Michel Fokine approached the still-youthful art of ballet with fresh insight, revitalizing a form that had become saturated with spectacle. In 1898, after joining the Maryinsky Ballet, Fokine found himself dissatisfied with his beloved art form. It had been reduced to a circus act, as dancers showed

Erotic, Ethereal, Fantastic, Hallucinatory, Spectral, The early russians

What would the Baroque have been without Rubens? This dynamo of artistic energy infiltrated all the great courts of Europe, spreading the lush, riotous, regal style that had formed in the wake of the Renaissance. His sprawling canvases depict life on an epic scale, as if he needed extra room to inclu

Baroque art, Dramatic, Dreamy, Ecstatic, Fantastic, Intense

Fairy tales, Gothic fiction, a baroque sensibility, feminism, gender bending, and science fiction: from this mélange emerges Angela Carter's fiction. A phantasmagoric opus that wavers between the horrific, the erotic, and the humorous, Carter's work is a series of appropriations and transformation

Fantastic, Fantasy, Feminist, Lyrical, Mythic, Postmodern fiction, Women's literature

Alexander McQueen tells stories with clothes. Though his sometimes outlandish designs have earned him a bad boy reputation, he isn't interested in spectacle for spectacle's sake. His work is magical, sinister, decadent and historically influenced. McQueen always tells a story with clothes, his creati

Agitated, Deconstructive, Fantastic, Monumental, Overflowing, Pioneering, Severe, Urban chic