Four Dancers

Degas captured his preferred subject, ballet performers, in hundreds of works. Four Dancers, one of the largest and most ambitious of his late works, exists in several variants that show numerous degrees of modification. While Degas suppressed descriptive detail elsewhere in the painting, emphatic dark lines shape the heads, torsos and arms, underlining the artist's formal concerns. Theatrical lighting over the off–stage performers recolors the figures and creates a simple color scheme of complementary orange-red and green hues.