Degas at the Opéra, The Dance Lesson, c. 1879

KAYWIN FELDMAN: Here, Degas shows us the ballerinas as they prepare themselves for their lessons. JULIE KENT: It’s just exactly what you would see in any dance studio now, any ballet studio. It’s just it looks different because we no longer wear the full sort of costume; the invention of Lycra changed the world (Laughs) so… KAYWIN FELDMAN: Some of these dancers appear as elements in other compositions. You will see a variation of the girl just right of center who looks down as she reaches back to adjust a green bow. Our gaze follows the figures, whom Degas has placed diagonally across the space. KIMBERLY JONES: On the left, for example, you see the dancer who’s hunkered down //wearing her red shawl. From there, your eye leads right to the seated figure and the figure who is tying her bow. Your eye then leads to the figures at the far right, of the dancers who were in mid-motion. So there’s this progression from repose to motion, from left to right, from the lower-left corner to the upper-right corner. KAYWIN FELDMAN: Degas even uses the architectural details of the studio—the dark brown wood paneling of the bottom half of the wall acts like an arrow pointing to the right. KIMBERLY JONES: Everything about this painting is meticulously and carefully constructed in order to make your eye move across the composition in the way Degas wants you to. It’s very artfully crafted. KAYWIN FELDMAN: The Dance Lesson is the first in a series of what Degas called his “elongated paintings.” Like his decorative fans, these canvases, which are twice as wide as they are high, allowed him to experiment with a new format. KIMBERLY JONES: Degas continues that exploration of space, and how to arrange forms across this extended space, counterbalancing void and figure, void and mass. He is really ramping up that sense of asymmetry, that there’s always this wonderful seesaw quality going on in all of these images.