The celebrated French actress Sarah Bernhardt was by no means a dancer. But the Jewish Museum’s current exhibit about her career – “Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama” – brings to mind a question that has bearing on dance and all the lively arts: Why are some performers better than all the rest? What makes one actor, dancer, or musician the best of a generation?

In the case of Bernhardt, the answer lies mainly in the fact that she was blessed with an extraordinary talent. But there’s more to the story. Bernhardt was keenly aware of the new media at the time – motion pictures and photography – and used them to advance her fame.

More significant is that she saturated her life with art, on stage and off. She was an accomplished and inventive sculptor, as her macabre self-portrait suggests. Her collaboration with the artist Alphonse Mucha on promotional posters – many of them on display in the exhibit – advanced the style of Art Nouveau. In those posters and others, she relied on the visual idea of the spiral, twisting her body and draping her long gowns into an alluring column of mystery. Her personal fashion sense was artistic in the extreme. (Don’t miss the high-neck ermine capelet.) And a painting of her studio suggests that she surrounded herself with rich, lavish color.

It is true that hers was “an aesthetic of excess,” as co-curators Carol Ockman and Kenneth E. Silver describe it in the exhibit’s catalogue. But that sense of excess, combined with her talent, gave the world an actress of unparalleled abilities.As Mark Twain said: “There are five kinds of actresses: bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and then there is Sarah Bernhardt.”

Ms. Ockman and Mr. Silver deliberately emphasized the breadth of Bernhardt’s interests as a means of showing her effect on multiple levels of culture. “We wanted to show her modernity. People have focused on her as a classical tragedienne, but she had an incredible influence on popular culture,” Ms. Ockman said.

As this exhibit shows, Bernhardt had an impact on everything from photography to decorative arts. She reinvented herself more times than Madonna. But it wasn’t always just about her.”She’s a bit like Oprah in that she has a social and moral dimension, and she was also an entrepreneur,” Ms. Ockman said.

What’s perhaps surprising is two curators – both serious art historians – created the exhibit. But things went smoothly for these two friends, who met at Yale University while pursuing their graduate studies. Mr. Silver, chair of the Department of Fine Arts at New York University, is a specialist in early-20th-century French art. Ms. Ockman, a professor of art history at Williams College, is an expert in French art from the late-18th and 19th centuries; Sarah Bernhardt has long been a subject of her interest.

The two decided to work together on this exhibit after speaking on a panel in the mid-1990s. (After securing the museum’s interest, it took four years of research and gathering materials to bring the objects together.) “I’ve been interested in Bernhardt ever since hearing Carol talk about her,” Mr. Silver said, adding that their areas of expertise overlap somewhat. “We meet in the Belle Epoque.”

Together, Ms. Ockman and Mr. Silver have created a broad, but clear exhibit in tribute to this turn-of-the-century mega-star. This show may not teach us directly about dance, but it is a reminder of what we long to see in performers of any art: total commitment. It also puts the present in perspective. Time was when the high arts influenced popular culture – not the other way around.

“Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama” is on view until April 2 at the Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, 212-423-3200). If you’re interested in seeing more of Bernhardt in poster art, the International Poster Center (601 W. 26th Street, suite 1370, 212-787-4000) is hosting an exhibition and sale of posters, prints, and more.

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For the budding ballet fan or dancer on your gift list, there are two recently published books on the subject that are worth noting. Dance critic Robert Greskovic’s highly readable primer “Ballet 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving the Ballet” (Limelight Editions, 634 pages, $16.95) is now out in a second updated edition. The book offers easily digestible chapters on ballet history and engaging essays on specific ballets. Also included is a videography that is full of notes on video recordings. For the ballet newcomer, it will serve as a welcome introduction; for the balletomane, it is a handy reference.

The principal dancers of tomorrow will find practical advice in Eliza Gaynor Minden’s “The Ballet Companion: A Guide to the Technique, Traditions, and Joys of Ballet” (Fireside, 333 pages,$29.95).This handbook will teach young dancers everything from what’s expected of them in class to lessons in ballet literacy. The book is loaded with photos – of American Ballet Theatre’s Maria Riccetto and New York City Ballet’s Benjamin Millepied – that show correct positioning. Ms. Minden, a former dancer who founded the Gaynor Minden line of pointe shoes, intersperses historical information throughout the book. So even if you’re not headed off to class today, the book has plenty of interesting reading to offer.

pcatton@nysun.com