The greatest factor in the stimulation of European art, particularly music, drama and ballet after the bloody Napoleonic wars, was the rise of nationalism, vigorously manifested in the folk-art--dresses, customs, decorations, buildings, songs and dances--of various nations. The first steps in this direction were taken by the Scandinavians: Grieg, Ibsen, Björnson and August Bournoville. What Noverre was to aristocratic France that Bournoville was to Scandinavia. Instead of searching for models and inspiration in the aristocratic traditions of the past centuries, these men turned to the inexhaustible treasuries of the national folk-art. And they truly discovered new beauties in the simple racial traits of the people. In the previously despised peasant art they found unexpected æsthetic gems, out of which they began to form the individual beauties of their new art. The Scandinavians were soon followed by the young Russian dreamers: Glinka, Dargomijsky, Seroff, Balakireff, Moussorgsky and Tschaikowsky in music and also in ballet; Gogol, Turgenieff, Dostoievsky and Ostrovsky in drama and literature, turned in their creations to the rich and unexploited folk-lore of the people. Russian music, perhaps more than any other, is a true mirror of the racial soul. There is fire, gloom, sorrow and joy, remodelled and expressed in the same racial spirit as that in which the moujik sings his _Ai Ouchnem_, or builds his _izba_. The electrifying effect of the Russian dancers upon the European audiences is not due to the influence of the French Academy, on the model of which the Russian Imperial Ballet School was formed, as many music and dance critics of the old and new worlds seem to think, but to the primitive racial spirit, to the great stage geniuses of the Russian Empire, who began their work on the basis of ethnographic principles. It is therefore in the folk-dances that we must look for the solution of future dance problems, it is in the ethnographic element that is laid the foundation of the modern art dance. I While taking into consideration the folk-dances of various European nations, we find that those of Spain are the richest in racial individuality, most passionate in their æsthetic conception, and most powerful in their dynamic language. With their mediæval mystery, magic passion, merciless fury, angelic grace and seductive plastic forms the Spanish folk-dances remain the most impressive examples of folk-art. The centuries of Inquisition, romantic tragedies of the Moors and the silhouettes of an Alhambra are all expressed in the voluptuous lines of a _Jota_ or _Fandango_, regardless of whether they are performed by an Andalusian or an Aragon beauty.