Impressionsim: Pansy Ha talks on Edgar Degas's The Dancing Class, 1874.

Artist: Edgar Degas

Start Date: 1871

Completion Date: 1874

Style: Impressionism

Technique: oil

Material: canvas

Dimensions: 85 x 75 cm

(DRAFT) Essay

The rise of Impressionism is one of the biggest art movements in art history. It gave people a whole new concept about art. Before the 18^th century, people tended to paint about myths or royal life, and the more the paintings looked real or alive, the better it is. However, for the impressionism painting, the brushstrokes are much more visible and fleeting appearance of light usually occupied most part of the canvas.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917), as an avant-garde artist of the impressionist movement, his works was greatly influenced by the Japanese woodblock prints, which often has an unusual point of view while doing the artwork. Paul Valéry (1871-1945), a French philosopher once wrote in his article "Degas is one of the very few painters who gave the ground its true importance. He has some admirable floors". Degas did have a unique and extraordinary observation while doing his artwork. Many of his artworks (usually paintings and sculptures) have a particular viewpoint.

The Ballet Class (La Classe de Danse) is one of the most famous paintings among all the other works by Degas. Many may already knows that ballerinas no matter in rehearsal or at rest and bourgeoisie women were Degas favorite theme in his artworks, like Dance Class, Ballet Rehearsal, Dancers in Pink, L Absinthe, The Tub, The Singer with the Glove and so on.

In The Ballet Class, you can see a group of dancers nearly at the end of the class, listening feedbacks from their teacher, the famous French ballet master Jules Perrot, who happened to be Degas’ friend and always allowed Degas to his classes. Most of the ballerinas were seems exhausted after intensive training, they were scratching their back while stretching and twisting their body parts. Some of them were already taking off their accessories and fixing the clothes.

The painting is defined as an impressionism artwork for a few reasons.

Impasto. A drawing technique usually used in oil painting. Apart from being visible, the brushstrokes are also very thick so that the paint can be mix together. That’s why impasto is usually only seen in oil painting because of the thickness of the paint and the time needed for drying. (Impasto can sometimes apply on acrylic painting as well). Though we are not seeing the actual work of the Ballet Class, we can still see the visible, short brushstrokes all over the canvas.

The light. Impressionist painters rarely use black color in the painting. The dark paint that we see is the mix of the complementary colors, even for the shadow. Not to mention that most of the impressionist paintings are tended to be brighter and lighter. In the Ballet Class, you can actually observe how the artist depicted the light of the room. The right and bottom part of the painting is obviously the major part of the light, which we can guess is where the light (or even the sunshine from the outdoor) came from. It can also draw more attention from viewers when they first look at the painting. I believe the first thing that catch an eye from most of us in this ballet classroom are the two ballerinas with yellow and green ribbon and their teachers on the right side, which are the brightest objects in the room. In addition, it is hard not to notice the mirror with the broad arch at the upper central part of the painting, we can have a sneak part of part of the room and find the source of the light.

As mentioned before, Degas had an unusual viewpoint for his objects. Here he was viewing the studio diagonally in a slightly raised angle, like he was sitting on a chair at the other side of the room, observing the class carefully. The wall in the furthest corner is painted with dark green, and viewers can hardly see the faces of the ballerinas over there, so they looked less clear than those at the front. As the two ballerinas were standing nearest around the Degas, there is more detail on them. You can see the overlapping brushstrokes of the layers of their hair and cloths. Ballerinas’ clothes are usually bulky and is kind of see through, in the painting, we can actually feel the realness and gracefulness of their dresses with the thick but short brushstrokes. Not to mention the floor in the painting, which occupy a large proportion of the canvas (around a quarter of the whole canvas). Degas liked to give details to the floor like mentioned before, we can actually know more about the painting by looking into it. The texture of the studio’s floor looks a bit moistened, it is designed in this way to prevent slipping while people is dancing. Moreover, we can also see there are quite a lot of scratches on the floor, which were guessed are the mark of the ballet master’s baton when he beats times when training his students.

