Dancing with Degas: An Artist in 5 Works

Edgar Degas came of age in a Paris transformed. Born in 1834 to a bourgeois family, he trained rigorously in classical drawing before turning his attention to the spectacle of contemporary life. Though often grouped with the Impressionists, Degas resisted the label; he painted indoors, avoided en plein air spontaneity, and maintained a draftsman’s precision even as he explored modern themes. Of all those themes, none absorbed him more completely than the ballet.

Over half of Degas’s lifetime output depicts dancers. He was drawn not only to their beauty, but to their repetition, their ritual, their endurance. In rehearsal rooms, on dimly lit stages, or backstage in private reverie, he captured fleeting moments shaped by years of training. These weren’t sentimental portraits of grace; they were rigorous studies of movement, posture, and atmosphere. In this short guide, five prints illuminate the layers of Degas’s vision; his technique, his eye for composition, and his enduring fascination with performance under pressure.

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Café Concert at Les Ambassadeurs, by Edgar Degas

1. Café Concert at Les Ambassadeurs (1877)

Before the dancers took centre stage in Degas’s work, there were singers, orchestras, and the flicker of gaslight on velvet curtains. Café Concert at Les Ambassadeurs captures one of his earliest forays into the theatre of modern life; a world where figures blur in motion and art leans into atmosphere. Exhibited at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, this piece marks Degas’s departure from academic history painting and his embrace of the fleeting and contemporary.

The composition’s dramatic contrast, with the stage flooded in light while the audience recedes into near-darkness, reveals Degas’s early interest in visual storytelling through lighting. The soprano’s posture, caught mid-performance, conveys motion without exaggeration; her body language shaped by sound and moment. This approach, poised between realism and sensation, became a hallmark of Degas’s mature work. Though ballet would come to define his career, the café-concert was where he first sharpened his focus. It was a space that taught him how bodies moved, how scenes unfolded, and how to frame both with an unflinching, modern eye.

Four Ballet Dancers on Stage, by Edgar Degas

2. Four Ballet Dancers on Stage (1885-90)

A glimpse behind the curtain, Four Ballet Dancers on Stage captures a fleeting moment of informal readiness. The scene is intimate and loosely framed, with four dancers adjusting their straps and preparing themselves for performance. Degas positions the viewer as an outsider; we are not watching a recital, but something quieter and more human. The angle is unexpected and unsentimental, placing focus on the in-between gestures that define the world of dance.

Executed in oil but leaning toward the textures of pastel, the work reveals a turning point in Degas’s technique. An expressive, dancing brushwork dominates the surface, suggesting motion rather than resolution. He offers no clear narrative, only posture, tension, and movement. In doing so, Degas aligns the artwork with his broader interest in psychological realism and his growing move away from the more polished academe.

Dancers, Pink and Green, by Edgar Degas 

3. Dancers, Pink and Green (1890)

In Dancers, Pink and Green, Degas turns his gaze away from the spectacle of ballet and instead captures a moment of quiet vulnerability. The canvas shows two dancers mid-adjustment, leaning into themselves with unglamorous postures. There is no eye contact, no stage light, no curated display. The work strips away the veneer of elegance so often associated with the art form and shifts the viewer’s attention to the human effort beneath the surface.

Degas’s technique here is highly tactile. Though executed in oil, the surface mimics the softness of pastel, with visible strokes of impasto that suggest a more intuitive handling of the medium. Pink and green hues create a rich visual rhythm, while the blurring of form and background offers a sense of motion stilled only momentarily. The overall effect is one of emotional honesty, as if the dancers have been caught off guard in the margins of their profession.

Beyond its formal qualities, the painting offers a subtle commentary on class and labour. These dancers are not ethereal muses, but working women in rehearsal rooms, adjusting costumes and nursing sore muscles. Degas’s lens is observational, not romantic. The result is a quiet, humane portrait of the cost behind the performance.

Before the Performance, by Edgar Degas

4. Before the Performance (1896)

By the time Degas painted Before the Performance, his artistic practice had entered a more contemplative phase. The composition is subdued and intimate, showing dancers in a quiet backstage moment. One bends to tie a shoe, another appears lost in thought. These are not dramatic gestures, but habitual ones that speak to the repetition of rehearsal and the ritual of readiness. The stage remains out of sight; what matters here is the mental and physical preparation that precedes the spotlight.

Technically, the painting is refined but restrained. As a late oil work, it avoids the rawness of earlier pieces and leans into a softened palette with looser brushwork. There is a trace of memory in the treatment of the scene, as if Degas were painting from recollection rather than direct observation. This aligns with his diminishing eyesight at the time and the increasing role of internal vision in his work. 

There is a quiet poignancy to the piece. It carries the weight of a lifetime spent observing dancers, not only in motion but in stillness. Beneath the surface lies a biographical reflection on solitude, ageing, and the private spaces artists return to when the performance ends.

Dancers, by Edgar Degas

5. Dancers (1896)

In Dancers (1896), Degas reaches the height of his innovation with pastels. The figures are fluid and abstracted, reduced to rich shapes that move rhythmically across the paper. Gone is the clear delineation of form seen in earlier oils. In its place is an expressive shorthand that captures movement not through anatomy but through bursts of colour and gesture.

This work belongs to a period when Degas turned fully to pastel as his eyesight declined. What could have been a limitation instead became an invitation to simplify, to let go of precision and chase the emotional core of a scene. The dancers here are seen in the midst of practice or performance, but the boundaries between them begin to dissolve. One body leads into another. The space shimmers.

Visually daring, the piece speaks to Degas’s willingness to adapt and experiment even in later life. It also deepens his legacy. Far from fading, his vision became more essential. Form, light, and motion remain, but now they appear as sensations—fleeting and alive.

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These five prints trace Degas’s transformation from a chronicler of Parisian spectacle to a master of quiet intimacy. Each work opens a window into a different phase of his career, revealing how his technical skill and emotional insight deepened over time.

What emerges is a portrait of an artist unafraid to shift, to question, and to look again. From the glow of the café-concert stage to the solitude of pastel rehearsal scenes, Degas captures movement not just as performance, but as a form of lived experience. His draughtsmanship, his sense of gesture, and his late-life embrace of abstraction all come together to form a body of work that is uniquely observant and enduringly human.

To linger in a Degas is to watch art breathe between light, gesture, and solitude.