Dancers at the Barre by Edgar Degas - circa 1900 - 38.5 x 51.25 in The Phillips Collection Dancers at the Barre by Edgar Degas - circa 1900 - 38.5 x 51.25 in The Phillips Collection

Dancers at the Barre

oil on canvas • 38.5 x 51.25 in
  • Edgar Degas - 19 July 1834 - 27 September 1917 Edgar Degas circa 1900

Dancers at the Barre exemplifies Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas’s ability, late in his career, to allow the expressive application of medium and color to overtake the rationality of subject and composition. The motif of a dancer with her leg propped up on a practice bar appears as early as the mid-1870s and continues to around 1900. This work is one of the latest representations created by the artists, for whom the ballet dancers where only the excuse to depict movement. As Degas himself stated: “It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.” 

If you would like to learn more about Degas, please check our Mega Course on Impressionism. You can also check our Impressionist notebook.  ; )

P.S. Here you can see Edgar Degas' most beautiful ballerinas! <3