I always have an interest on impressionist artwork, not only of its special and unique techniques, but it feels like I can connect with the artists and share the feelings with him/her while I am appreciating their works. Although you cannot get a very clear image of the objects, you are still able to tell the story about it. The Ballet Class first interested me because of its rich paint. Degas used complementary colors in the drawing, like red and green, yellow and blue, white and dark. It looks colorful for me and catches my sight. Other than that I think the viewpoint of how the Degas looked at the studio is fascinating, many of the paintings that we usually see are horizontal and flat, like looking straight or directly to the objects, or looking from a high or low point of view, but in this painting, we share the same angle with Degas and know more about the objects. Apart from giving me warm and connected feeling, the Ballet Class somehow makes me feel comfortable to look at. I feel peace, but also the seriousness and strictness of having a ballet class with a real master. There are so many to look at with a few groups of ballerinas, the teacher, the room itself and other small objects in it, everything seems like telling a story to its audiences.

After appreciating the Ballet Class, I keep thinking if there is any special meaning for Degas to paint in this particular viewpoint, so as his other painting with special viewpoint. Other than that, how would the subjects, in this case, the ballerinas (and other women in his other paintings) felt when they saw his painting (if they have the chance)? Since impressionist was not popular and even hated by people at that time (18^th century), they think impressionist were like stretch that hadn’t finished yet and hideous, they did not considered it as art, people tended to only know how to appreciate realist painting. So what would the people being depicted by the impressionist would think when they saw themselves looked blur and unreal in the “artwork” ? 

Reference(s):

"Edgar Degas The Ballet Class." Musée D'Orsay. http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire/commentaire_id/la-classe-de-danse-169.html?no_cache=1.

"EDGAR DEGAS: THE GREAT IMPRESSIONISTS - History/Biography/Art (documentary)." YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSYpdoFTIBE.

DeVonyar, Jill, and Richard Kendall. Degas and the Art of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

Reff, Theodore. Degas: the artist's mind. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976.

Rubin, James H. Impressionism. London: Phaidon, 1999.

3-mins presentation

I believe some of you may have seen this painting before, as it is quite a famous work of both Degas and impressionism. And if you have the chance to see the other work of him, you’ll know that ballerinas at work were his favourite theme of his artwork. But what’s more interesting is, Degas had not so much interests to paint the ballerinas on stages with all the lighting, but to catch the moment of them backstage or during training. 

Like this one on the screen, showing a brunch of ballerinas having a class with Jules Perrot, an actual ballet master at that time in Paris. It was near the end of the class, the students were exhausted, they were scratching their back by stretching and twisting their body parts. Some of them were fixing their clothes and accessories while listening to their teacher. 

You can see that Degas caught the moment of the ballerinas’ most spontaneous, natural, ordinary gestures, when they were relaxed and the body slump after the exhausting practice of the class. One more thing you can notice in this painting is that the view point from Degas, which is slightly raised diagonally across the studio, to the vanishing perspective of the floor, which tells you he’s observing his subject closely. It looked like it’s just a snapshot, but it was actually carefully planed.

You can also see that like most of the other impressionism art works, the color of this painting is mostly light and bright. And the liveliness of the brushstroke gives you the feeling of existence from the painting. You can actually know all the spaces in the room by the open composition on the canvas and the sharp lighting and shading of the room, for example, the color of the furthest corner of the room was obviously deeper and the center of the room is much lighter. You can also see the lights on the people’s faces to tell that sunlight was coming in from the right side of the painting.

And of course, the overlapping brushstrokes shows the layers of the clothes and hair. The dresses of ballerinas are usually more bulky and see through feeling, in the painting, you can feel the realness and the gracefulness of the dresses with the thick brushstrokes.

And lastly, I have to mention the floor of the painting. As you can see, it occupied quite a large proportion of the canvas. I am not sure if you can see it, but the floor was a bit moistened to prevent slipping of the dancers. Degas put details of the floor, it’s not smooth but textured. And there’s some scratches on the floor which maybe the mark of the ballet master’s baton when he beats times on the floor.