Analysis of Edgar Degas' The Ballet Class Painting Essay Example
Edgar Degas, a French painter, and sculptor whose innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive analysis of movement, makes himself one of the Master of Modern Art in the late nineteenth century. He was acknowledged as the master of drawing the human figure in motion. Degas worked in many mediums, preferring pastel to all others. He is perhaps best known for his paintings, drawings, and bronzes of ballerinas and of racehorses. One of his known particular paintings done in oil, The Ballet Class. This painting, The Ballet Class, was purchased by Alexander Cassatt in 1881 through the efforts of his sister, Mary Cassatt, a great friend of Edgar Degas. The Ballet Class remained in the Cassatt family until 1937, when it was purchased for the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In this everyday scene from backstage at the Paris Opéra, a ballet instructor observes two young dancers while a mother sits reading in the foreground. Degas spent a great deal of time in the corridors and rehearsal rooms of the Opéra, where he would have seen mothers like this one managing their young daughters' careers. Girls began official ballet classes at age seven or eight in hopes of becoming premiere dancers by their late teens. Degas has captured young ballerinas of the Paris opera house at their most natural, when they are practicing unselfconsciously behind the scenes, not performing for the public. The Ballet Class is full of such paradoxes, or contradictions.
We typically think of ballerinas as glamorous and inherently graceful. Yet all five of these dancers are shown in awkward poses. In fact,
one of the dancers toward the back of the painting—the one trying to balance on the toe of her shoe—is about to fall over! Another dancer, on the right side and toward the front, is looking downward as if checking the placement of her legs and feet. And in front of them all, partially blocking our view, is an ordinary woman slumped in a chair, reading the newspaper. We can’t help but wonder why the artist decided to put her there. She may be the mother of one of the girls, making sure her daughter performs well—a young ballerina’s salary could be the main income for an entire family.
When we look at this painting, we are confronted by a large, empty, diagonal space between the two groups laid out like a grid on the floor. The floor appears to be tilted, ending in a brown band of molding, a yellow wall, and a window. Wait! Is that a window, or is it a mirror? Look carefully and you will see that the back of one of the dancers is reflected. You can also see a city scene reflected. This scene is a view through a window located beyond the right edge of the painting.
Degas himself was a common sight in the rehearsal rooms of the Paris opera house. Like other upper-class Parisians, he subscribed (bought season tickets) to the ballet and attended performances.
there are several times a week. As a subscriber, he was allowed to wander through the rehearsal halls and mingle with the young dancers whenever he wanted. One ballerina remembered him as a man who wore blue-lensed glasses (to protect his poor eyesight) and often stopped the young dancers to draw them. Fascinated by the hard work it took to become a ballerina, Degas created far more paintings of dancers rehearsing than performing.
