On the Question of Pictorial 'Evidence' for Fifteenth-Century Dance Technique

Author(s): Sharon Fermor

Source: Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research , Autumn, 1987,
Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 18-32
Published by: Edinburgh University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1290621

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL
'EVIDENCE' FOR FIFTEENTH-CENTURY
DANCE TECHNIQUE
Sharon Fermor

The reconstruction of early dance is rapidly becoming a boom

industry, in both amateur and professional circles. Whilst there
is, of course, a positive side to this development, it also carries
evident dangers as reconstructors cast their nets ever wider in
the search for information about dance technique and practices.
This is particularly true in the field of fifteenth-century dance.
Sound textual evidence for dance technique during this period is
scarce; there are few surviving texts and those which we do have
are often difficult to interpret, not least because they use no
dance notation but describe the dance movements verbally, in
terms of which the precise meaning is largely lost to us. Faced
with this state of affairs there is inevitably a temptation for both
students and teachers of dance to look for other sources of
'evidence' and particularly to contemporary painting. However,
in spite of the apparent richness of paintings in this respect, th
attempt to use them as a source of information for performance
practice is a dangerous and highly unsatisfactory venture, one
which, at best, runs the risk of total circularity. The object of this
article is to point out, from the viewpoint of an art historian,
some of the problems involved in this kind of venture and to
explain why, as far as dance practice goes, paintings are in-
admissable as evidence.
The first and most important problem concerns the nature
of painting itself. Painters are not photographers, nor do they
have an impartial eye. There are virtually no circumstances one
can think of in which a painter is solely concerned with repro-
ducing the external world. This was, perhaps, particularly true
during the Italian Renaissance, when paintings had to fulfil a
complex range of functions - narrative, devotional, didactic or
allegorical. The Renaissance painter who included dancing
figures in his works was rarely, if ever, concerned with present-
ing an accurate record of contemporary dance. He was not

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

Plate 1: Luca della Robbia, choral dancers from marble cantoria

dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. photo: The Mansell Col
attempting to teach his viewers about dancing or to recor
techniques for posterity. The dancing figures he depicted
be deployed for narrative or, more frequently, for sy
purposes, and the representation of the dance itself
usually be subordinate to these. In other words, his depic
the dance would be designed, not as a record of the d
such, but to fulfil a specific narrative or symbolic role.
This first problem is illustrated clearly by the fact t
during the fifteenth century at least, depictions of dance
bear little relationship to contemporary dance as we k
from the surviving dance-manuals. For the most part, in
senting dance, painters relied on a set of established form

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 DANCE RESEARCH

I; .* . .* I :* r a * \ ',. ...-*w :cA.i?* f ih;,r' y<W?A t 1 1:K: i t.*ii

* A 'lAM INE II.. r 'NI ....I .'N. ^ . ...' . . . ... .. . .
AftX N \'IA ILI~t

Plate 2: Botticelli, Mystic Nativity, National Gallery, L

photo: The National Gall

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

formulas which they knew their audience would recogni

which they themselves could draw on without reference
dance practice. These formulas probably bore only a very
relationship to actual contemporary dance.
We can illustrate this by looking at a few examples o
representation of dance in art, starting with those insta
which the image of the dance is being used in a symb
allegorical way. One such image can be found in Luc
Robbia's marble cantoria executed for Florence Cathedral be-
tween c. 1432 and 1438 now in the Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo. On the bottom panel on the left-hand side a group of
figures performs a choral dance in the form of a round, linking
hands as they go (Plate 1).2 The dance illustrates a section from
Psalm 150 which is inscribed in the frieze below the figures. It is
in part an act of worship and celebration, but it also symbolizes
the harmony of music and the effect of well-tempered music on
the human soul, itself a common theme in fifteenth-century
writings on dance - harmonious music instils harmony in the
soul and causes the hearer to dance.3 The round dance occurs
again in the upper section of Botticelli's Mystic Nativity where a
group of angels dances in a circle, here a symbol of celestial
harmony (Plate 2).4 We find a similar image in Botticelli's
Primavera where the three Graces dance a round (Plate 3). Here
the round dance performs a complex set of functions. Not only
does it function as a symbol of harmony, it also illustrates
Seneca's allegorical explanation of the Graces as representing
the threefold aspect of perfect liberality - the giving, receiving
and returning of gifts, an idea probably known to Botticelli
through Alberti's De Pictura.5 Both the round dance itself and
the motif of the intertwined hands serve to illustrate this circle of
mutual benefits. In addition the round dance forms part of
Botticelli's own interpretation of Alberti's notion that a painting
should include several different types of movement, including
movement in a circle.6
The fact that these dances are symbolic does not of necessity
preclude their being accurate representations of contemporary
dance, although given their complex functions, that is unlikely to
have been uppermost in the artist's mind. There are, however, a
number of other factors which suggest that these images have
little direct reference to contemporary dance practice. Firstly,

