Portraying the Psyche
In all of her dances, Graham sought to create a physical manifestation of intense emotions,
such as anguish, joy, and terror. She wrote of this objective in 1937: “To understand dance for what
it is, it is necessary we know from whence it comes and where it goes. It comes from the depths of
man’s inner nature, the unconscious, where memory dwells. As such it inhabits the dancer. It goes
into the experience of man, the spectator, awakening similar memories.”54 Graham believed that
her choreography came from her unconscious mind, and she wanted her audience to comprehend
her dances emotionally rather than visually. Dance and art, for Graham, were larger than any single
individual; they are, she said, “the history and psyche of race brought into focus.”55
Meltsner’s paintings of Martha Graham all contain a somewhat unnerving quality which
communicates the psychological aspects of Graham’s style. When Meltsner depicts Graham’s
company of dancers, as in Martha Graham Dance Class and Martha Graham and Group [Figs. 5.10,
5.16], this peculiarity partially results from the lack of interaction between the figures. Even within
a group, the dancers seem isolated and appear unwilling or unable to connect with one another. In
Thus, artists
who depicted the dancer sought to find a way to represent the interiority of Graham’s art. Paul
Meltsner did so by portraying his dancing figures as isolated from one another and the viewer, as if
ruminating on their inner thoughts. Barbara Morgan used photomontage, double exposure, and
careful lighting to lend a psychological quality to her photographs of the renowned dancer.