Description
Year of creation: 1871
Original size: 54.3 cm x 66 cm
Painting style: Impressionism
Original technique: Oil on canvas
Located: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 29.100.552)
The Ballet from Robert le Diable – Edgar Degas
The lower third of the canvas is the stalls, seen from behind: a row of men in black evening dress, heads and shoulders cut by the frame. One is bearded and turned in profile, another raises a pair of opera glasses. It is a canvas painting that watches the audience quite as much as the stage.
Two audiences, one scene
Between the heads the neck of a double bass rises and divides the canvas down the middle. The orchestra sits physically between us and the stage, exactly as in a real house, and Degas did not remove that obstruction – he made it the subject. The men in the stalls are not extras: one looks through his glasses, another has turned away, and the inattention itself is what has been observed.
What happens above
Above the lit edge of the stage, figures in white move among the arches of a ruined cloister, and behind them gothic columns and a wide arch stand in shadow. The scene comes from an opera, but the narrative does not interest him: what interests him is how little of it we actually see from our seat.
Almost without light
The whole canvas is held in near-black browns and olive tones; the only light comes off the stage. The paint is thin and laid over a dark ground, so the under-layer still pulls through in places. The signature is at the lower right. The same interest in rehearsal and backstage rather than performance carries the dancers at the barre, and the same watching of unwatched people carries The Absinthe Drinker.
Our version
Our version is a hand-painted oil painting on canvas. Every canvas is painted individually, in the size and frame you choose. The painter works from the original with brush and oils, so the strokes and the layering stay visible – the part a print cannot reproduce.
