The Dance Lesson

Ballet dancers fill this rehearsal room, but not one of them is dancing. One girl in an orange bodice slumps over on a bench, rubbing her ankle. Another bends over the back of a chair, exhausted. Off in the distance, a small cluster of dancers waits by the tall windows. Edgar Degas painted this around 1879, and it belongs to a series he made of dancers at work, catching them in the tired, ordinary moments between performances rather than on stage under the lights.

Degas was part of the Impressionist circle in Paris, though he preferred to call himself a Realist. He was fascinated by the ballet world and made hundreds of paintings and pastels of these young dancers, many of whom came from poor families and trained for grueling hours. The off-center composition, with all that empty floor stretching across the room, shows his love of Japanese prints and photography, both of which taught him to crop scenes in surprising ways. It makes you feel like you have wandered into the studio and caught the dancers unaware, which is exactly the effect he was after.