Group of Dancers 1910

Edgar Degas captured this Group of Dancers with pastel somewhere around the turn of the century, and I can almost feel him there in the studio with them! There’s a real tension between the dancers and their space. The surface fizzes with marks, like tiny explosions of chalky color. Orange meets blue under the skirts, and the yellow above feels hot. I wonder if Degas felt like he had to pin them down, or if he was trying to catch them as they dissolved into the atmosphere of the stage? That blue mark at the lower right is gorgeous. It could be a shadow, a fold in a curtain, or just a patch of pure feeling that he needed to put down. To me, it speaks of the way painters are always building on the experiments of the past, taking note, and then adding their own twist. I imagine him there, thinking, “How can I make this even more alive?”