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Blue Dancers
- Artist
- Edgar Degas (1834–1917)
- Date
- c. 1897
- Dimensions
- 65 x 65 cm
- Medium
- Pastel on paper
- Location
- Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
Blue Dancers shows four ballerinas in blue tutus seen close up from above, adjusting their costumes in the wings before going on stage. Their bodies interlock in a dense, rhythmic group.
A closer look
Late in his career, as his eyesight was failing, Degas turned increasingly to pastel, which allowed him to work with bold, broad strokes of intense colour. Here the blue of the costumes vibrates against touches of green, orange and red, applied in layers of hatching. The dancers' arms bend and cross, their shoulders and backs forming a continuous movement, almost like a single figure seen from several angles. The heads are cut off at the top, as in a photograph, a device Degas loved. The result is close to abstraction in its rhythm of colour and form.
