Courtauld 03 Edgar Degas - Two Dancers on a Stage [6 of 15]
3. Edgar Degas - Two Dancers on the Stage. 1874, 62 x 46 cm. Degas gives no indication of whether we are watching a performance or a rehearsal of the two dancers, who are in standard ballet positions. At the far left is a third dancer, her figure cut by the frame. The ballet, with its precision of movements, fascinated him, but he always presented it in ways which revealed its artificiality, by including other extraneous elements – figures which do not watch the dancers, waiting dancers scratching themselves, or dancers who play no part in the main action, like the figure on the left here.