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 DANCE RESEARCH

Plate 3: Botticelli, the Three Graces from Primavera, Uffizi,

photo: The Mansell Collection

the round dance was a well-established image which

frequently in both literature and art from classical
onwards. It persisted in both forms through the Midd
providing a formula which artists could draw on with
ence to contemporary practice. Secondly, in each of th
ples cited above, the artist clearly looked to classical scu

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

Plate 4: Fra Angelico, Coronation of the Virgin, Uffizi, Florence

photo: The Mansell Collection

a model, particularly in the painting of the individual f

Finally, the depictions of the round dance vary cons
from one another. They differ, furthermore, not in a c
way which might suggest or reflect a change in the actual f
the round dance, but in a way which suggests that the
simply varying a traditional image, adapting the famili
of the round dance to suit his own pictorial requirement
Another common motif in fifteenth-century art is that
chain dance. Again, this is often used to suggest har
occurs frequently in this way in, for example, the pain
Fra Angelico. In his painting, the Coronation of the Virgin,
the Uffizi, dancing angels move in a chain around the V
an image both of celestial harmony and of celebration (P
In his LastJudgment in the Museo di San Marco, the Bles
a continuous chain of dancing saints and angels as t
received into Heaven (Plate 5).11 This too is a well-est
formula, one with a long pedigree in both literary visua

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 DANCE RESEARCH

and which bears no necessary relation to contem

practice. 2 Indeed, it is worth bearing in mind that
manuals of the fifteenth century make no mention
round dance or the chain dance. That is not to say t
not performed, and rounds do feature in late sixt
Italian dance-texts.13 Nonetheless, the apparent
between textual and visual sources in this respect s
alert us to the probability of a considerable gap bet
representation and actual performance practice.

Plate 5: Fra Angelico, detail of Heaven from the Last Jud

di San Marco, Florence.
photo: The Mansell Collecti

The problem becomes more interesting if we co

examples of paintings in which dance is used for m
forward narrative purposes. In most such cases the
dance are not simply rather remote from the pre
down in the dance treatises, but appear openly
them. Before looking at these it is worth stopp
consider the particular character of fifteenth-cen
we know it from the dance texts. One of the d

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

features of fifteenth-century Italian dance is that, by m

standards at least, it was not conspicuously dance-like. Th
did not aim at spectacular effects, or at virtuoso mov
designed to stretch the natural capacity of the body; inde
dance texts suggest that for the well-bred man or woman
virtuosity was undesirable.14 Fifteenth-century court da
particular was designed around the natural movements o
body and was designed to be seen as a plausible exten
these. The three major fifteenth-century writers on
Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo and Antonio C
no state that the four basic measures are made up, in dif
combinations, of which they call movimenti naturali, so
because they form part of our natural movements.15 Th
'natural movements' are all in fact variations on our basic
walking step - the 'simple', or sempio, being a single step
forward; the 'double', or doppio, three steps; the continenza,
side-step, and so on. In addition, the texts mention sever
'accidental' movements which demanded more agility and skil
but which do not seem to have been particularly energetic
flamboyant. The main deviation from the pattern of the ordi
ary walking step lay in the movement described in the texts
ondeggiare, in which the dancer rises on to the toes on making
step and sinks gracefully down at the end. The writers also ma
it clear that the movement of the body should be gentle a
controlled; all include in their texts the technical term misura,
'measure'. This refers in part to the co-ordination of the danc
with the musical accompaniment and to the modulation of th
step in terms of size and speed. In addition, at least f
Domenico, it entails the careful control of the upper body so th
the dancer avoids taking his movements to extremes.16 This w
particularly important during the Renaissance, since bodil
movement was seen as having a strong moral dimension.
measured movement indicated a balanced temperament, a char
acter which was well-regulated and controlled, and the dancin
masters write at length on the theoretical arguments behind t
idea. Conversely, an over-energetic and flamboyant movemen
suggested an ill-governed or vicious temperament. This idea w
not peculiar to dance; it also featured largely in contemporary
treatises on education and social behaviour, and in literature o
art. 7

