“Blue Dancers” is a painting by the French painter Edgar Degas. It was painted in 1897 and in pastel on special textured paper. This picture immediately evokes an emotional response due to the fact that it reflects the unusual reality of the backstage life of ballerinas. Other feelings are associated with how easily the artist managed to convey the accuracy and smoothness of the barely perceptible movements of hurrying dancers. In my opinion, Edgar Degas sought to convey and communicate the complexity and elusiveness of human movement, which he managed to capture in the moment depicted in the picture (Portnova, 2018). The clarity and precision of the contours, clarity, and expressiveness of the drawing worried Edgar Degas, because only a properly drawn line is able to plausibly convey a gesture and clearly reproduce movement.
Description
The circling of the four servants of Terpsichore, graceful and charming ballerinas, like a frame of a photographic film. Moreover, an imaginary photographer takes pictures from a close distance and somehow does not have time to react in time – the heads of the two models turn out to be slightly cropped (Portnova, 2018). Each has a neat hairstyle, bare shoulders, a lush weightless skirt, called a tutu. All the girls are depicted in different positions, but so close to each other that it gives the impression of a smooth flow of poses, harmonious and dynamic movement. Degas’s paintings in general are not verified postcards, but a glancing glance from the side, as if by chance (McCune, 2018). The artist applied the same favorite technique to the images of ballerinas. Because of this predilection for the subject, he was even called a “painter of dancers”, but this had absolutely no erotic background (Hill, 2018). Ballerinas were just a source of inspiration and inexhaustible material, rich in all sorts of bizarre gestures and movements surrounded by the most delicate fabrics.
The Visual Elements and Design Principles
The work of Edgar Degas fell just during the period of the second life of pastels as a painting tool after a long oblivion. Many artists appreciated it for its fresh and clean tones, vibrant radiance of color and the ability to work quickly enough. Over the years, Degas has become an unattainable master in the possession of pastels, approaching the process with invention, adding special ingredients, diluting pastels with hot water, treating the drawing with steam (Hill, 2018). These almost engineering solutions, along with the technique of bold, but loose strokes, allowed Degas to achieve his main goal, which was the glow and pulsation of colors, the transmission of rhythm and sound.
The poetic expression of the work is determined by the music of lines outlining figures, the magic of rhythm and the magical radiance of a blue color, sonorous, rich in shades, then flashing in the light, then flickering in the shade. Warm golden tones, contrasting with blue, light blue and emerald, give the painting a decorative expressiveness (Portnova, 2018). Everything in this pastel, namely color, line, texture, space, shape, merges into an indissoluble alloy. Degas’s manner was distinguished by amazing freedom, he applied pastels with bold, broken strokes, sometimes leaving a tone of paper showing through the pastels or adding brushstrokes in oil or watercolor (Hill, 2018). The artist depicted the figures in close-up, combining direct and reverse perspective in the composition. He uses his favorite techniques of framing, reproducing movements and gestures from memory.
Context
In the history of painting, the name Degas is forever associated with the ballet theme. He was the first who was fascinated not by specific prima, but ballet as art and work, Degas not only saw, but also showed ballet from the other side. The motif of the transmission of a complex movement interested Degas throughout his work (McCune, 2018). Moreover, he would sort of deploy it in a time sequence, showing its various stages, as in this group of ballerinas. The theatrical world of ballet on his canvases shows unusual corners of the theater, sometimes visible only through a slightly open door (McCune, 2018). The famous painting “Blue Dancers” is painted from a completely unusual angle, as if the artist, and behind him the viewer, is spying on the ballerinas.
The painting “Blue Dancers” refers to the late period of Degas’ work. It is worth noting that he wrote it when he was about 63 years old (McCune, 2018). During these years, his eyesight weakened so much that he began to paint with large color spots, attaching paramount importance to the decorative organization of the surface of the painting, which is clearly visible in the painting (Hill, 2018). Degas was little interested in the landscape, which occupied a central place in the work of the Impressionists, and he did not seek to capture the elusive play of light and shadow on the canvas. In the 1890s, after the collapse of the Impressionist group, Degas’ works became closest in style to them (Lipton, 2018). However, the blurred shapes and bright tones that he began to use during these years were more a consequence of progressive loss of vision than the artist’s desire for the colors and forms characteristic of Impressionism.
