Léon Bakst, a cofounder with Sergey Diaghilev of the journal Mir Iskusstva ("World of Art") in 1899, begins to design scenery in 1900, first at the Hermitage court theater and then at the imperial theaters.
Bakst, now thirty-four, had attended the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg but was expelled after painting a too-realistic "Pietà", returned to Russia after completing his studies in Paris, and became a court painter.