Dancing Girl Inspiration.

Dancing Girl by Dion with Mark Knopfler on guitar.

There may be nothing quite as beautiful as a woman dancing. And there is no doubt having Dion's muse dancing to the song she inspired was genius. but when I heard this song, it made me think of my Dancing Girl

I bought this painting from Appleton Painter, Lenny Nagler, and named it Dancing Girl.

Lenny s a prolific producer of fine landscapes in oils and acrylics. He does this, he told me, "because paintings of people don't sell."

Yet, I have a number of his paintings dealing with human beings as subjects. In my opinion, Dancing Girl is the best painting he's ever produced, and I'm proud of the others I own.

When I first took a serious look at this piece, I noticed his treatment of her figure and his decision to depict her from the back. The maturity of her body and the playfulness of her pose lends me to believe that she is happy, self-confident, and carefree.

I also wish she would turn around, but this leads me to think that I would never honestly know her, even if she did. She would always be somewhat of a mystery. But then, aren't all women a mystery to men?

While Nagler's work does not show us a dancer as a performer, he follows a tradition certainly popularized by the Impressionist painter Edgar Dega.

Dega's numerous paintings of ballet dancers in the studio and on stage are classic's for the subject and compelling for his ability to take a two-dimensional still format and depict dramatic movement.

The Star by Edgar Dega

On the left is my attempt at copying the style of Artist Carole Rode-Curly. I've used Corley's sketches to inspire my work. In this sketch, I'm actually mimicking her style. I love the free-flowing line and style of her work. You can follow her on Instagram.

Sketch by Jeffrey Jordan

As a completely unrelated bonus attached to today's post, I'm forwarding a video I got from the St Louis Park Highschool's webmaster for the Class of 1959, Dave Nitz. It's a Pepsi Commercial that was run about 40 years ago.

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