Interpretation
The world of ballet became one of Degas’ favorite themes, to which he constantly returned in his work. However, unlike many contemporaries, the artist is attracted not by the colorful celebration of the theater, but by the prose of behind-the-scenes life. “Blue Dancers” may seem like sketches of the same ballerina: here she ties a pointe, then straightens her dress, examines her costume, holding on to the edge of the scenery. United within a single sheet, these ordinary movements suddenly turn into a beautiful dance; the magic of theater and the magic of painting are born before our eyes (McCune, 2018). Due to the use of pastel techniques, in this work Degas manages to achieve an amazing richness of texture and color combinations. Small strokes-strokes fall in different directions, combining into sonorous streams of blue shadows or scattering reflections of light on the dancers’ hair. The painting has perfect proportions and a fascinating rhythm. The girls seem to be dancing around inside her — so artfully the author arranged their arms and shoulders. Such symmetry (a circle in which a square is inscribed) is very pleasing to the eye.
The picture is unusual in that it is written in the “top view” angle. Four ballerinas adjust their tutus and warm up before going on stage. The unusual angle creates the feeling that the viewer is peeping at the ballerinas and is not next to them. The compositional placement of the dancers’ figures draws the viewer into the picture and creates the feeling that the ballerinas’ dance has already begun, and they themselves are already completely immersed in their images (Hill, 2018). A viewer can feel the atmosphere imbued with the inspiration of the upcoming dance. The asymmetry of the composition and the cropped edges make the picture look like a casual glance, a momentary scene that is valuable for its uniqueness.
The Purpose and Context of the Piece
It should be noted that this picture is not accompanied by any political or social hidden meanings. That is why the artist does not seek to make any statement, for him the main task is to convey the features and smoothness of movement. Each Degas work, with its apparent airiness, is the result of long observations and painstaking work. Impromptu was categorically incompatible with the perfectionism of the artist (McCune, 2018). His powers of observation and phenomenal visual memory allowed him to capture nuances with amazing accuracy, creating a sense of the instantaneous and accidental. The artist drew inspiration from theaters, opera, cafes. The latter were extremely popular in Paris during the last third of the XIX century — before the advent of cinema (McCune, 2018). These establishments were found everywhere and were focused on customers with different incomes. The democracy and vulgarity of the cafes attracted Degas. He was amused by the freaks that could be found there: ventriloquists, peasant women, sentimental ladies. Here, under the light of electric lanterns, Degas found new ways to convey the familiar — which, in fact, was what the Impressionists were striving for.
Ballerinas and students of choreographic schools came to Edgar Degas in the studio. Making dozens of sketches, he then collects these sketches into a thoughtful, mathematically accurate and balanced composition. The artist’s favorite effect of a random photographic frame was actually the result of a lot of preliminary work and calculation (Hill, 2018). He never painted prima ballerinas and famous dancers with big names. The faces of his ballerinas didn’t say much even to the artist’s contemporaries – they were all dancers of the corps de ballet or very young students who just had to go on stage, and it was absolutely not important for them to get a ceremonial portrait.
Evaluation
Based on everything that was mentioned above about this picture, a certain conclusion should be drawn. An important aspect is the artist’s intention to demonstrate plasticity and precision of movement. To do this, various techniques are used related to the peculiarities of color transmission, as well as the fuzziness of the image. In addition, another important technique is a certain cropping of the picture, which gives the impression of crowding. Edgar Degas resorted to this technique in order to add some intimacy, which was supposed to allow the viewers to imagine themselves as an observer who secretly watches the ballerinas. In my opinion, the painting definitely has value, as it is a manifestation of the artist’s skill in demonstrating the movement of body parts.
In addition, the artist used many unusual ways of depicting, which largely makes this painting a unique object of art. Consequently, such a desire to give an unusual image with rather extraordinary techniques allows us to say that it corresponds to aesthetic quality. Art historians consider the painting to be the crown of Degas’ extensive ballet cycle, numbering about one and a half thousand works (Lipton, 2018). The artist himself was overly demanding and extremely unfair to himself – he did not see inspiration in his own work and did not recognize temperament (Lipton, 2018). However, even this one painting perfectly demonstrates the rare talent of the master, who himself considered it important for the artist to leave some understatement, a mystery in the finished work. This was done so that the viewer could “stumble” over the picture, linger, peering into it, fantasize and reflect, because unambiguity becomes boring.
References
Hill, W. L. (2018). From practice to performance: The importance of ballet in Degas’s dancer painting process (Thesis). University of Kentucky.
Lipton, E. (2018). The laundress in late Nineteenth-Century French culture: Imagery, ideology and Edgar Degas. In F. Frascina (Ed.), Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology (pp. 1–10). Routledge.
McCune, M. (2018). Edgar Degas: Celebrating beauty in movement. The Journal for the Humanities in Rehabilitation, 1–4.
Portnova, T. (2018). Ballet of Paris Opera by E. Degas in the light of its popularisation as art and interpretation of the artist’s creative method. Space and Culture, India, 6(4), 84–92.