.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
No subject attracted Degas more profoundly than the ballet. It has been estimated that he made approximately 1500 drawings, paintings, and sculptures of dancers, more than half of his total output. Degas' corpus of dance imagery encompasses a seemingly limitless vocabulary of poses, representing a relentless exploration of the figure in motion; to use Baudelaire's words, Degas "loved the human body as a material harmony, as a beautiful architecture with the addition of movement" (quoted in J. Rewald, Degas's Complete Sculpture: Catalogue Raisonné, San Francisco, 1990, p. 23). When asked by Louisine Havemeyer why he painted so many ballet dancers, Degas replied, "Because, madame, it is only there that I can rediscover the movements of the Greeks" (quoted in R. Pickvance, Degas 1879, exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1979, p. 18).
The present picture is a masterful example of Degas' early dance imagery. In the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s, his interest in the world of ballet formed part of a broader exploration of the modern city, comprising as well the racetrack, the café-concert, the circus, the brothel, the stock exchange, the laundry, the milliner's shop. His pictures from this period illustrate each aspect of the dancer's daily routine, following her from the dressing room (fig. 1) to the rehearsal room from the wings (fig. 2) to the stage (fig. 3). The dancer is firmly situated in a social milieu: in some pictures, the stylized, effortful movements of dancers en pointe contrast with the informal, unguarded gestures of those at rest; elsewhere, the frontier between the ballet and the world around it is represented by the ballet master, the violinist, the mother or sister who helps the dancer to dress, even by the spectator at the theater. We see the windows of the rehearsal room, the benches, the barre, the spare ballet shoes abandoned in the corner; the edge of the stage, the footlights, the orchestra, the audience. An account by the journalist François Thiébault of Degas at work provides testimony to the intensity of observation which formed the basis for these pictures:
The rehearsal was in full sway: entrechats and pirouettes followed one after the other with rigorous regularity; in a laborious tension of all these young and supple bodies, and the spectacle was so curious to a young novice like myself that I was utterly absorbed in silent contemplation from which I would not have emerged for a long while if my companion had not suddenly nudged me. 'You see that thin fellow over there, the one with the cylindrical head and a beard, sitting in the corner on a chair with a drawing-pad on his knees? That's the painter Degas...' Degas comes here in the morning. He watches all the exercises in which the movements are analyzed, he establishes by successive features the various gradations, half-tempos and all the subtleties. When evening comes, at the performances, when he observes an attitude or a gesture, his memories of the morning recur and guide him in his notations, and nothing in the most complicated steps escapes him... He has an amazing visual memory (quoted in R. Gordon and A. Forge, op. cit., p. 167).
Thiébault was not the only contemporary observer to note the exceptional precision with which Degas recorded the world of the dance. As the critic Jules Claretie wrote in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts:
The ballet dancer deserved a special painter, in love with the white gauze of her skirts, with the silk of her tights, with the pink touch of her satin slippers, their soles powdered with resin. There is one artist of exceptional talent whose exacting eye has captured on canvas or translated into pastel or watercolor -- and even, on occasion, sculpted -- the seductive bizarreries of such a world. It is Monsieur Degas, who deals with the subject as a master, and knows precisely how a ribbon is tied on a dancer's skirt, the wrinkle of the tights over the instep, the tension the silk gives to ankle tendons (quoted in ibid., p. 183).
And the artist Georges Jeanniot described his first meeting with Degas at the house of Lepic, where a dancer had been posing for them:
Degas looked at our drawings. He showed us how to see a dancer's foot. He discussed the special shape of the satin shoes held on by silk cords which lace up the ankles, using terms that revealed long study. Suddenly he snatched up a piece of charcoal and in the margin of my sheet drew the structure of the model's foot with a few strong black lines; then with his finger he added a few shadows and half-tones: the foot was alive, perfectly modeled, its form released from banality by its deliberate and yet spontaneous treatment (quoted in ibid., p. 186).
