1874, Oil on canvas
Degas is often praised with the term Impressionist, as most of them he was focused on capturing the moment, nevertheless, he had a little interest in capturing the play of light or the impression from a landscape, he was fascinated with the movement and seized every moment of delicate dance by ballerinas.
Line: The line of the painting is diagonal, composed of figures inhabiting the painting, it is going from the left bottom corner to the right upper dividing the painting into two color palettes. Diagonal line also conveys a feeling of movement.
Shape: All the figures in the painting are natural, the bodies of ballet dancers and their fluffy skirts, the shapes of the figures expressively evident to the contrast of flat surface of the mirror on the wall, where all the figures in the reflection are flat.
Value: The panting seems to be rather light, with natural day-light value. The tints and shades of ballerinas clothes produces the balance between lightness and darkness.
Color: The two colors on the background play with the diagonal composed of light beige and white figures, the tertiary hues of green and yellow, situated near by on the color wheel fill the painting with the pastel and composed range of colors, low in intensity.
Texture: The colors, lines of clothing, its shading imply texture of the skirts with layers of underskirts. The ballerinas and their clothing looks soft and smooth which adds to the implied softness and delicacy of their movements.
Space: The bigger and more detailed figures in the right bottom side of the painting and more shadowed small figures in the left upper corner creates the illusion of perspective and three-dimensional space of the big dancing room.
Balance: The grouping of the figures seems natural for the ballet room and creates the feeling of equality, as Degas is using the golden ration positioning the closest figure in the painting and the background figures. However, the arrangement of all the bodies on the line makes other corners completely empty.
Emphasis: The intersection of the lines, the diagonal line going thought all the painting and the line crossing it creates the emphasis on the figure between the foreground and the background, it is also the dancer with the most expressive moves which makes her complicated in shape. She is the focal point of the painting and calls the attention of the viewer as well as other figures in the classroom.
Scale: All the figures are up to scale, the figure of ballet master is situated on the left side of the painting but it is larger than other figures, the teacher stands closer and thus takes another emphasis.
Contextual analisys
The Dance Class in the painting of Degas famous for its ambitions nature, he portrayed a lot of ballerinas and dancers in his other paintings, to be precise, his interest in ballet dancers started developing in 1870s, propelling him to create approximately 1,500 works on the subject, but this one counts “twenty-four women, ballerinas and their mothers, wait while a dancer executes an ‘attitude’ for her examination”. Moreover, the scene is set in the classroom of Paris Opera house and “Jules Perrot, a famous ballet master, conducts the class” (MetMuseum).
The talent of the artist and his impressionistic reputation is evident as it is extremely hard to convey the moment of dance moves, lightness and elegance of the ballerinas. “These are not traditional portraits, but studies that address the movement of the human body, exploring the physicality and discipline of the dancers through the use of contorted postures and unexpected vantage points” (Schenkel).
Works cited
Degas, Edgar. The Dance Class. 1874. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438817
Schenkel, Ruth. Edgar Degas (1834–1917): Painting and Drawing. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. October 2004. Web. 16 April 2016.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dgsp/hd_dgsp.html
