An obscure art form and another opinion

Art is something usually enjoyed by nobility. This is, I believe, due to its requirement for leisure, to be perfected and enjoyed. Whatever the cause, however, being enjoyed by the nobility, often ends in common and raw humanity somewhat charmed out of it, leaving us with a display of vague, ethereal perfection. I do not mean to say that this ethereal perfection is not beautiful and commendable in art, I would only attempt to remind us what beauty is. It is possible to get so caught up on our pursuit of beauty in a (for lack of a better term) academic sense, that we search far and wide for the symmetrical young maid with flowing golden hair, large blue eyes and skin fair and smooth, and forget how beautiful, in a fuller sense, a one legged fisherman or a fat, wrinkled, slightly pink women can be.

To illustrate my point somewhat I will use a perhaps slightly unfair example;

I have here two links to two different piano sonatas; the first composed in the baroque era at which time such music was confined rather rigidly to the nobility, the second the 3rd movement of a sonata composed by Beethoven.

Scarlatti: Sonata in E Major, K. 380

Beethoven: "Appassionata" Piano Sonata

The first is most certainly very beautiful, there is not a single uncomfortable note, all is harmonic, all is neat and pretty. One might enjoy it upon well nigh any occasion, and be mildly pleased. The second however, if you should care to listen particularly to the final 2 minutes, contains many a note strictly speaking inharmonic and ugly. It is so strange and irregular, furious and dramatic, that it has taken me rather long to enjoy it, and yet that enjoyment is something much deeper and truer than I can feel of the first. And yet however furious and raw this piece is, it does not abandon itself to the mere expression of an emotion, forgetting all refinement and skill. There is much in it pleasant and sweet.

One Mr. Ralph tells us that;1

" When a boy has been eating raisins and sugar-plums all day, he longs for a squeeze of sour orange by way of a change. And did you never,[.....] observe the sands on the sea shore: how nice and smooth they look, and how soft and easy they feel to the foot? But if you plod along for half an hour over this soft, easy carpet - giving way at every step, yielding the more the harder you press - you'll find it wearisome work, and be glad enough to come to a bit of good, firm rock, that won't budge an inch whether you stand, walk, or stamp upon it; and, though it be hard as the nether millstone, you'll find it the easier footing after all."

But now to the object of this lengthy preamble; I have a rather immovable opinion that Flamenco dance is the most beautiful and moving dance form in existence.

If, as is possible, you have no idea whatsoever of what I now speak - save perhaps a vague fancy of a passionate woman in a red dress, stamping - I will attempt here to give you a slightly less vague fancy of flamenco as an art form. Flamenco is a form of music, dance and song that originated from certain gypsy people who settled in Spain. Flamenco is not merely a dance form, but at its base level it is actually style of song and poetry passed down orally through the generations. The dancer is a comparatively late addition to Flamenco, although now the most well known.

Flamenco is a heritage of the common gypsy people, and as such, is an expression of their common woes and pleasures. Developed and perfected for many centuries and over countless generations. It is not an art form developed to entertain the aristocrats, it sees and expresses, as Beethoven often did, as Sr. Walter Raleigh and Charles Dickens did, the beauty in what is harsh and perhaps unseemly. The beauty of uniting sweet with bitter, soft with hard, old and young.

To use another slightly unfair example; Below are two paintings. The right is that of a ballet dancer, and the left a flamenco dancer. In the whole of each picture the contrast is plain,

but I would like to draw particular attention to the hands of each. The hands of the ballet dancer are elegant, and in all ways neat and perfect. That of the flamenco dancer, however, are rigged and unsymmetrical. It appears to be in the forefront of the ballet dancers mind to look elegant and dignified. The flamenco dancer may look these things, but it is not her purpose to look so, rather it is her purpose to express something of the soul of the gypsy people. Despair and love, anger, loneliness and oppression, and yet in even in the height of this, flamenco never abandons innate dignity that bars it from mere soppy whining or ridiculous merriment.

Flamenco is a skill that may take a lifetime to perfect. It is an academic pursuit, and a structure to be studied. I cannot comprehend any other dance form combining with such perfection, the raw weal and woe of every day existence, and the great disciplined and training that must make up even the simplest of movements. Nay, the epitome of academic complexity and the subtilty of history and poetry, in perfect harmony with natural, human emotion and expression.

It is most possible that I have not seen this in any other dance form merely because flamenco is the only dance form I have any actual understanding of, or experience with. Thus I say that I believe with partial conviction, that flamenco dance is the most beautiful dance form in existence.

Charlotte Bronte; The tenant of Wildfell hall; Chapter 32