Antique images as a subtext in L.S. Bakst's painting “Dinner”

Abstract

The article attempts to give a new interpretation to the painting “Dinner” by L.S. Bakst. The author claims that both the posture and the mimic gesture of the model are references to the ancient image of the sphinx and the “archaic smile”. The version is confirmed not only through a direct analysis of the model's posture, but also by contextualizing the motives of the painting in the works of Leon Bakst and the artists of his time. As an additional argument, the interpretation is given in the tradition of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology. The image of an insidious woman, according to the author, is the content of Bakst’s own “anima”, a structural component of his psyche. This idea is based on the material of the artist's biography and on comparing the painting "Dinner" with the decorative panel “Terror antiquus”.