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 DANCE RESEARCH

We should now consider a few examples of dancing

in fifteenth-century art with these prescriptions in m
ples in which the artist does seem interested in presen
image of dance for its own sake, rather than for sy
allegorical purposes. Such examples are in fact relative
the fifteenth century, but some do occur in depi
festivals, triumphs and wedding-feasts. For the most
are found in the applied arts - in the decoration of
deschi da parto, for example - they are rarely the
large-scale frescoes or panel-paintings. On a desco da p
follower of Masolino, showing the Garden of Love,
figures in the front are obviously dancing (Plate 6). H
- ..? ~,t~,'. ~" : ... "" .?* ,

Plate 6: Florentine desco da parto, The Garden of Love, The

Princeton University.
The Art Museum, Princeton University, Bequest of Fr
Mather, Jr.

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

their movements bear little resemblance to anything descr

the dance-treatises. Furthermore, their movements seem
exaggerated, particularly those of the men whose step
excessively wide; it seems likely that if these figure
translated into a large scale - in other words, if we t
reconstruct a real-life equivalent of these movements
steps would be positively athletic and would almost ce
contravene the limits of misura.18 The same applies to a
from a cassone panel of unknown authorship, probably de
the Generosity of Scipio (Plate 7).19 Here we can iden
dancing couple, but the type of dance they are performin
little evident relationship to those presented in the danc
The same is true of a dancing couple from a Florentine c
print illustrating the rule of the planet Venus (Plate 8
both figures are shown in a lively jumping movement
high and arms raised - of a type which was largely proscr
the dance-texts, especially for women.20 It seems likely
order to convey the idea of the dance, the artist is prod
images which are larger than life, in which the movem
more energetic and more explicit than that recorded in th
Of course, the fact that such dances and types of moveme
not recorded in the few dance-texts known to have survived does
not necessarily mean that they were not performed. The dance
texts themselves may not be comprehensive; furthermore they
are to some extent describing an ideal situation. That is, they are
probably describing dances which they feel ought to be per-
formed, and the way in which they should ideally be danced.
The artist may be recording a type of dance not included in the
texts - a popular or country dance of the kind which was rarely
written down and which, even if considered inappropriate for
people of breeding, was still sometimes performed.21 Nonethe-
less, there remains an evident gap between the visual image and
what we know of the dance from the textual sources which,
unlike paintings, were designed, at least in part, for the purpose
of giving accurate information.
Generally speaking then, in these cases artists were rarely
concerned with presenting an accurate picture of the dance.
Rather, they attempted to create a general image or idea of the
dance within a narrative context. In so doing they chose formu-
las which bore little discernible relationship to the dance as we

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 DANCE RESEARCH

know it from other, more reliable sources. This may

been forced upon the artist by the particular c
fifteenth-century dance; as we have seen, it dem
subtle kind of movement, one which was not os
dance-like but based around the natural movements

SEGNO' FEMININO POSTA-iLTERO-?CIE

4AbELLIV% STIAENTI ORNATI- DORO'E
Plate 7: Florentine cassone panel, The Generosity of Scipi
side, The Wedding Feast, formerly Cook Collection, Richm

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

This may have posed something of a problem for the

attempting to translate it into pictorial terms, for it is a
movement which would have been difficult to reproduce.
ermore, an 'accurate' representation of a fifteenth-ce
dance-step would probably not look unequivocally like
but could be mistaken for a figure in normal, elegant mo
The painter who wanted to convey an image of the danc
wanted to show people dancing - was almost inevitably f
to exaggerate their movements in a way that made their
clear.

