Christopher P Jones is the author of How to Read Paintings, an introduction to some of the most fascinating artworks in art history.
The Dance Class (1874) by Edgar Degas. Oil on canvas. 83.5 x 77.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, U.S. Image source The Met (open access)
Edgar Degas painted young ballet dancers with an almost obsessive curiosity. Nearly half of his oil paintings and pastel works depict ballerinas at the corps de ballet at the Paris Opéra.
Many of the works focus on the backstage preparations: teaching classes, rehearsal and dressing room scenes. A backstage friend once noted, “He comes here in the morning. He watches all the exercises in which the movements are analyzed . . . nothing in the most complicated step escapes his gaze.”