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This is a drawing
by Degas
of a young dancer
practicing
at the barre.
One of the petits rats, or little rats, the young girls in training with the
Paris Opera Ballet. It’s a drawing in
black chalk with
white gouache highlights.
Originally, it would’ve been on a very vibrant pink paper, but it’s become quite
faded with time. It makes me think of the Capezio ballet slipper, kind of lends it an added charm.
So much about dance vocabulary
has to do with lines.
The lines that the body creates in the air. It makes an interesting parallel to drawing.
It also kind of tells you something about the difficulty of capturing movement.
The way the leg is moving from a low position to a high position.
She’s sort of gangly and awkward
and he’s even made a note above her that says, “bien accuser/l’os du la--du coude,”
which means emphasize the elbow.
Ballet is all about this pursuit of perfection, and you can see her straining,
looking out towards her foot almost anxiously.
You can imagine the dance instructor yelling at the students to get their legs higher.
A lot of these girls came from working class families. I think there was a lot of hope pinned on these young girls.
And it was a grueling life. It’s kind of an image of a body in formation,
or of a body being formed and molded.
Her turned-out foot is completely unnatural.
Degas wanted to portray the hard work
that goes on behind the scenes
to create the beauty and the illusion that the audience would see.
Seeing this little dancer
in this awkward stage, you see Degas as a realist in that sense that he’s not trying to idealize anything.
His use of line
is graceful, but the dancer herself is not.
That’s part of what makes it
so wonderful.