fig. 19 Anon, ‘Amphigouri’, Musical World (24th July, 1845, London)
fig. 20 detail of Anon, ‘Amphigouri’, Musical World (24th July, 1845, London)
The images of ballerinas dancing and the connoisseurial procedure of differentiating their styles produced strong emotions in the audiences who paid to see them. What was it that produced these emotions? The answer is given encoded in this (fig. 19) piece of coded language called Amphigouri which serves as a lament for the departure of the unnamed writer’s beloved from the stage to appear somewhere else for another season. The spread out letters which read like a pathetic sort of wail spell out C-A-R-L-O-T-T-A G-R-I-S-I, twice. Perhaps the most poignant part of the performance was what couldn’t be named at all but only spelled out silently in the middle of that most quintessential of balletic qualities: (fig. 20) gRace.