The present picture depicts a dance rehearsal in progress. In the center of the room, three dancers assume nearly identical poses, one leg outstretched, arms raised in a graceful orb, head slightly inclined. One dancer is seen from the left, one from the rear, one from the right, as though artist and viewer were circling around a single figure; one might propose as well an allusion to canonical images of the three Graces, depicted from three different angles. Alongside the dancers stands the instructor, gesturing with his right arm. He serves as a surrogate for the artist, scrutinizing the movements of the dancers, committing their postures to memory. His black jacket and pants contrast with the white tulle of the dancers' costume, anchoring him in the world of the everyday while underscoring the distinctive artifice of the ballet. The instructor also provides a bridge between the three dancers at work and the fourth dancer at the far left, who has taken a respite from rehearsal to adjust her sash. Unlike the dancers in the center, who are conscious of being watched, the figure at the left is caught unaware, her gesture natural and unguarded; Degas emphasizes this contrast by depicting her from behind, cropped by the edge of the canvas. The composition of the picture is carefully crafted and neatly balanced. The five figures are arranged in a clear diagonal, leading the eye through the image; the bench in the foreground forms a right angle to the row of figures, providing a point of entry into the picture and emphasizing the dominant visual axis. Painterly attention is lavished upon details of the scene. The dancers' tutus are billowing and diaphanous; the pink satin ballet shoes have a glossy sheen; the wood of the violin is polished to a deep russet. Light plays across the bare skin of the dancer in the foreground, articulating the musculature of her back and the long, elegant line of her neck.
That the dance should have captivated Degas as a subject for painting is not surprising. It served as pretext for the depiction of movement, color, energy, human exertion; at the same time, it provided an unparalleled opportunity for naturalistic description. Perhaps more importantly, the art of dance offered a metaphor for the art of painting:
The dance was supremely and self-evidently an art of the body. It was also chaste, artificial, the upshot of rigorous preparation and practice. Repetition took place in the dance studio tirelessly. It was not improvised but practiced in the extreme sense, to the point of pain and deformation. When a dancer returned to a position again she was like a model taking a pose; but also like a painter, making a drawing, repeating it, tracing it, learning it by heart. And when she performed, her performance was effortless in its appearance, filled with an abstract joy (ibid., p. 159).
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Danseuse dans la loge, 1878-1879.
Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur.
(fig. 2) Edgar Degas, Danseuse derrière le portant, circa 1878-1880.
Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California.
(fig. 3) Edgar Degas, L'étoile, 1879-1881.
Art Institute of Chicago.
The present picture is a masterful example of Degas' early dance imagery. In the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s, his interest in the world of ballet formed part of a broader exploration of the modern city, comprising as well the racetrack, the café-concert, the circus, the brothel, the stock exchange, the laundry, the milliner's shop. His pictures from this period illustrate each aspect of the dancer's daily routine, following her from the dressing room (fig. 1) to the rehearsal room from the wings (fig. 2) to the stage (fig. 3). The dancer is firmly situated in a social milieu: in some pictures, the stylized, effortful movements of dancers en pointe contrast with the informal, unguarded gestures of those at rest; elsewhere, the frontier between the ballet and the world around it is represented by the ballet master, the violinist, the mother or sister who helps the dancer to dress, even by the spectator at the theater. We see the windows of the rehearsal room, the benches, the barre, the spare ballet shoes abandoned in the corner; the edge of the stage, the footlights, the orchestra, the audience. An account by the journalist François Thiébault of Degas at work provides testimony to the intensity of observation which formed the basis for these pictures:
The rehearsal was in full sway: entrechats and pirouettes followed one after the other with rigorous regularity; in a laborious tension of all these young and supple bodies, and the spectacle was so curious to a young novice like myself that I was utterly absorbed in silent contemplation from which I would not have emerged for a long while if my companion had not suddenly nudged me. 'You see that thin fellow over there, the one with the cylindrical head and a beard, sitting in the corner on a chair with a drawing-pad on his knees? That's the painter Degas...' Degas comes here in the morning. He watches all the exercises in which the movements are analyzed, he establishes by successive features the various gradations, half-tempos and all the subtleties. When evening comes, at the performances, when he observes an attitude or a gesture, his memories of the morning recur and guide him in his notations, and nothing in the most complicated steps escapes him... He has an amazing visual memory (quoted in R. Gordon and A. Forge, op. cit., p. 167).
