In 1902, Appia wrote of his sketches for stage sets: “We shall no longer attempt to give the illusion of a forest but instead the illusion of a man in the atmosphere of a forest...” The drawings displayed here show how Appia’s ideas for stage sets developed, from his first sketches for Richard Wagner’s Rheingold and Parsifal in 1892/96 to the Espaces Rythmiques designed for Dalcroze between 1909 and 1910, the stage sets he created for Hellerau for Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 1911 and 1912, or his last works in 1928. Appia’s drawings have always “only” been seen and understood as stage set sketches, but our exhibition is also designed to show them as independent works of art whose aesthetic value is far higher than that of mere illustration.