Edgar Degas was a well-known painter for painting the ballet dancers. Indeed, any other subjects failed to make him so fascinating and seemed to have failed to make him to create his own Degas painting style. He hoped to draw the sense of space and the impression of three-dimensional shape from the most unexpected angle. Therefore, he liked to choose the theme from the ballet opera, rather than from the outdoor scenes. Watching the rehearsal, Degas had the opportunity to see the body posture with the richest changes posture from all aspects. Looking down from the stage, Degas was able to see the girls were dancing or having a rest, and he also studied the effect of the complicated shortening and stage light in body shaping.
Dance Class was one of the sketches of Degas with crayons. The arrangement in the painting looked very casual. We only saw the legs of some dancers, and the bodies of other dancers. Only one figure was completely seen, but her posture was rather difficult to distinguish. We saw her from above. Her head was forwarded down, and left hand grabbed the ankle, which seemed to relax. There was no story at all in Degas’s impressionsim painting. The reason why he was interested in the ballerina dancer was not that they were the pretty girls. He didn't seem to care about their mood. Instead, he observed them in a cold and objective attitude which impressionists had for the surrounding landscape. He was concerned with the interaction of the shade in the human body, which he was able to use to represent the movement or the way of space.
Dance Class 1871