Thiébault was not the only contemporary observer to note the exceptional precision with which Degas recorded the world of the dance. As the critic Jules Claretie wrote in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts:
The ballet dancer deserved a special painter, in love with the white gauze of her skirts, with the silk of her tights, with the pink touch of her satin slippers, their soles powdered with resin. There is one artist of exceptional talent whose exacting eye has captured on canvas or translated into pastel or watercolor -- and even, on occasion, sculpted -- the seductive bizarreries of such a world. It is Monsieur Degas, who deals with the subject as a master, and knows precisely how a ribbon is tied on a dancer's skirt, the wrinkle of the tights over the instep, the tension the silk gives to ankle tendons (quoted in ibid., p. 183).
And the artist Georges Jeanniot described his first meeting with Degas at the house of Lepic, where a dancer had been posing for them:
Degas looked at our drawings. He showed us how to see a dancer's foot. He discussed the special shape of the satin shoes held on by silk cords which lace up the ankles, using terms that revealed long study. Suddenly he snatched up a piece of charcoal and in the margin of my sheet drew the structure of the model's foot with a few strong black lines; then with his finger he added a few shadows and half-tones: the foot was alive, perfectly modeled, its form released from banality by its deliberate and yet spontaneous treatment (quoted in ibid., p. 186).
The present picture depicts a dance rehearsal in progress. In the center of the room, three dancers assume nearly identical poses, one leg outstretched, arms raised in a graceful orb, head slightly inclined. One dancer is seen from the left, one from the rear, one from the right, as though artist and viewer were circling around a single figure; one might propose as well an allusion to canonical images of the three Graces, depicted from three different angles. Alongside the dancers stands the instructor, gesturing with his right arm. He serves as a surrogate for the artist, scrutinizing the movements of the dancers, committing their postures to memory. His black jacket and pants contrast with the white tulle of the dancers' costume, anchoring him in the world of the everyday while underscoring the distinctive artifice of the ballet. The instructor also provides a bridge between the three dancers at work and the fourth dancer at the far left, who has taken a respite from rehearsal to adjust her sash. Unlike the dancers in the center, who are conscious of being watched, the figure at the left is caught unaware, her gesture natural and unguarded; Degas emphasizes this contrast by depicting her from behind, cropped by the edge of the canvas. The composition of the picture is carefully crafted and neatly balanced. The five figures are arranged in a clear diagonal, leading the eye through the image; the bench in the foreground forms a right angle to the row of figures, providing a point of entry into the picture and emphasizing the dominant visual axis. Painterly attention is lavished upon details of the scene. The dancers' tutus are billowing and diaphanous; the pink satin ballet shoes have a glossy sheen; the wood of the violin is polished to a deep russet. Light plays across the bare skin of the dancer in the foreground, articulating the musculature of her back and the long, elegant line of her neck.
That the dance should have captivated Degas as a subject for painting is not surprising. It served as pretext for the depiction of movement, color, energy, human exertion; at the same time, it provided an unparalleled opportunity for naturalistic description. Perhaps more importantly, the art of dance offered a metaphor for the art of painting:
The dance was supremely and self-evidently an art of the body. It was also chaste, artificial, the upshot of rigorous preparation and practice. Repetition took place in the dance studio tirelessly. It was not improvised but practiced in the extreme sense, to the point of pain and deformation. When a dancer returned to a position again she was like a model taking a pose; but also like a painter, making a drawing, repeating it, tracing it, learning it by heart. And when she performed, her performance was effortless in its appearance, filled with an abstract joy (ibid., p. 159).
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Danseuse dans la loge, 1878-1879.
Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur.
(fig. 2) Edgar Degas, Danseuse derrière le portant, circa 1878-1880.
Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California.
(fig. 3) Edgar Degas, L'étoile, 1879-1881.
Art Institute of Chicago.