The Royal Academy of Arts, London, presents Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement, a major exhibition showcasing the artist's ballet images, produced at various stages in his career from the 1870s to approximately 1912.
Degas and the Ballet is curated by Richard Kendall, Curator at Large, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, USA; Jill DeVonyar, independent curator; and Ann Dumas, Exhibition Curator, Royal Academy of Arts, with support from BNY Mellon. The display includes approximately 85 paintings, prints, drawings, pastels, sculptures and photographs by Degas, as well as examples of early film and photographs by his contemporaries. Well-known, and not so well-known items, have been loaned by a number of public and private collections across Europe and North America.
The installation examines Degas's fascination with movement in the context of developments in the field of photography and film. Degas developed his own unique way of recording the movements of dance and dancers. He produced over 1,500 pieces depicting the ballet from every aspect, from the prima ballerina on stage, to the rehearsal halls, dance masters, musicians and spectators.
At the same time, photographers such as Jules-Etienne Marey and Eadweard Muybridge, together with pioneers of the film industry, such as the Lumière brothers, were doing exactly the same thing in their own media.
Edgar Degas – a Short Biography
Born in Paris in 1834, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, was the son of a banker. Apart from a short period of study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Degas was mainly self-taught. Between 1865 and 1870 he produced several large-scale historical compositions, many of which were submitted to the Paris Salon. In the early 1870s his interests changed and his fascination with movement became increasingly apparent. His works depicted modern life, including ballet and ballerinas, bathing women and racehorses. Degas was a leading member of the Impressionists and his works were regularly featured in their exhibitions. He was afflicted by deafness, and blindness, and was forced to stop work in 1912. He died in Montmartre in 1917.
Degas and the Ballet – Highlights of the Exhibition
Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement demonstrates that Edgar Degas was not merely a painter of the ballet: he carefully considered the problems of recording movement on canvas, and furthermore, was well aware of technological advances in film and photography, and was ready to use them.
Degas's highly acclaimed sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1880-81, cast. c.1922, Tate, London), is shown together with a number of preparatory drawings showing the subject from every angle, in much the same way as a cinematographer might do. Originally, Degas made a wax sculpture of a nude ballerina, which he then dressed in a bodice of cream-coloured silk and a tutu of tulle and gauze. The final touch, fabric slippers, created a realistic effect. The figure has real hair tied with a ribbon.
In the early 1920s, Degas's heirs made almost thirty casts of the wax original. Recent research indicates that the founders tried to replicate the colours and aged appearance of the original figure. Coloured waxes were rubbed into the flesh areas, the upper part of the bodice was painted cream, and coloured wax was used to darken the lower part. Gauze for the tutu was dipped in animal glue and pigment to reproduce the aged effect.
Also on display is The Dance Lesson (c. 1879) loaned by The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. In The Dance Lesson we see the entire range of activity and rest: exhausted dancers take a break, while others continue to practise. The artist produced over forty paintings and pastels in this horizontal format.
Degas recorded not only the glamour of the performance, but also the hard work, the pain, the dedication, and the stress of rigorous training endured by young girls. He believed dancers were like artists: repeatedly practising their movements just as an artist would draw and re-draw his subject, both aiming for perfection.
Degas and the Ballet – Exhibition Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue, available from 5th September 2011, presents the latest research into the work of Edgar Degas by Degas scholars Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar. The 288-page publication will be available from 5th September 2011, ISBN: 978-1905711680.
Degas and the Ballet will be on view from 17th September to 11th December 2011. Further information is available from The Royal Academy of Arts.
Sources:
- The Royal Academy of Arts
- Little Dancer Aged Fourteen – tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=3705 (accessed 1/9/2011)
- The Dance Lesson – Washington Art Gallery, nga.gov/feature/artnation/degas/thepainting_1.shtm (accessed 3/9/2011)
Frances Spiegel - Frances Spiegel, B.A. Hons. (Open)., Dip.Eur.Hum., read Art History/European Modern History at the Open University.
