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Frieze of Dancers
Edgar Degas, c. 1895
Most of Degas's dancers are caught in a rehearsal room or the wings. In this wide canvas of about 1895 there is no room at all, just wisps of colour around a young woman. The Cleveland Museum of Art suggests the painting may show a single dancer seen from four different viewpoints, so the frieze is really one figure repeated as she turns.
The handling is loose. The museum notes that the paint was applied so quickly that it ran and dripped, and that Degas added the circles in the foreground with his thumb. A sketch could get away with that. On a canvas about two metres wide, it must have looked daring to people at the time.
The museum also points to the photographs of Eadweard Muybridge, which broke movement into stages, as a possible inspiration for showing several views of the same body.
From the museum record
| Artist | Edgar Degas |
|---|---|
| Date | c. 1895 |
| Medium | Oil on fabric |
| Size | Unframed: 70 x 200.5 cm |
| Museum | The Cleveland Museum of Art |
| Credit line | Gift of the Hanna Fund |
| Accession number | 1946.83 |
| Licence | Open Access (CC0) |
Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art collection record. Facts such as dates, sizes and credit lines come from that record. The write-up above was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the museum record and standard references. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
