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Degas and The Ballet - Picturing Movement
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Degas and The Ballet - Picturing Movement

Degas and the Ballet: A Unique Perspective

Overview of the Exhibition

  • The Royal Academy of Arts in London is hosting a major exhibition titled "Degas and the Ballet," marking the first significant showcase of Degas's work related to dance in London.
  • This exhibition has been four years in the making, featuring approximately 130 works that span Degas's entire career, focusing on his artistic exploration of ballet.

Degas's Artistic Journey

  • The exhibition highlights Degas's fascination with ballet from around 1870 until about 1905, showcasing how he used this subject as a means to study movement and the human figure.
  • Degas described his obsession with ballet as a "pretext for studying movement," emphasizing that capturing complex choreography was central to his art.

Influence of Photography and Early Cinema

  • Unlike other Impressionists, Degas had a unique interest in depicting figures in motion, paralleling advancements in photography by pioneers like Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey.
  • These photographers contributed to early stop-action photography techniques that influenced how movement was represented visually, which can be seen reflected in Degas’s artwork.

Degas's Personal Engagement with Photography

  • In 1895, coinciding with his interest in photography, Degas acquired an early Kodak camera and began taking portraits of friends while experimenting with light effects.
  • He captured three photographs of a ballet dancer using glass negatives; these are now displayed as prints within the exhibition.

Connection to Early Film

  • The same year that Degas started photographing (1895), the Lumière brothers released their first films. The exhibition includes these films alongside early performances by dancers.
  • Notably featured is a film showing Russian dancers who performed in Paris during the mid-1890s—an era when Degas created similar pastels inspired by such performances.

Conclusion: A Poignant Ending

  • The exhibition concludes with footage of an elderly Degas filmed by director Sacha Guitry, capturing him walking down Boulevard Kichin shortly before his death—a poignant reminder of his legacy bridging classic art into modernity.
Video description

Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy presents latest exhibition 'Degas and the ballet'. This landmark exhibition focuses on Edgar Degas's preoccupation with movement as an artist of the dance. 'Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement' traces the development of the artist's ballet imagery throughout his career, from the documentary mode of the early 1870s to the sensuous expressiveness of his final years. The exhibition is the first to present Degas's progressive engagement with the figure in movement in the context of parallel advances in photography and early film; indeed, the artist was keenly aware of these technological developments and often directly involved with them.