Plate 8: Detail from Florentine calendar print, the children of Venus,

The British Museum. photo: The British Museum

This brings me to the second major problem involved in

trying to adduce paintings as 'evidence' for dance technique, this
time a problem of representation in a more technical sense. Even
if we assume that an artist may have been interested in accurately
reproducing the dance which, as I have suggested, is open to
serious question, how easy would it have been for him to do so
with any degree of accuracy? A recurrent theme in Renaissance
writings on art is that of the difficulty of representing movement
in a static medium such as painting or sculpture. Alberti,

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 DANCE RESEARCH

Leonardo and Vasari all touch upon the difficulty of

physical movement in a convincing way. For the most
writers are concerned with narrative movements, tha
types of large and relatively dramatic movement whi
feature in contemporary court dance. How much mor
it would have been for an artist to capture with perfec
the more subtle and controlled movements demand
dance. This is particularly true during a period in
practice of drawing from life was relatively new and life
often very rudimentary. It is unlikely, I suggest, tha
have reproduced either the bodily movements of the
the details of steps and footwork with the precision w
be required for us to use his images as serious evid
may also explain the fact that fifteenth-century dan
contain no illustrations of dance-steps or techniques,
those which appear in the sixteenth-century manua
have been largely decorative in function and bear sur
little relationship to the procedures described in the t
Finally, there is the problem of how far it is possible
represent or to reconstruct a particular step or movem
one specific pose. Without the aid of a camera, and in
when dance notation was not yet in use, would any ar
be able to record the precise combination of leg, arm a
movements which characterise one specific mome
specific step or movement? Similarly, by looking at a s
- a 'clip' from one step or movement - could we serio
out what should come before or after that one moment? As an
aid to reconstructing a movement or sequence of movements, a
single fixed image is open to a wide variety of interpretations,
even assuming that it was accurately drawn in the first place.
Of all these issues, that of the artist's intention is the most
complex and the most problematic. It is an issue which should be
treated very seriously, for unless we can be sure that an artist's
primary interest was in accurately recording a dance, we are
hardly entitled to use his images as serious, scholarly evidence.
As I have suggested, during the Renaissance at least, this is
rarely, if ever, the case. The relationship of the painter, and of
the image, to the practice of contemporary dance is both too
complex and too remote to provide us with a sound basis for the
business of reconstruction.

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 ON THE QUESTION OF PICTORIAL 'EVIDENCE'

NOTES

For the commissioning of the cantoria and the dating of the different p
J. Pope-Hennessy, Luca della Robbia, Oxford, 1980, pp. 225-32.
2 The choral dance seems to have originated in ancient Greece. It did n
take the form of a round but could also be danced in a chain. In this e
however, the round is particularly important as a symbol of harmony.
clear whether the choral dance in either form was still performed in the
century; either way it seems likely that Luca della Robbia was simpl
traditional motif, rather than looking to contemporary practice. For t
dance see under 'Chorus' in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Music
S. Sadie, London, 1980, vol. IV, pp. 341-47, and under 'Dance' in ibid, v
176-87. For the round dance see under 'Rounds' in ibid, vol. XVI, p. 269
symbolism of the round dance in literature and in art see F. Carter,
Dance: a Search for Perfection', pp. 3-17 above.
3 See particularly Guglielmo Ebreo, 'Guglielmi hebrei, Pisauriensis de P
seu arte tripudii, vulgare opusculum', Biblioteca Nazionale, Florenc
Magl. XIX.88) in Trattato dell'Arte del Ballo di Guglielmo Ebreo Pesare
Zambrini, Bologna, 1873, pp. 30-4.
4 For a discussion of the Mystic Nativity see R. Lightbown, Sandro
London, 1978, pp. 134-8. See also F. Carter op.cit.
5 L. B. Alberti, De Pictura, [1435], ed. C. Grayson, London, 1972, p. 92.
probably knew this treatise in its Italian translation.
6 De Pictura, ibid., p. 82.
7 See F. Carter, op.cit.
8 For the classical sources of Luca della Robbia's choral dance see
Hennessy, op.cit. pp. 230-31, and C.del Bravo, 'L'Umanesimo di L
Robbia', in Paragone, 285 (1973), pp. 3-34. For Botticelli's use of classic
for the Three Graces see J. A. Dobrick, 'Botticelli's Sources: A F
Quattrocento Tradition and Ancient Sculpture', in Apollo, 110 (1
114-27.

