Degas’ Delightful Depictions of Dance
19 Video Views·Jan 3, 2026
Edgar Degas was a prolific artist of dance. In this latest episode of Expert Voices, Sotheby’s specialist Brooke Lampley takes us through his fascination with dance, exploring how he perfectly captured every movement both on and off-stage. Ahead of Sotheby’s upcoming Art Impressionniste et Moderne Evening Sale (25 March 2021 | Paris) discover how his painting ‘Danseuse au Tutu Vert’ beautifully illustrates a dancer’s private moment backstage. Find out about the artist’s intense use of colour and how his chosen medium of pastel has truly stood the test of time.
Degas is such a prolific artist of dance.
It was the preoccupation of his career.
More than half of his career was spent documenting dance.
He was interested in the moments,
the private moments of the dancers
before or after a performance,
doing something really personal,
a different kind of intimate movement.
Degas executed this wonderful pastel dancer
with green tutu around 1887.
And this is really the high-water mark of his career.
He was a successful artist
and living off the fruits of his labor.
And the prior decade was probably the decade
of his most important and prodigious output.
This also coincided with his burgeoning
and then ever-growing fascination with dance.
He started in the 1860s
frequenting the opera, the ballet,
cafe concerts, the circus.
And he was just obsessed with dance.
And not just dance in its most theatrical
and artful form, which he was interested in,
you know, the dancers on stage
and the poetics of their movement,
but he was also interested in the intimate moments
around the periphery.
He was interested in rehearsals,
in preparation, in backstage.
That's really well-captured here,
the attention to, you know, a dancer
folding over her body
to perhaps, you know, tie or lace a shoe.
It would appear to be a moment
either preceding or following a performance.
She's in quite embellished, fantastic costume
and a lot of attention is given
to the shimmering of the tutu
with various colors, gold and pinks
coming through the green.
And that's echoed in other places
on the sheet very beautifully.
And then, of course, it's all contrasted
with the great intensity of the red
and burgundies in the backdrop,
suggestive of maybe a red velvet curtain
that she's leaning against
or standing in front of.
Degas was distinguished for his use of
really intense, vivid, vibrant color.
He objected to the classification of himself
as an impressionist
because he wasn't an en plein air painter.
He wasn't someone like Monet
outside observing nature.
He was actually using really intense color
to investigate scenes,
perhaps not of everyday life,
but of certain themes
that really intrigued him
in his everyday life.
What distinguishes this work
is its extraordinary beauty,
the density and freshness
of the application of the pastel.
Pastel is a fragile medium
and that you should find such a work
where you have this incredibly dense
application of pastel
with such bright color
is really remarkable.
And it shows how hard he worked on it
and how much he applied to begin with
because it is a fragile, evaporating medium.
The color is incredibly remarkable,
the patterning,
but it's also the delicacy of her pose
and how it really invites you
to think about the dancer
in an introspective, personalizing way.
And it's immediately recognizable as Degas.
It has this flair,
but also delicacy,
intensity,
but also softness to it
that we see very little work like this today.
It's very 19th century,
but yet also utterly modern.