Lot Essay
Executed circa 1896, Danseuses shows one of the most favoured themes of Edgar Degas: ballet dancers. Here, they appear to have been caught in an informal moment, huddled together in the eaves, adjusting their costumes and stretching before perhaps dancing on the stage. The colours and organic forms in the background speak of the set decorations behind which they may be waiting, a notion that is reinforced by comparison to the more detailed background of the smaller pastel showing almost the same composition, but lacking the nearest figure, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Both of these works, as well as another related pastel (L. 1247), are marked by an incredibly bold compositional device: the dark strip, or bar, in the foreground which divides the scene. This serves a range of purposes in Danseuses: it adds an emphatic visual rhythm to the composition, while also heightening the sense of verisimilitude, of the photography-like spontaneity implied by the picture. Like the younger generation of artists associated to the Nabis who were working in Paris at the same time, Degas was fascinated by photography, and indeed took pictures himself using a camera; some of these bear striking similarities to his pastels in terms of the position shown, hinting at their use as additional subject matter. He had already used photographs and postcards to help him in his compositions some time before, but now appears to be adding a new dimension of supposed authenticity to Danseuses by lending it the impression of being a snapshot, a glimpse of a fleeting instant behind the scenes. Thus, reflecting the depth of his art and his strategies, Degas has used a compositional device in order to convey the idea that he did not have time to perfect the composition... despite the fact that many of his ballet scenes were in fact created using models in his studio. 'There was never a less spontaneous art than mine,' he confessed. 'What I do is the outcome of reflection and the study of the great masters... Of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament... I know nothing' (Degas, quoted in G. Adriani, Degas: Pastels, Oil Sketches, Drawings, London, 1985, p. 58).
Degas used a similar vertical device to that visible here in a small number of works, sometimes taking his pictorial cue from the flaps at the sides of the stage, sometimes from the practice bar, sometimes from other ropes and devices behind the scenes. For instance, it was in evidence in Danseususes bleues in the Musée d'Orsay, dating from circa 1890, and likewise the related Danseuses, also known as Dancers, Pink and Green from the same period and now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, having formed a part of the celebrated Havemeyer Bequest. In the latter work, the bar-like vertical form of the bar, in actual fact one of the stage flaps, is disrupted by the hand of one of the dancers, whereas in Danseuses it appears almost disassociated and is all the more striking for it. It was in part because of his bold use of devices like this that Degas was such a source of fascination to a host of later artists, not least Francis Bacon; it adds an emphatically artistic, almost painterly touch to the composition.
One of the other functions of this vertical strip is its echo of the largely-vertical strokes of pastel with which Degas has captured this scene. While the ballet had been a theme in his work for some decades, making its first appearances in the late 1860s, during the 1890s he explored it increasingly through the use of pastels, and created his own distinctive methods of using this medium. The pastels lend an impression, once more, of spontaneity; yet Degas uses them in an incredibly complex way, building up layer upon layer of predominantly vertical hatching of various colours in order to eke out his vision. It is a tribute to his virtuosity in this that his fellow Impressionist and friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir was driven to exclaim, 'When one sees his pastels!... To think that with a medium which is so unpleasant to handle, he has succeeded in rediscovering the tone of frescos' (Renoir, quoted in ibid., p. 62). Degas used this medium in a new way, literally drawing with colour in terms of both lines and the actual forms, building up incredibly complex textures of colour in order to evoke the range of subtle hues which so perfectly conveys the scene.
In terms of composition, the 1890s marked an increasing interest in the actual forms of the dancers, rather than their positions within the space of the theatre or rehearsal room. So, in Danseuses the figures of the dancers overlap, dominating the expanse of the sheet, taking up all but the top section. In this way, Degas explores them in terms of natural grace and beauty, through the sinuous forms and positions that they have taken, hinting at the explosion of movement that is imminent, while refraining from showing, as he had in many of his earlier works depicting more of their surroundings, that movement itself. Instead, he has explored the criss-crossing dynamism within this arrangement of people, between the heads and arms and shoulders and faces that amass here. Thus there is an almost abstract quality to the tumbling forms of the dancers which coalesce on the surface, adding a new dimension to his statement that, 'The dancer is nothing but a pretext for drawing' (Degas, quoted in R. Kendall (ed.), Degas by himself: drawings prints paintings writings, London, 1987, p. 311).
