This essay is a comparative study of two sculptures with the same motive and name, The Dance. Ellen Roosval created the freestanding sculpture The Dance in 1925 and the relief sculpture The Dance in 1933. The essay has two objectives, an analysis of these works of arts and a spotlight on the artist Ellen Roosval’s as an example of a female artist in the early 20th-century. Her reworking of the sculpture into the relief generates multiple transformations. When analyzing the works of art the aspects of the meaning and reception for the beholder has been crucial. The method theory originates from Wolfgang Kemp and was further developed by Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe in her thesis. Sjöholm Skrubbe emphasizes on the beholders movements, the meaning of the term site-specific and the impact of the base. Now the questions in the current paper are: how the reception of the works relates to the viewer; how typology, site and material affects the design and expression; and how the works relates to the post-war aesthetics and dance. This also refers to how The Dance:s relates to the post-war aesthetic expressions and the motive. The study starts with a general background on the situation for female sculptors in the early 20th century, the artist Ellen Roosval, and dance. The dance section also introduces the dance company The Swedish Ballet (1920-25) that The Dance:s were tribute to. Then follows a contextualized presentation of the works analyzing formal elements and according to Sjöholm Skrubbe the different sites, the beholders movement and the base. Next, an analysis of typologies, materials and stylistic expressions. After that a deeper analysis focusing on the shaping of the human body, nudity and movements. Roosval’s The Dance 1933 is compared both with the relief The Dance by Antoine Bourdelle from 1912 and the Swedish Ballet performances. The analysis concludes with how site relates to choice of materials and how aesthetics and dance relates to the period 1920s. The results describes aspects of different transformations in relation to the beholders reception. The final discussion concludes on Roosval’s norm-breaker achievements, which inspired the title The Resistance of Time.

This essay is a comparative study of two sculptures with the same motive and title, The Dance, by Ellen Roosval: a freestanding sculpture created in 1925 and a relief sculpture from 1933. The essay has two objectives: to analyse these works of art and to highlight the artist Ellen Roosval as an example of a female artist in the early 20th century. Roosval’s reworking of the free-standing sculpture into a relief generates multiple transformations. The research questions in the current study are: how the reception of the works relates to the viewer; how typology, site and material affect the design and expression; and how the two sculptures relate to the interwar period aesthetics, dance and the motive. In the analysis of both works aspects of their meaning in relation to the beholder’s experience have been crucial. The applied method of analysis originates from Wolfgang Kemp as developed by Jessica Sjöholm Skrubbe, with particular emphasis on the beholder’s movements, the meaning of the term site-specific and the impact of the base. The study begins with a general background on the situation for female sculptors in the early 20th century, the artist Ellen Roosval, and dance. The dance section also introduces the dance company The Swedish Ballet (1920-25) that the two versions of The Dance were a tribute to. Then follows a contextualized analysis of the works focusing on the formal elements, the different sites, bases and the beholder’s movements. Next follows an analysis of typologies, materials and stylistic expressions as well as the shaping of the human body, nudity and movements. Roosval’s The Dance 1933 is compared both to the relief The Dance by Antoine Bourdelle from 1912 and to the Swedish Ballet performances. The analysis concludes with a discussion of how the site relates to the choice of materials and how aesthetics and dance relate to the period 1920s. The results demonstrate aspects of various transformations in relation to the beholders experience. The final discussion concludes on Roosval’s norm-breaking achievements, which inspired the title of this essay: The Resistance of Time.