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Lot Essay
The subject of the dancer reigned supreme in Degas' late work. No other artist has so brilliantly brought the world of the ballet to life through his art than Degas. His life-long fascination with the subject led him to create countless studies and finished works of dancers at rest or in motion, both on and off-stage in a variety of media. The ever-changing character of ballet as a form of physical expression paralleled Degas' own artistic experiments, particularly his obsession of capturing the human body from every conceivable angle and level. As Lillian Browse explained, Degas "used that art [of ballet] for the exploration of his own" (Degas Dancers, London, 1949, p. 46).
Degas executed few sketches and paintings of actual performances and the more polished movements of dancers sur la scène. The major body of his work explores the life of the dancer off-stage, in the practice studio or at rest, and demonstrates how Degas preferred to capture the spontaneity and the chance happenings of the backstage world. Lillian Browse has observed, "for the painter who desired to peep through the keyhole, who loved the 'accidental,' it was all ideal" (ibid., p. 52).
Broadly and rapidly executed in charcoal with the immediacy of a snapshot, the present drawing depicts three dancers, hands on hips, peering over one another's shoulders as if trying to see something happening in the distance. Perhaps they are backstage, observing an ongoing performance from the wings, or instead in a dress rehearsal, awaiting corrections from the ballet master.
Kendall has pointed out the importance of Degas' almost exclusive reliance on charcoal and pastel in his late drawings, allowing for the utmost intensity in the black contour lines and among the color relationships in the compositions. "Some of Degas' final drawings must be considered among the most powerful and touching representations of dancers," Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have written, "though their relationships to events on the Opéra stage, to the art of the Louvre and even to the practice of the ballet has now become enigmatic and perhaps irrelevant" (Degas and the Dance, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts, 2002, p. 252).
Degas executed few sketches and paintings of actual performances and the more polished movements of dancers sur la scène. The major body of his work explores the life of the dancer off-stage, in the practice studio or at rest, and demonstrates how Degas preferred to capture the spontaneity and the chance happenings of the backstage world. Lillian Browse has observed, "for the painter who desired to peep through the keyhole, who loved the 'accidental,' it was all ideal" (ibid., p. 52).
Broadly and rapidly executed in charcoal with the immediacy of a snapshot, the present drawing depicts three dancers, hands on hips, peering over one another's shoulders as if trying to see something happening in the distance. Perhaps they are backstage, observing an ongoing performance from the wings, or instead in a dress rehearsal, awaiting corrections from the ballet master.
Kendall has pointed out the importance of Degas' almost exclusive reliance on charcoal and pastel in his late drawings, allowing for the utmost intensity in the black contour lines and among the color relationships in the compositions. "Some of Degas' final drawings must be considered among the most powerful and touching representations of dancers," Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall have written, "though their relationships to events on the Opéra stage, to the art of the Louvre and even to the practice of the ballet has now become enigmatic and perhaps irrelevant" (Degas and the Dance, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts, 2002, p. 252).