Ballerina

Date

1917

Creator

Mather made Ballerina while she and [Edward] Weston were experimenting together on aesthetic studies of figures in interiors. Many of their images of the period represent half-length figures, facing away from the camera, casting dramatic shadows on the wall behind. Mather was familiar with the Japanese concept of notan--the interplay of dark and light, as epitomized in Arthur Wesley Dow's theory of composition--one of the most notable characteristics of modern photography and the move away from Pictorialism. She had become interested in Asian--particularly Japanese--art, and the balance of form and void. Here, a figure dressed in a tutu lifts her arms gracefully, though the bottom edge of the image cuts off her lower body, leaving its position to the viewer's imagination. This is a subtle tonal image of varied textures. The ballerina is dressed in white, and stands before a white wall. Her bodice, made of glazed cotton or satin, fitting closely to her body, gives a sense of dimensional form, white the elevated skirt of tulle conveys vaporous insubstantiality. The posture of the ballerina's arms, and the turn of her head, create elegant, almost calligraphic contours, softened by the shadows behind. To further accentuate this spectrum of gray, the artist hung a large sheet of foil on the wall, white provided a positive compositional form and a varied passage of tonal reflection. A number of contemporary photographs, now in the Center for Creative Photography, demonstrates similar delicate tonality with half-length figures balanced by rectangular forms. from Acton, A History of Photography at the University of Notre Dame: Twentieth Century (Notre Dame, 2019)