THE BALLET CLASS BY EDGAR DEGAS

Title: The Ballet Class (La Classe de Danse)

Artist: Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Year: between 871 and 1874
Medium: Oil painting on canvas
Dimensions: 85 by 75 centimetres (33 in × 30 in)
Type: Genre painting
Movement: French Impressionism
Location: Musee d'Orsay

BACKGROUND
Degas was one of the few Impressionist painters who was wealthy enough to paint for pleasure, rather than
necessity - at least until he was 40. During his training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he devoted much of his spare time to
studying and copying works by the Old Masters in the Louvre, whose classical style he emulated in his less
elevated Impressionist paintings of Parisian life. It was in the Louvre that he met Edouard Manet (1832-83), who
introduced him to Monet (1840-1926), Renoir (1841-1919) and the rest of the Impressionists. However, while he
absorbed some of the characteristics of Impressionism and exhibited in almost all the Impressionist Exhibitions in
Paris (1874-86), his main focus was figure painting rather than landscapes, and therefore he had no interest in plein-air
painting, preferring to do most of his work in his studio. The apparent spontaneity of his pictures stemmed from his use
of different and innovative viewpoints - an approach enhanced by his close interest in photography - and his
exceptional drawing skills.

He was a regular visitor to the Paris opera house, where he produced several paintings and pastel drawings of young
ballerinas performing on stage, but mostly he preferred to paint them in the more relaxed setting of the dance class,
while they were rehearsing. And thanks to his friendship with the influential dancer and choreographer Jules Perrot
(1810-92), he was able to produce a wide range of ballet pictures showing the dancers rehearsing in numerous classes.
Two of his most famous dance class paintings, completed during rehearsal, are: The Foyer de la Danse at the Rue de
Peletier Opera (1872, Musee d'Orsay) and The Ballet Class (1871-4, Musee d'Orsay). Other great works by Degas
include: Race Horses in front of the Stands (1868), The Bellelli Family (1858-67), Portraits at the Bourse (1879), Women
Ironing (1884) and Woman Combing Her Hair (1887-90).

ANALYSIS
Degas painted The Ballet Class for the French opera singer and art collector Jean-Baptiste Faure (1830-1914). It was
completed two years after the Foyer de la Dance, and it shows Degas' evolution towards Impressionism. He invents an
entirely novel composition by giving the scene the illusion of having been painted from a raised position. This enables
him to show the room in oblique and receding perspective, emphasised by the lines of the parquet floor. This sensation
of the room receding is increased by exaggerating the diminution of figures by distance, using the process known as
'heightened perspective'. And while the Foyer de la Dance was modelled in delicate tones; this picture is painted in
succulent, seductive colours. Compare the general colour scheme used in The Ballet Class with that of his genre
painting Absinthe (1876, Musee d'Orsay, Paris).

Between the little ballerinas crowded together on the steps in the background and the two dancers seen in the
foreground, stretches a large empty space - contrasting with the varied and busy detail of the ballerinas and their
postures - in which the dancers will later perform. But now the space is occupied by the old ballet master (Jules Perrot)
who stands there leaning on his wooden stick which he uses to beat the time. While a young girl in the centre of the
group seems to be paying some attention to what he is saying, the rest are taking no notice.

The two dancers in the foreground are observed with a cruel and rather ironical eye. One of them, standing up and
resting heavily on her ungainly feet, shows no sign of the gracefulness which she will display later on. Interestingly, X-ray
analysis of the canvas shows that Degas first painted her facing towards the viewer. By changing her position to face
inwards, he reinforces the impression that we are actually in the room with the dancers, who are oblivious of our
presence. The other dancer, who is sitting on the piano, is twisting herself about in order to scratch her back. The
sylphides of the future are now the 'monkey girls' of whom the Goncourts spoke, and give away their origins with every
gesture. Degas himself, in a sonnet about the theatre, wrote this disillusioned line: "That queenly air is achieved by
make-up and keeping at a distance."

Degas frequently used the same ballerinas in different paintings. The ballerina in the centre of the picture with the
green sash, who is being examined by the ballet-master, also features in the monochrome Ballet Rehearsal on
Stage (1874, Musee d'Orsay).

The room is lighted from the right by tall windows which are reflected in the big mirror on the left, which thus provides a
second source of light. This picture is more brightly coloured than the Foyer of 1872, the white dresses being enlivened
by glittering belts of different hues.

The influence of photography on Degas can be seen in the way he crops the edges of the composition, in order to create
an impression of spontaneity, as if the painting is a snapshot of the scene. The dancer with the sky-blue sash (extreme
right) is half-in and half-out of vision, while the tutu of the dancer sitting on the piano also lies outside the frame. Other
details which enrich the composition, include the little brown dog (foreground), the cello (silhouetted against the
window, in the mirror), and the green watering can (bott om left).