Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement

The aim of The Royal Academy of Arts Degas and the Ballet exhibit is to contextualize the work of the French artist, Edgar Degas, within the scope of the technological and artistic advances of the day. It is the first time Degas' work has been assembled in this manner, linking works of other artists, particularly photographers and videographers, to the style in which Degas created his own masterpieces.

The exhibit traces the development of Degas' artistic career over his lifetime but focuses on his own preoccupation with dancers, specifically the ballerinas in Paris during the late 1800s. Degas experimented with his subjects, using different mediums and styles to represent the image of 'the dancer'. Yet despite the array of compositions his techniques across mediums are highly recognizable as Degas and you could make the claim that his draftsmanship, though heavy-handed, was accurate and elegant, and it was that assured grace in his drawing that carried throughout his lifetime and career as an artist.

A substantial amount of wall space was dedicated to the charcoal drawings he amassed as a result of decades of work inside the dance studio, like a 'fly on the wall' perspective, drawing the ballerinas at work. These heavy line drawings typically capture a single body part, captured like a photograph mid-movement during rehearsals. Even though it may have been just a piece of the puzzle, what made Degas' body-part sketches so unbelievable was his ability to capture and recreate that single moment with such accuracy.

Ballerina mid "launch" into a turn

The argument is that during the ether of the time both artists and scientists were fascinated with capturing the precision of movement. Hence the exhibition's linkage to the development of photography. It was during Degas' life that photographs became popular and laymen gained access to its technology. Much like Degas' art, these images captured a very precise moment in time. But unlike Degas' ballerinas, the photograph was unable to capture any movement.

Early on in the exhibit there is a round room and in the center is a statue, The Fourteen Year Old Dancer, and this room is really something special because, for the first time, Degas' drawing were linked not only to one another, but also to a very specific subject in a very purposeful way. Degas posed a young model from the ballet in this stance and then drew her pose from every angle, studying her meticulously in 360 degrees. The sketches of the dancer, from each point of perspective, was then positioned in the room on the wall space corresponding to the point of view of the viewer looking at the statue in the center of the room. 

This very particular display demonstrates not only the never-before-seen connection of these particular pieces, both the sculpture and the set of stance studies done in charcoal, but also shows Degas' interest in capturing the whole of his subject by studying the dancer from every possibly angle.

The exhibit follows Degas' work chronologically. The final room, therefore, is the culmination of a lifetime of learned draftsmanship and creativity. And what makes it so much more moving is that you're told that it was at this point in the artist's life that he was going blind. But what you see in his art is real transformation. All of a sudden, there's an explosion of color and a lush handling of pastels in the creation of some of his most famous works of art. Particularly in the dresses of his ballerinas you see this bright blast of hues, blues and oranges, laid down with a certain ferocity. There's so much energy in these pictures. And despite his failing eyes he still captured the graceful poses and movement of his favorite subjects.