Dancers 1900

Curator: Here we have Edgar Degas' "Dancers," a pastel drawing from around 1900. It resides here at the Memorial Art Gallery. My initial reaction is… it’s vibrant but unfinished, almost fleeting, like a memory. Editor: Oh, it vibrates, doesn't it? I get a feeling of backstage bustle. That moment right before you either hit the stage, or flop. That yellow-gold dress dominating the center pulls the eye. It’s almost a spotlight itself. Curator: The dress is indeed strategically placed. Colors in Degas’ paintings carry so much weight— the golden yellow and soft blues here evoke feelings of hope and maybe a bit of anxiety related to performance, themes that are amplified by his continuous returning to ballet. Editor: Anxious hope, yes! The sketchiness adds to it; nothing is nailed down. They could float away, disappear like puffs of smoke. You know, he really captures that raw, behind-the-scenes tension that I would imagine is such a constant for the dancers. Curator: Precisely. And consider the psychological implications here. He paints them not in perfect poses, but in mundane acts of adjustment. These moments of quiet introspection offer, in my mind, a revealing peek into the cultural expectations and demands placed upon these young women. Their image versus the hidden toil. Editor: The 'floating away' feeling gets amplified as well, with the poses they have. It feels like we are catching them on the run. I am drawn to the way the dancer's arm stretches behind her head; she feels really tense! But I find his color-handling remarkable: Degas coaxes surprising shades out of the seemingly chaotic, scribbled lines, which really fits with that hidden tension theme. Curator: I concur. Degas uses those pastel strokes to weave the performance on stage, but as much if not more importantly to reveal the often unseen struggle to appear effortless; there's an element of voyeurism in that he's bringing to the surface an almost suppressed aspect of his subjects, and of broader performance and perfection pressures. Editor: That’s it, precisely: repressed anxiety. So, here's to repressed anxiety captured with perfect color. A real triumph from the master. Curator: Absolutely, I leave this interaction with renewed reflections about the expectations on display here...