Monet Detail

Hermans Detail

In both scenes, most partygoers are not wearing masks.The people at the Herman’s party seem to be having more fun.

Reveling in Detail:Manet shows us the bare leg and fringed shoe of a woman straddling a balcony barrier.

Herman’s gives us a glimpse of a lady snuggling up to a Pierrot.

Manet’s and Hermans’s images of the grotesque: the one ugly, the other menacing

The Hermans HoodThe Manet Mask

Charles Christian Nahl’s lithograph of a ballroom scene in Gold Rush San Francisco

In the mining camps, where there were few women, men would sometimes dance with other men, the one willing to take the woman’s part indicating his willingness by showing a handkerchief or bandana dangling from a rear pocket:

Elegant dress, much less refined dance costumes as pictures by Manet and Hermans, could scarcely be found in San Francisco — and, indeed, were not necessary for either work or leisure. As Bayard Taylor remarked: “Dress was no gauge of respectability, and no honest occupation, however menial in its character, affected a man’s standing,” and that “a man who would consider his fellow beneath him, on account of his appearance or occupation, would have had some difficulty in living peaceably in California.”

But the men who returned from months of hard mining labor in the mountains wanted as much entertainment as they could get to make up for the privations they had been through. They wanted to eat, drink and dance at as high a level as their new-won gold could purchase. The standards of the old world prevailed — champagne to drink, masked balls for dancing — but the free-for-all society of San Francisco meant that they had to make do with whatever, and whoever, was available. Here is a summary of the atmosphere of such dances, as reported in The Annals of San Francisco (1855):

Occasionally a fancy-dress ball or masquerade would be announced at high prices. There the most extraordinary scenes were exhibited, as might have been expected where the actors and dancers were chiefly hot-headed young men, flush with money and half frantic with excitement, and lewd girls freed from the necessity of all moral restraint.

Whatever might be the differences in the ambience of the two balls depicted by Manet and

Hermans, those contrasts are nothing to their social distance from the dance scene in Gold Rush

San Francisco as reported by the visitor from Paris, Albert Benard de Russailh —>

The following slide vividly describes such a scene in one of these dance halls. —>

"Last April, the actors in the French Theater got up a ball, and Charles Duanc, who is presentable and well-mannered, attended the party. Halfway through the evening, in the midst of the laughing and stamping of the dance, a quarrel broke out between Duane and an actor named Fayolle, who had accidentally stepped on Duane's foot. In fear, everyone stopped dancing.

"Fayolle was very apologetic, but Duane's rage flared up when he saw that the Frenchman wanted to avoid a fight. Some men intervened, separated the two, and pacified Duane. who seemed ready to leap at Fayolle. At last everyone thought that the quarrel was settled; but they had not reckoned onDuane's thirst for blood.

"A quadrille began, and Duane moved up behind Fayolle, who was dancing. When the dance was over, Duane coolly drew his revolver and shot Fayolle in the back.

"The actor fell severely wounded, and lay in a pool of his own blood. At the sound of the shot  all the women either fainted or ran away.

As for Duane, he stood calm and impassive over his victim, apparently contemplating his handiwork with satisfaction, and calmly took out a cigar from his pocket.”

— Albert Benard de Russailh, Last Adventure: San Francisco in 1851

Charles Duane

In a letter to her sister back on the East Coast, “Dame Shirley” (Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe) describes another dance scene in Gold Rush San Francisco —>

The artist who gave us the above image of a Gold Rush dance hall was Charles Christian Nahl, who came to the western shores to seek his fortune in the gold fields, but remained to become the foremost chronicler of life in California in the nineteenth century. Here is a link to his major works:

http://www.arthurchandler.com/nahl-index

CommentaryThe masked balls in Europe probably began in France during the fourteenth century, as seen in this illustration of the Bal des Ardents in 1393, with King Charles VI and the Duchess of Berry in costume:

As it developed through the years, such events became a kind of adult version of Halloween: a time and place where mild wickedness was allowed to flourish, a temporary relaxation of the rules of ordinary decorum. During the nineteenth century in Paris and Brussels, the masked ball was an upper class affair, set in the dazzling splendor of ballrooms and opera houses: a stage set where high society men and women could carouse and flirt — sometimes with serious amorous intent.

In spite of their obvious differences, all dance venues demonstrate the truth of Paul Valéry’s insight that dance is the pure act of metamorphosis. For an evening, men and women, separately and together, enter into the world of moving music and rhythmic motion. Manet, Hermans and Nahl give us glimpses into those evenings, long since vanished, but still with us in their renderings.

For more ideas, images, and videos related to dance, visit this page:

http://www.arthurchandler.com/dance