Degas and the dancing sisters
Long before the thief of age stole his eyesight and left him playing with pastel abstracts and clay, the Parisian Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas (1834-1917), scion of bankers but shy nonetheless, having on the strength of a few kind words from the great Ingres co-founded impressionism, painted his tender and graceful ballerinas. Above is “Dancers in Pink”.
He was, in fact, codebarred “the painter of dancers” for quick accounting purposes, though to be fair it was the play of colour and light in motion that drew him like a moth to the stage lights (not just the pretty girls), and many other scenes beyond the theatre as well, most notably the racecourse (more fleet legs).
But of all the girls in all the dance joints he ever wandered into, Louise, Suzanne and Blanche Mante were his favourites. See the rest.
