Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1910s 2

Added 18th Mar 2022 by Beth Dobson (Archives and Programming Assistant, DCD) / Last update 18th Mar 2022

Maud Allan 579b 51 2008-1-30.jpg
Maud Allan 579b 51 2008-1-30.jpg
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Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1910s 2

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Maud Allan Research Collection
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Mus . Courier Ano . 24 , 1916 . by Robert Mackan the great pianists of the world . Following concerts em phasized this belief more and more . Maud Allan's mother arranged then to take her to Eu rope to perfect her studies . For five years she worked at the Royal High School in Berlin , proving more and more with each passing twelvemonth that the predictions of her critics were soon to be realized . Her vacations and holi days , during those years , were spent in travels with her Maud Allan is Greek in inspiration and execution . Re spect for Hellenic taste has long been characteristic of the higher minds of the world , but few believed that it would come to pass that a girl would be born to impress on man kind that she might have stepped from a Grecian vase to revive an art that was the soul of antiquity — the dancing of expression . It is not boastful to state - for learned critics in all parts of the world have so written — that until Maud Allan danced , the art of the poetry of motion was a sealed book . For centuries the masters and devotees of terpsichorean attainment have struggled against technic and trickery in their effort to establish that element known by the inuch abused term , the poetry of motion . Dancers have coing and dancers have gone and the great public - always alive to the higher things in life - has gained nothing from them . Maud Allan , who never took a dancing lesson in all her life , is reproducing one of the greatest arts known to an age when art precluded even life itself . It is not diffi cult to understand and appreciate Maud Allan's work . The open sesame to that appreciation and understanding is a sense of beauty which includes , of course , a sense of all that is artistic , and a susceptibility to the appeal of music . These are born in most people ; the latter in nearly all . Just how Maud Allan gave life to an art that was sup posed to be forever dead , with none to guide her , has been declared almost a miracle . But Nature gave her the gift the realization and the understanding . Her work can only be compared with the inspiration that comes to such a painter as Sandro Botticelli or such a composer as Richard Wagner . She is a law unto herself . No superlative is sufficiently strong to be placed before her name . If there is such a thing in life as a sixth sense , Maud Allan is so blessed . In this respect she is what the eminent American critic , James Huneker , terms a " comprehensive . " Maud Allan's parents were kindly , law - abiding , prosper ous Canadians and they had the ordinary mortal's love for the beautiful . Little did they dream when Maud came into the world that she had been endowed by nature for an important mission -- to revive the expression dancing of the ancient Greeks . It was a rare endowment , too . Na ture had held it back for many , many centuries . Perhaps the right person had not come into her ken ; perhaps , too , the world was not ready . " In the second renaissance of art which may be said roughly to have begun with the twentieth century , dancing holds an honorable place , " says an eminent novelist and lecturer . Maud Allan was not a sturdy babe . She did not thrive through the long cold winters of Toronto , so her parents packed their belongings , bundled up their baby and jour neyed afar to the sunny mountains of California . The delicate dryad of the Lady of Snows found nourishment and growth in the Western State . California , the home of genius , seemed to claim her as one of its native born . Little Maud Allan was keen for the life out o ' doors . She ran , she rode bareback , she learned to swim . She slept in the open and in many other ways became , so far as possible , a child of nature . Whether or not this wild life had any effect on her artistic temperament only a kindly silence knows ; but at the age of five years she a most promising pianist . Her skill in learning and playing was so much a surprise to her parents that they took her to San Francisco , where she could secure more advanced instruction . She became so proficient that when she was thirteen years of age , she appeared in her first concert . There was not one critic present who did not claini a great future for the girl , who did not believe that some day she would be mentioned with MAUD ALLAN . mother ; and , at the end of the fifth year , as Maud Allan so tersely puts it in her book , " My Life and Dancing , " " my conscience telling of good work done and rest well earned , and my whole being swelling with delight , " she was to visit Florence , Rome and Venice , the dream cities of art and history . Her visit to Florence was the turning point in her ca reer . One day she visited the Palazzo deli Uffizi , that his toric home of art , and gazed in rapture on Botticelli's “ The Return of Spring . ” Once before in her life she had known a similar thrill - not so keen , perhaps , but of suffi cient duration to make her think very hard about the po etry of motion that was in San Francisco when she first saw the great French actress , Sarah Bernhardt . There was something so peculiarly fascinating in the way Bern hardt moved and used her arms and body and head that Maud Allan was almost obsessed . Just what charmed her so she could not describe because of her youth . She could feel the spell , however , and she never lost Bern hardt's great impress on her life and never fully compre hended it until the years had passed and she stood in rapture before the magical spell of the Botticelli . To fully understand Maud Allan and her work one must remember that Maud Allan saw in “ The Birth of Spring " the true meaning of the poetry of motion . " Just what is the poetry of motion ? ” you ask . The poetry of motion is simply Nature's motion . It is the way the white clouds scud across the sky ; it is the way leaves swirl and eddy in a deep forest ; it is the way a tree bends before the wind ; it is the way the waves of was