A comical caricature of Delsarte (1861)
Delsarte sought the “eternal truth about the nature of man, and how it is expressed in his gestures and speech.”[1] A spiritual man, Delsarte applied many of his religious ideas to his work. Of utmost importance, was the Holy Trinity[2] and the idea that each of the three separate entities, God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are also one in the same. Delsarte argues that because man in made in God’s image and likeness according to the Bible, then he too has three entities that function together, life, mind, and soul.[3] To be a great artist therefore meant utilizing all three cooperatively rather than relying too heavily on only one aspect of the “trinity.” While he expressed the importance of an interior motive, his performance technique emphasized physicality and gesture as the most important tool for an artist.
Even with its spiritual underpinnings, it is almost scientific in its exact and even mathematical approach, perhaps drawing on sensibilities of the time as society shifted from romanticism to realism. The body was divided into three sections: the head, torso, and limbs which corresponded to the “mental, intellectual zone,” the “normal, emotional, moral, spiritual zone,” and the “excentric, vital, physical zone” respectively.[4] Movements and gestures in these areas implied a meaning related to these categorizations.
Delsarte also taught the Three Great Orders of Movement: Oppositions in which “any two parts of the body [are] moving in opposite directions simultaneously”[5] which expressed force; parallelisms are “two parts of the body moving simultaneously in the same direction”[6] which can be used decoratively as in dance or emotionally to express weakness; and most importantly, successions which are fluid motions through a part of or the whole body.[7] True successions begin at center and move out and denotes, while reverse
A chart on the positions of the head
successions start out and move inward.[8] Choreographer Ted Shawn, a follower of Delsartism in the first half of the 20th century explains that “the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and all normal emotional expressions use successions—evil, falsity, insincerity, etc. use reverse successions.”[9]
Different parts of the body like the head, and limbs were also often subdivided into three parts. The face, for example, is the emotional expressive zone of the head subdivided again into its own mental (forehead and eyes), emotional-spiritual (nose and upper cheeks), and vital-physical zones (mouth, jaw, and lower cheeks).[10] Here is one Delsarte’s famous “Ninefold Accords” about the positions of the head (right) . According to this system, every part of the body could be used expressively and the interpretation lied its connection to his trinity. The position and gesture of elbows, wrists, hips, torso, where hands are placed in relation to the face all indicate a specific expression whether that be attraction, weakness, or a
A chart on the positions of the legs
A chart on the positions of the hand
desire to protect.[11] Delsarte said of shoulders, “When a man says to you in interjective form: ‘I love, I suffer, I am delighted,’ etc., do not believe him if his shoulder remains in a normal attitude.”[12]
Lastly, Delsarte taught Nine Laws of Motion regarding the body in general. As described by Shawn, these are the Law of Altitude; the Law of Force; the Law of Motion; the Law of Sequence; the Law of Direction; the Law of Form; the Law of Velocity; the Law of Reaction; and the Law of Extension.[13]
All of Delsartes work is reminiscent of the shift toward rationality and the need for exactness on stage and in performance as characteristic of realism.
[1] Shawn, Ted. Every Little Movement: A Book About François Delsarte. Dance Horizons, 1954, 26.
[2] Supra. n. 1 at p. 27
[3] Supra. n. 1 at p. 29
[4] Supra. n. 1 at p. 32
[5] Supra. n. 1 at p. 33
[6] Supra. n. 1 at p. 34
[7] Supra. n. 1 at p. 34
[8] Supra. n. 1 at p. 35
[9] Supra. n. 1 at p. 35
[10] Supra. n. 1 at p. 35
[11] Supra. n. 1 at p. 38-42
[12] Supra. n. 1 at p. 40
[13] Supra. n. 1 at p. 47