Nature Morte à la Danseuse 1962

Mario Avati made this mezzotint print, titled "Nature Morte à la Danseuse," in 1967. The title, French for "Still Life with Dancer", gives us our first clues: the image is constructed around two incongruous elements. A smoker's pipe and a bowl, familiar objects in the still life tradition, are placed below a representation of a dancer within a target. Avati was working in a post-war context in which the institutions of art were being challenged by new forms and ideas. It's interesting to consider how the image creates meaning through its visual codes, cultural references, and historical associations. Here, the dancer motif becomes a target of sorts, which is very provocative: it is no longer a celebration of the dancer and ballet culture but a critique of high culture itself. The historian is concerned with understanding the complex and ever-shifting social meanings of images such as this one. To find out more, we can examine the critical literature surrounding the artist and consult historical sources that shed light on the social and cultural context in which Avati was working.