Edgar Degas’s pastel work Dancers in Pink is a complex and iconic creation from one of the founding figures of the Impressionist movement.
Degas has become closely identified with the theme of capturing movement – more than half of all of his works depict dancers in states of relaxation, preparation and dance. Preferring to be identified as a Realist rather than an Impressionist, Degas captured the effects of bodily movement in the same way that Monet and Renoir replicated the shimmering effects of light on water. His works have a psychological depth and a profound sense of isolation and existential loneliness. Originally intending to be a history painter, Degas quickly changed track and became in the eyes of many the most accomplished painter of the experience of modern life. Certainly standing out from his Impressionist contemporaries who tended to divorce themselves from the pace of the city, Degas immersed himself in the complexities of contemporary life. His studies of ballet and its dancers are the resultant force of his truly idiosyncratic approach to composition and design.
Dancers in Pink resonates with Degas’ characteristic effect of studied spontaneity – the appearance of instantaneousness achieved through highly-wrought studies. With a style that has much in common with cinematic documentary realism a century later, Degas appears like a fly-on-the-wall in his canvases. His reproduction from life of these frail and elegant young dancers, proudly idiosyncratic yet tragically anonymous, is a voyeuristic incursion into the daily life of populist performers. Rendered in thick, bulky pastels that appear at once both cushion soft-and excessively heavy, the artist’s style is matched only by his unique eye for balance and composition. Degas, the painter of the contemporary, never shied away from forging honest reproductions of his subjects, suffused with an isolated pride and a desolate humility.