#30. Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement

"Dance is able to reveal everything mysterious that music conceals, and it also has the merit of being human and palpable". Charles Baudelaire in "La Fanfarlo"

Dancer (Arm Outstretched), late 1895 or 1896.

How much unseen tension on the one hand and lightness on the other hand contain the paintings of the Degas! 

This painting absolutely occupied my heart and mind, it is so impressive in the way it shows the dynamism, the energy and the colour of the ballet.

From the first glance this exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts possessed my attention and I spent there hours wandering through it full of excitement.
Degas captured such ballet positions in his artworks that last only few seconds but how perfect they are!

Ballet Scene from Meyerbeer's Opera "Robert le Diable", 1876.

His ballerinas look like sublime fairies, as a miracle that Degas was lucky to capture and which is unforgettable, the slight touch of it is going to live forever in our souls. Degas' ballerinas - a marvellous blessing that lasts just for a moment.

Dancer (preparation en dedans), c.1880-85.

You just get into the world of vibrance and breeze, sensitivity, even kind of forgetfulness but the sense of beauty and miracle will stay with you forever.

The Rehearsal, c.1874.

Despite the consistent and extremely hard training, moments that are captured in Degas paintings are vibrant, airy and enlightened.

"Dance is a poetry with arms and legs, it is matter, gracious and terrible, animated, embellished by movement" by Charles Baudelaire.