 1913. Descript xiii, 288 p. : illus. ; 23 cm. Note Translation of Quinze ans de ma vie.

University of California gives :

Author Fuller, Loie, 1869-1928. Uniform Title [ Quinze ans de ma vie. English. 1913] Title Fifteen years of a dancer's life : with some account of her distinguished friends / by Loie Fuller ; with an introduction by Anatole France. Publisher Boston [Mass.] : Small, Maynard, 1908. [?] Description 288 p. : ill., ports. ; 23 cm. Language English

Author Fuller, Loie, 1869-1928. Title Quinze ans de ma vie. Préface d'Anatole France. Publisher Paris, F. Juven [1908] Description 288 p. 19 cm. Language French

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Title Souvenir de la soirée du dimch. 24 mars 1895. A Loïe Fuller. Imprint Paris, 1895. Descript 23 watercolors, 1 l. Note Original watercolors of Loie Fuller, in the original silk album with gold braid and paintings of her as Salome on both covers, presented to her at her 550th performance in Paris by students of the Beaux-Arts. The majority of the watercolors show her dancing. The dedicatory leaf at the end of the album is signed J. Henry Freedlander (?).

Author Fuller, Loie, 1862-1928. Title Notebooks and letters, 1907-1911. Descript 1 box (.25 lin. ft.) Series Treasures of the American Performing Arts, 1875-1923 Summary Chiefly comprised of two notebooks (ms., ink). The first is entitled "Lecture on radium" by Loie Fuller (59 leaves); also includes a draft letter to a friend (20 p. at end of vol.), signed and dated Jan. 24, 1911, including mention of the success of Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky in Paris. The second contains a draft of the lecture on radium (25 leaves) and extensive notes (25 leaves) about visiting Thomas Edison in his laboratory, light, phosphorescence, radium, Madame Curie's discovery of radioactive matter, stage lighting, the work of the English scientist William Crookes, barefoot dancing, the problem of deformed feet, etc., 1911. The collection also includes a corrected typescript of Fuller's autobiography, "Fifteen years of my life" (202 leaves); three letters, one of them from Fuller to a friend (6 p.), written on the verso of a letter from impresario Henry Russell (1909), in which she details problems with Russell and the Boston Opera Company; and other associated material including three photographic postcards of Fuller and a holograph essay entitled "Light" (6 leaves), all recovered from the Rowntree Theatre, York, ca. 1948. Note Excerpts (the second notebook) also available in electronic form, digitized by The New York Public Library. Bio/hist. American dancer and choreographer.
[New York Public Library]