Le dieu bleu bayadere with peacock 1912

Léon Bakst made this gouache and pencil costume design, Le dieu bleu bayadere with peacock. The artist’s hand appears everywhere—lines scribbled, scrubbed, and layered with patches of translucent color. I can imagine Bakst- I think I would have been sprawled out on the floor, pencils and gouache tubes scattered around, as I worked. The paper is raw and exposed, letting the marks breathe and expand. That bold swathe of blue transforming the peacock’s feathers feels spontaneous but deliberate, like a sudden thought that reshapes the whole composition. It’s as if Bakst is asking us to see the world through the eyes of the dancer, each gesture and color charged with emotional resonance. The costume design is a conversation starter. It invites us to engage with the artist’s process, to appreciate how it might have captured a moment of inspiration and transformed it into something tangible and lasting.