English

The Dance Class

1874
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 815
This work and its variant in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, represent the most ambitious paintings Degas devoted to the theme of the dance. Some twenty-four women, ballerinas and their mothers, wait while a dancer executes an "attitude" for her examination. Jules Perrot, a famous ballet master, conducts the class. The imaginary scene is set in a rehearsal room in the old Paris Opéra, which had recently burned to the ground. On the wall beside the mirror, a poster for Rossini’s Guillaume Tell pays tribute to the singer Jean-Baptiste Faure, who commissioned the picture and lent it to the 1876 Impressionist exhibition.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Dance Class
  • Artist: Edgar Degas (French, Paris 1834–1917 Paris)
  • Date: 1874
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 32 7/8 x 30 3/8 in. (83.5 x 77.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Mrs. Harry Payne Bingham, 1986
  • Object Number: 1987.47.1
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

Audio

Cover Image for 6005. The Dance Class

6005. The Dance Class

Gallery 815

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ALISON HOKANSON: This is Edgar Degas's The Dance Class, and it shows one of Degas's favorite themes, which was the ballet.

KEITH CHRISTIANSEN: The anchor of the composition is the young dancer, in the center, wearing a pink sash. She is executing a position for her examination. At right, the famous ballet master Jules Perrot evaluates her work. All around them is assembled a fabulous crowd of ballerinas and their mothers. Alison Hokanson, of the Department of European Paintings.

ALISON HOKANSON: And you'll note that while the dancer in the center is being watched, all the rest of the figures have an air of being unobserved. My favorite example is the girl just to the left of the mirror, who is staring and looks as if she’s biting her fingernails in nervous anticipation of her exam.

KEITH CHRISTIANSEN: Degas’s famously objectifying eye enables him to create compelling compositions, devoid of any sentimentality. This is what gives them such a modern edginess—and makes him such a supreme artist. He is the quintessential observer.

ALISON HOKANSON: One of the most striking things about this painting is this very strong, up-tilted perspective that rushes us into and out of the scene. And we know that Degas changed the figures in the foreground and shifted the central dancer as he worked. And the end result is this long, winding curve of ballerinas that cascade from the background to the foreground, and I think of them almost as being like notes on a musical staff.

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