Artist | Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917)

Year | c.1905

Medium

Pastel on paper

Dimensions

56 × 48 cm

Location

The ALBERTINA Museum → Level 2(The Batliner Collection)

Two Dancers

Ballet became a central theme in Degas’s art for several decades following his discovery of the theatrical world around 1870. Trained by Louis Lamothe, a pupil of the famous French Classicist Ingres, Degas had free access as a preferred subscriber of the Paris Opera to the 'Foyer de la Danse,' the dancers' practice room. He obsessively observed and sketched not only the stars or the corps de ballet on and behind the stage but especially the young dancers in training, known as the 'petits rats.' What fundamentally fascinated Degas was the stylized art form of dance and the artificiality of movements that in no way corresponded to reality. This included not only their hard training at the barre but also ordinary gestures like tying shoes or adjusting a costume during breaks. Degas believed that "nothing in art must look like an accident, not even movement." Accordingly, he first studied anatomically correct body postures using nude models before concerning himself with costumes and scenery.

The pastel "Two Dancers" is a characteristic example of Degas’s late style. The number of figures is reduced, yet they are conceived as larger and space-filling, with the surrounding environment simplified into a neutral background. Forms are radically simplified, and the luminosity of the colors is intensified. The masterful interplay of multi-layered strokes, which allows the underlying pastel layers and paper to shimmer through, creates a sparkling, mosaic-like impression that brilliantly expresses the glamorous illusory world of the theater.