Funeral dance

Born in 1889 in the Beaujolais region, Germaine de Roton was introduced to art by her mother, who was an amateur painter. Self-taught, she exhibited at various salons in Lyon from 1913 to 1929. Her mental health declined and she was committed to a psychiatric hospital in 1930 at her father's request. She died tragically in 1942 as a recluse, probably from the famine that struck patients interned in psychiatric institutions during the Second World War. Funeral dance illustrates the artist’s passion for dance, which was undergoing a profound renewal at a time when the female body was being liberated. The bodies of these dancers seem to be extracted from the material itself, deliberately deformed to better express the tension between movements and emotions. Germaine de Roton may have been inspired by ancient Greek vases and by the dance of Isadora Duncan, whom she particularly admired.