This paper examines Edgar Degas's seminal work The Ballet Class and his distinctive artistic vision as an impressionist painter. Despite achieving modern critical acclaim, Degas remained largely unrecognized by his contemporaries and rarely exhibited his work publicly. The paper analyzes his obsessive focus on ballet dancers captured in candid, unguarded moments, his meticulous technical process involving numerous preliminary sketches, and his philosophical approach to art that emphasized realism over romantic idealization. The paper also contextualizes Degas within his historical moment, exploring his complex relationship with impressionism, his social conservatism during the political upheavals of 1870s Paris, and his introverted personality that paradoxically drove his profound aesthetic insights into the female form and everyday grace.
Edgar Degas, who is revered by modern critics, never received similar acclaim from his contemporaries. In a world dominated by still life painting, Degas wished to portray motion. This became his defining characteristic; his work often demonstrated spontaneity and dynamic energy. One of his favorite subjects was dance, as his impressionist style gave him the ability to capture a fleeting moment with unprecedented skill. An example of this masterwork is The Ballet Class, which is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is only through modern photography that the average viewer can capture moments with the skill that was once the exclusive domain of artists like Degas.
The Ballet Class was one of many paintings Degas created that illustrated dance. However, Degas was a perfectionist and intensely private man. Most of his work, including The Ballet Class, was not commissioned; Degas rarely exhibited his paintings publicly. As a confirmed recluse, it seems fitting that Degas would focus on dancing women as a major subject for his artistic practice. In this we can see his obsession with the female form—an obsession that drove him to become more skilled at painting dancing women than any artist before or since.
It is important to note that the women in Degas's dance classes were living their daily lives, unaware of the candid insights into voyeuristic beauty that could be gained from their skilled observation. This quality is further enhanced by the fact that the women in Degas's paintings are seldom romantic figures. Rather, Degas wished to portray the mundanity of everyday female behavior as that which is beautiful.
Degas captured young ballerinas from the Paris opera house at their most natural—when they were practicing unselfconsciously behind the scenes, not performing for the public. The ballet dancers resemble a sequence in a film, each movement fascinating for its totally innovative composition, decentralized arrangement, and unusual angularity. In this sense, the influence of orientalism, which was highly fashionable during his time, is evident, as is the influence of Japanese prints, of which Degas was a passionate collector. Degas is also noted for the delicate lines of his drawings and his exemplary interpretation of light.
Like other impressionist painters, Degas did not intend hidden meanings in his paintings. He presents the ballet dancers as objects to be appreciated simply for their aesthetics; the rhythm of everyday life carries with it an implicit harmony. His use of oil on canvas was standard, although he typically made numerous pencil sketches of his subject matter before committing his images to canvas. This practice most powerfully reflects Degas's "snapshot" perspective—his desire to capture a single, unrepeatable moment frozen in time.
Of this approach, Degas remarked: "It is necessary to remake the same subject ten, one hundred times. Nothing in art should look casual, even less movement." This quotation encapsulates the paradox of his artistic method: through obsessive repetition and meticulous planning, he achieved the appearance of spontaneous, unguarded observation. His preliminary sketches were not studies toward a final ideal form but rather explorations of how to convey the impression of immediate capture.
Degas wished to be known as a realist rather than an impressionist, as he sought to portray real life in his paintings. Like most of his work, The Ballet Class was painted indoors. By the time of the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886, he wanted his work to be presented as part of an "Exhibition of a group of independent, realist and impressionist artists." At times Degas saw himself as free from any stylistic school whatsoever. He reflected: "Happy am I, who never found my style, something that would enrage me much. Painting is not so difficult when one does not know it... but once one has got the cognition... oh! Then... it is all about something else."
Many artists of the period sought to ignore the social upheavals of the time, choosing subject matters that never seemed to reflect strife or warfare. Degas was a member of the bourgeoisie and not a bohemian in the sense one would associate with the Paris Commune. Indeed, in 1869, Degas withdrew to quiet repose by the sea in Boulogne, where he stayed with fellow artist Édouard Manet and painted several seascapes. When duty called, he voluntarily joined the National Guard with the rank of commander. In 1870, the National Guard was instrumental in laying siege to the barricades erected by the mostly poor and mostly communist citizens of Paris.
His paintings reflect the interests of one who identified himself as aristocratic, although this was not atypical of impressionists. Ultimately, however, Degas experienced economic troubles in the mid-1870s, before he painted The Ballet Class, though after he had completed other works centered on ballet and dance classes.
In 1876, during the Second Impressionist Exhibition, critic Édouard Duranty wrote about Degas: "So this series of new ideas was mainly formed in the mind of a designer, one of ours, one of those showing now in these rooms, a man gifted with the most rare talent and the most rare intelligence. Several people made use of his conceptions and his artistic unselfishness, and it is about time justice be made and the world be aware of the source from which many painters profited and who never conceded to reveal it." This assessment underscores Degas's influence on his peers and his reluctance to seek public recognition.
As a public figure, Degas lacked the charisma of his peers and was an introvert who seldom appeared happy. His fixation on dancers, female students, and ballerinas—whom he found to be beyond his social grasp as a stern-faced man of forty-six—seemed bizarre to his contemporaries. Degas once remarked: "Art is a vice: one does not marry it legally, but rapes it." Yet in his unsentimental scrutiny of young ballerinas, Degas provides us with a knowing and insightful look into their daily lives. He does so in a way that reveals the grace and beauty he perceived in all his subjects, transforming his voyeuristic distance into profound artistic empathy.
You’re 97% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.