Both of these works, as well as another related pastel (L. 1247), are marked by an incredibly bold compositional device: the dark strip, or bar, in the foreground which divides the scene. This serves a range of purposes in Danseuses: it adds an emphatic visual rhythm to the composition, while also heightening the sense of verisimilitude, of the photography-like spontaneity implied by the picture. Like the younger generation of artists associated to the Nabis who were working in Paris at the same time, Degas was fascinated by photography, and indeed took pictures himself using a camera; some of these bear striking similarities to his pastels in terms of the position shown, hinting at their use as additional subject matter. He had already used photographs and postcards to help him in his compositions some time before, but now appears to be adding a new dimension of supposed authenticity to Danseuses by lending it the impression of being a snapshot, a glimpse of a fleeting instant behind the scenes. Thus, reflecting the depth of his art and his strategies, Degas has used a compositional device in order to convey the idea that he did not have time to perfect the composition... despite the fact that many of his ballet scenes were in fact created using models in his studio. 'There was never a less spontaneous art than mine,' he confessed. 'What I do is the outcome of reflection and the study of the great masters... Of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament... I know nothing' (Degas, quoted in G. Adriani, Degas: Pastels, Oil Sketches, Drawings, London, 1985, p. 58).
Degas used a similar vertical device to that visible here in a small number of works, sometimes taking his pictorial cue from the flaps at the sides of the stage, sometimes from the practice bar, sometimes from other ropes and devices behind the scenes. For instance, it was in evidence in Danseususes bleues in the Musée d'Orsay, dating from circa 1890, and likewise the related Danseuses, also known as Dancers, Pink and Green from the same period and now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, having formed a part of the celebrated Havemeyer Bequest. In the latter work, the bar-like vertical form of the bar, in actual fact one of the stage flaps, is disrupted by the hand of one of the dancers, whereas in Danseuses it appears almost disassociated and is all the more striking for it. It was in part because of his bold use of devices like this that Degas was such a source of fascination to a host of later artists, not least Francis Bacon; it adds an emphatically artistic, almost painterly touch to the composition.
One of the other functions of this vertical strip is its echo of the largely-vertical strokes of pastel with which Degas has captured this scene. While the ballet had been a theme in his work for some decades, making its first appearances in the late 1860s, during the 1890s he explored it increasingly through the use of pastels, and created his own distinctive methods of using this medium. The pastels lend an impression, once more, of spontaneity; yet Degas uses them in an incredibly complex way, building up layer upon layer of predominantly vertical hatching of various colours in order to eke out his vision. It is a tribute to his virtuosity in this that his fellow Impressionist and friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir was driven to exclaim, 'When one sees his pastels!... To think that with a medium which is so unpleasant to handle, he has succeeded in rediscovering the tone of frescos' (Renoir, quoted in ibid., p. 62). Degas used this medium in a new way, literally drawing with colour in terms of both lines and the actual forms, building up incredibly complex textures of colour in order to evoke the range of subtle hues which so perfectly conveys the scene.
In terms of composition, the 1890s marked an increasing interest in the actual forms of the dancers, rather than their positions within the space of the theatre or rehearsal room. So, in Danseuses the figures of the dancers overlap, dominating the expanse of the sheet, taking up all but the top section. In this way, Degas explores them in terms of natural grace and beauty, through the sinuous forms and positions that they have taken, hinting at the explosion of movement that is imminent, while refraining from showing, as he had in many of his earlier works depicting more of their surroundings, that movement itself. Instead, he has explored the criss-crossing dynamism within this arrangement of people, between the heads and arms and shoulders and faces that amass here. Thus there is an almost abstract quality to the tumbling forms of the dancers which coalesce on the surface, adding a new dimension to his statement that, 'The dancer is nothing but a pretext for drawing' (Degas, quoted in R. Kendall (ed.), Degas by himself: drawings prints paintings writings, London, 1987, p. 311).