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拍品专文
More than half of Degas' oeuvre is devoted to depicting the activities of ballet dancers; he was attracted to their movements, which were both spontaneously active and disciplined, as well as the artificial lighting and unusual viewpoints that the ballet stage and practice rooms allowed. Often he depicted the ballerinas backstage at awkward moments, catching them off guard. In doing this, he seems to have deliberately attempted to strip the ballet of its glamour. The present sculpture is one of three bronzes devoted to the theme of a dancer inspecting the sole of her right foot. Although this is obviously an action performed off the stage, assuming this position nevertheless requires a delicate balance of the ballerina. There are forces of energy directed both away from the body, as in the outstretched arm, and inward towards the body, in the down turned head and the hand holding the foot. It is perhaps the precariousness of this pose that attracted Degas, who must have relished the challenge of depicting the body at the extreme limit of balance.
There is nothing inherently related to the ballet dancer in this pose. Without regard for the sculpture's title, one might consider it a depiction of a bather inspecting the sole of her foot during her toilette. In fact, many of the poses Degas chose to depict for his dancers were not unique to the ballet; they are often casual poses that were not necessarily held longer than other positions or more easily observable on the stage. Degas sometimes chose poses that corresponded to those he knew from the art of classical Greece and Renaissance Italy. Degas was classically trained at the cole des Beaux-Arts, and as a young artist spent much of his time copying the Old Masters and classical Greek sculptures, until he built up an extensive repertoire of anatomical poses. The artist appears to have chosen some of his ballerinas' stances for their inherent interest as movement and not because they were signifiers of any occupation in particular.
The pose in Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit can be ultimately traced back to the Spinario, a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy removing a thorn from the sole of his foot. This theme was explored extensively in both marble and bronze in classical Greece and Rome. The pose was then transformed in the classical sculpture of Aphrodite, a figure who viewed her foot while standing rather than sitting. Degas likely saw a reproduction of the Aphrodite in the book Terres Cuites d'Asie Mineure, by W. Froehner, published in Paris in 1881. The artist summoned this image when he set out to create Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit, but transformed the pose to complement his own agile style, and consequently stayed true to his direct observation of the dancers. Scholars J. De Vonyar and R. Kendall have written that "While Degas' well-stocked memory provided many starting points for his figurative repertoire, he was equally inclined to regard such models as precedents to be superceded, not complacently echoed" (J. De Vonyar and R. Kendall, Degas and the Dance, New York, 2002, p. 247).
As he often did, Degas restated the pose of this sculpture in two-dimensional form, when he painted the figure in the foreground of Danseuse, circa 1895-1900 (Lemoisne, no. 588, National Gallery, London). Degas also used this pose, seen reversed, for a bather in Le Bain du matin, 1890 (Lemoisne, no. 1028, The Art Institute of Chicago). While it is known that Degas drew from his own sculptures, the inability to precisely date these inter-related works makes it impossible in this case to track the developing chronology of this pose among its drawn, painted and sculptural counterparts, to know which version became the model for the others. What is clearly evident, however, is that Degas was intrigued by this pose and its classical origin, and that he returned to it on at least several occasions in his late work.
There is nothing inherently related to the ballet dancer in this pose. Without regard for the sculpture's title, one might consider it a depiction of a bather inspecting the sole of her foot during her toilette. In fact, many of the poses Degas chose to depict for his dancers were not unique to the ballet; they are often casual poses that were not necessarily held longer than other positions or more easily observable on the stage. Degas sometimes chose poses that corresponded to those he knew from the art of classical Greece and Renaissance Italy. Degas was classically trained at the cole des Beaux-Arts, and as a young artist spent much of his time copying the Old Masters and classical Greek sculptures, until he built up an extensive repertoire of anatomical poses. The artist appears to have chosen some of his ballerinas' stances for their inherent interest as movement and not because they were signifiers of any occupation in particular.
The pose in Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit can be ultimately traced back to the Spinario, a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy removing a thorn from the sole of his foot. This theme was explored extensively in both marble and bronze in classical Greece and Rome. The pose was then transformed in the classical sculpture of Aphrodite, a figure who viewed her foot while standing rather than sitting. Degas likely saw a reproduction of the Aphrodite in the book Terres Cuites d'Asie Mineure, by W. Froehner, published in Paris in 1881. The artist summoned this image when he set out to create Danseuse regardant la plante de son pied droit, but transformed the pose to complement his own agile style, and consequently stayed true to his direct observation of the dancers. Scholars J. De Vonyar and R. Kendall have written that "While Degas' well-stocked memory provided many starting points for his figurative repertoire, he was equally inclined to regard such models as precedents to be superceded, not complacently echoed" (J. De Vonyar and R. Kendall, Degas and the Dance, New York, 2002, p. 247).
As he often did, Degas restated the pose of this sculpture in two-dimensional form, when he painted the figure in the foreground of Danseuse, circa 1895-1900 (Lemoisne, no. 588, National Gallery, London). Degas also used this pose, seen reversed, for a bather in Le Bain du matin, 1890 (Lemoisne, no. 1028, The Art Institute of Chicago). While it is known that Degas drew from his own sculptures, the inability to precisely date these inter-related works makes it impossible in this case to track the developing chronology of this pose among its drawn, painted and sculptural counterparts, to know which version became the model for the others. What is clearly evident, however, is that Degas was intrigued by this pose and its classical origin, and that he returned to it on at least several occasions in his late work.