9 It is by no means clear whether the round dance was in fact performed i

fifteenth-century Italy or, if it was, in what form, although the inclusion of
certain rounds in late sixteenth-century Italian texts suggests that it continued in
some form. For the history of the round dance see under 'Dance' in The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie, vol. V, pp. 176-87.
10 For the dating of this painting see J. Pope-Hennessy, Fra Angelico, London
1974, p. 195.
i Ibid., p. 192.
12 Here again, it is unclear what form, if any, the chain dance took in actual
fifteenth-century practice. For the history of the chain dance see under 'Dance' in
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie, vol. V, pp. 176-87,
and under 'Farandole', ibid., vol. VI, p. 394.
13 For example, in Fabritio Caroso's Nobilita di Dame (1600). For a recent
discussion of Caroso's text see the edition and translation by J. Sutton, Oxford,
1986.

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 DANCE RESEARCH

14 See for example, Antonio Cornazano, 'Libro dell'Arte del danz

Biblioteca Vaticana (Capponiano. 203), in 'II "Libro dell'Arte del
Antonio Cornazano', ed. C. Mazzi in La Bibliofilia, XVII (1915), p. 1
15 See for example Domenico da Piacenza, 'De arte saltandi et chor
Bibliotheque nationale, Paris (ms. it. 972), (c. 1445-50?) in 'Un trattat
Domenico da Piacenza' ed. D. Bianchi in La Bibliofilia, LXV (1963),
p. 117.
16 Domenico da Piacenza, ibid., p. 116.
'7See for example Matteo Palmieri, Vita Civile, ed. G. Belloni, Florence, 1982, pp.
95-97. On the need to avoid excessive movement in painting see for example
Alberti, De Pictura, op.cit. p. 84.
18 There is an additional problem to take into account in dealing with such
small-scale works of art, where the artist may resort to highly energetic images
with clear outlines to facilitate a clear reading. His representation of the dance
will thus be conditioned in part by problems of a straightforward practical
nature.

19 For a discussion of this cassone panel see E. Callmann, Apollon

Oxford, 1974, p. 38 and pp. 41-2.
20 Here in fact the artist may be using the image of an energetic
dance to convey the idea that Venus incites lascivious behavio
second version of the print; in the first version the woman's
considerably more restrained. Both versions are discussed by A. M
Italian Engraving, London, 1938, vol. 1, pp. 77-81.
21 Antonio Cornazano, for example, suggests that the piva should
in polite circles since it originated as a country dance. Antonio Co
p. 11. There are nonetheless numerous recorded instances of
formed at important ceremonies, for example at the festivities h
May 1475 to celebrate the marriage of Costanzo Storza and Cam
See 'Le Nozze di Costanzo Sforza e Camilla d'Aragona celebra
Maggio 1475', ed. T. de Marinis, Nozze Ricasoli-Firidolfi - Ruffo
barda, Florence, 1946, p. 45.
22 In the late sixteenth-century dance-manuals by Caroso and N
ple, the same illustrations are repeated at intervals throughout t
panying descriptions of widely differing procedures. Only the illus
more obvious and energetic movements seem to bear any useful
the text.

[This article is based on a paper entitled 'Pictorial Evidence for I

ance Dance Technique', given at the conference of the Soci
Research in February 1987.]

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