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Lot Essay
Of the seventy-four wax sculptures by Degas that were cast in bronze, forty are dancers, and seven of these show dancers executing various forms of the arabesque, the most beautifully poised and classically balanced of all ballet poses. In it the dancer positions herself so that she creates the longest possible line from her fingertips to her toes; the pose is normally used to conclude a phrase of steps. The present sculpture is more correctly titled Première arabesque penchée, referring to the point in the dancer's movement when she leans furthest forward, with her hand only inches from the ground. In actual practice she would have been supported by a male partner, as in a pas-de-deux, or held on to a barre in the dance classroom or studio; it would have otherwise been impossible for the dancer, pitched this far forward, to recover and again assume an upright stance.
It is perhaps the precariousness of this pose that attracted Degas, who must have relished the challenge of idea of depicting the body at the extreme limit of balance. Among his arabesque poses, two other versions show the arabesque penchée, sculptures nos. 16 and 60 (Rewald nos. XL and XXXIX, respectively). While other sculptures showing arabesque poses have counterparts in Degas' paintings, pastels and drawings, no other works show the arabesque penchée, possibly because the pose in a stage composition would have required a male partner, a subject that Degas avoided. It seems likely that Degas' interest in the pose was exclusively sculptural, and that he did not intend to use it as a model for drawing the figure, a function that many other sculptures filled while in progress or once they were completed.
This approach reflects a shift in Degas' sensibility, coming very late in his career, away from a naturalistic rendering of the figure to a more symbolical conception, in which the dancer embodies in her movement feelings of striving and risk. John Rewald wrote that the artist's hands now "modeled with more energy, less care, and their very feverishness seemed to be transmitted to the material. But this feverishness has nothing disordered about it, it corresponds to the almost youthful fire which so many great masters come to in their old age. The care for detail has disappeared; both hand and eye go after what is essential with the raw strength which comes from knowledge and experience. The movements to which he had devoted such research he now represents in a style which is itself teeming with agitation. In his hands wax is no longer an inert material; his fingers mould it almost frenzy, constructing masses which no longer borrow from nature the smooth surface of human bodies, but express, right down to their rough texture, the pulsations of life and the breath of the creator" (in op. cit., 1990, pp. 23 and 24).
It is perhaps the precariousness of this pose that attracted Degas, who must have relished the challenge of idea of depicting the body at the extreme limit of balance. Among his arabesque poses, two other versions show the arabesque penchée, sculptures nos. 16 and 60 (Rewald nos. XL and XXXIX, respectively). While other sculptures showing arabesque poses have counterparts in Degas' paintings, pastels and drawings, no other works show the arabesque penchée, possibly because the pose in a stage composition would have required a male partner, a subject that Degas avoided. It seems likely that Degas' interest in the pose was exclusively sculptural, and that he did not intend to use it as a model for drawing the figure, a function that many other sculptures filled while in progress or once they were completed.
This approach reflects a shift in Degas' sensibility, coming very late in his career, away from a naturalistic rendering of the figure to a more symbolical conception, in which the dancer embodies in her movement feelings of striving and risk. John Rewald wrote that the artist's hands now "modeled with more energy, less care, and their very feverishness seemed to be transmitted to the material. But this feverishness has nothing disordered about it, it corresponds to the almost youthful fire which so many great masters come to in their old age. The care for detail has disappeared; both hand and eye go after what is essential with the raw strength which comes from knowledge and experience. The movements to which he had devoted such research he now represents in a style which is itself teeming with agitation. In his hands wax is no longer an inert material; his fingers mould it almost frenzy, constructing masses which no longer borrow from nature the smooth surface of human bodies, but express, right down to their rough texture, the pulsations of life and the breath of the creator" (in op. cit., 1990, pp. 23 and 24).