Russian Ballet I

Diaghilev's Ballets Russes were touring Germany in 1912, and in Cologne that year Macke saw Carnaval, Michel Fokine's ballet set to piano music by Robert Schumann, with Vaslav Nijinsky dancing Harlequin. He went back several times. Out of those evenings came four paintings, a sculpture and around 40 drawings.

This canvas takes the scene at its height, Harlequin carrying Columbine off while Pierrot, left behind, throws his arms up. The Kunsthalle Bremen notes that the carved figure below the parapet of the box, at the left edge, repeats that gesture. The woman in the hat at the lower right sits in the dark half of the picture with the rest of the audience and ties it to the blazing yellow stage.

Macke worked on cardboard rather than canvas, a little over a metre high. Bremen acquired it in 1953.