The Ballet Class

An old ballet master leans on his stick while a dancer performs and the others yawn, chat and scratch their backs. Degas showed not the glory of the stage but the tired, ordinary end of a lesson.

The story behind the painting

The Ballet Class shows a group of dancers at the end of a lesson led by the ballet master Jules Perrot. It was commissioned by the composer Jean-Baptiste Faure. Degas did not date his paintings between 1872 and 1876, so the year is uncertain: Paul André Lemoisne dated it 1876, Ronald Pickvance argued for 1874 to 1875, Wikipedia gives 1874 to 1876, and Wikidata lists 1871. Perrot had been a legendary dancer and choreographer of the Romantic ballet in Russia and France, but his contract at the Paris Opéra had not been renewed, and he now coached ballerinas privately. He was about sixty-four.

What to look for

Silver-haired Perrot stands at the centre in a flannel suit, staring at the dancer performing in the middle of the room and gesturing to another behind him. The dancers form a loose line around the room; some sit, some stand, some watch, others talk or play with their dresses. Look for the small details: mothers watching from the back wall, a watering can for damping the dusty floor, a little dog, and a girl on the left stretching to scratch her back. Their black neckbands, as Carol Armstrong noted, make their skin look whiter. Where a girl holds a fan, Degas painted over a girl adjusting her slipper.

Meaning and intent

Degas felt sympathy for dancers who had to repeat movements until they reached perfection, and he preferred rehearsals to performances for the small events in the background. Here the dancers look bored or exhausted, showing ballet as hard work rather than spectacle. Yet the scene was carefully built in the studio from sketches. Jill DeVonyar and Richard Kendall suggest the painting was well underway before Perrot was added over another teacher, thought to be Louis Mérante. Some see the work as a way of restoring Perrot's authority after the Opéra let him go.

Legacy

Degas painted his first ballet scene in 1866 and went on to make an estimated 1,500 works on the subject. The Ballet Class is one of three major paintings centred on Perrot between 1873 and 1876, and it closely resembles The Dance Class of 1874. The velvety texture of Perrot's suit and the red reflections on his face show the care Degas gave him in posing sessions. The painting is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, a portrait of ballet as daily work, seen from the rehearsal room.