Edgar degas the rehearsal room

Edgar Degas' Rehearsal in the Studio contains within its four corners almost every major theme that has ever been distilled from or assigned to the artist's work on dancers.

Four dancers are front center in the rehearsal room performing routine battement (a position in which one foot remains on the floor while the other is raised a little above the waistline). A group of dancers are situated behind them - one bent over, two gossiping with each other near a floor-to-ceiling window, one all alone at the barre, and one demurely clasping her hands as she regards her fellow dancers performing their exercises.

A scene out of a dancer's everyday life.

Edgar degas the rehearsal room san diego

There is in theory no mismatch between the common subject and loftier artistic platform, but one does exist as a matter of fact. And so, many have observed that Degas' paintings of dancers ingeniously elevate the banal into the beautiful.

The dancers rehearse in a room part gray, part brow