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Lesson Plans—Works of Art
Object Descriptions and Suggested Discussion Questions

Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, 1881; cast 1919–21 Bronze The Baltimore Museum of Art: Alice Morawetz Bequest Fund BMA 1943.1

Little Dancer was the only sculpture artist Edgar Degas exhibited during his lifetime. Degas's original wax sculpture was displayed at the sixth impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1881. The sculpture attracted harsh response from some critics dismayed by the realism of the figure that resulted from elements like the inclusion of a tulle skirt and satin hair ribbon. These critics thought the dancer degraded the high art of sculpture. Others applauded Degas for breaking the norm. One detractor said:

Wishing to present us with a statuette of a dancer, he has chosen among the most odiously ugly; he makes it a type of horror and bestiality. Oh certainly at the very bottom of the barrel of the dance school, there are some poor girls who look like this young monster…but what good are they in terms of statuary? Put them in a museum of zoology, of anthropology, of physiology, all right; but in an art museum, really!

Jacques-Emile Blanche (French, 1861–1942), Portrait of Degas, n.d., oil on canvas, North Carolina Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Museum Purchase Fund, 1970 (70.2.11) This painting is a study for a portrait of Degas by his friend Jacques-Emile Blanche. Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), Le Repos, about 1893, pastel on board, North Carolina Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the North Carolina Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), 1967 (67.40.1) This drawing of a woman at rest is another example of Degas’s interest in depicting the human form in various positions.

Degas’s subject was one cause of this criticism and praise. Marie van Goethem, a dance student in the Paris Opera Ballet, was the daughter of a Belgian tailor and laundress. Young dancers like Marie, called the “rats” of the Opera, typically came from the lower classes and often fell victim to the desires of wealthy admirers. Popular newspaper cartoons and gossip pages stereotyped these young dancers as loose women associated with prostitution and other vices.

Like other late-19th-century artists, Degas did not shrink from depicting the working classes and other everyday aspects of modern life. The social stigma associated with dancers may have even encouraged him to look more closely at this subject. Degas frequented dance performances and practice rooms, and even asked dancers to pose for him in his studio. Degas’s paintings, drawings and sculptures of dancers demonstrate his fascination with the way they manipulate their bodies in practice, on stage and even at rest. He recognized that, like the artist, the dancer is constantly sculpting her body to make it stronger, create a graceful form or communicate meaning. Here Degas shows Marie standing in a relaxed fourth position, with arms behind her back and eyes closed. During his frequent trips to the Opera, Degas noticed that dancers often stood this way while resting or waiting behind the wings.

After the artist's death, multiple casts of the work were made in bronze. One of these casts is shown in the exhibition.

Suggested Discussion Questions

• Which details tell you this is a sculpture of a dancer?
• What is her mood and how do you know?
• How might your life be different from hers?
• Why do you think Edgar Degas was interested in sculpting and painting dancers?