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Resting dancer

Edgar Degas • Painting, 1879, 64×59 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Style of art: Impressionism
Technique: Gouache, Pastel
Materials: Cardboard
Date of creation: 1879
Size: 64×59 cm
Artwork in collection: Smart and Beautiful Natalya Kandaurova
Artwork in selections: 24 selections

Description of the artwork «Resting dancer»

Tourists ballerinas Degas is much more than dancing. They sit, dropping his head on his hands, correct shoes, tie tape, stretch my tired knees, stretch out my legs in a long-awaited opportunity to sit down in Kuta scarves flushed shoulders, read the newspaper in between rehearsals, yawn, arch of back, correct shoulders, button up and unbutton the dress, rely on machine or piano. Edgar Degas interesting behind the scenes.

Here, the artist gets everything he needs: a casual movement, casual poses, beautiful bodies, translucent festive fabric, which is very contrast with the mood of the figures, and the ability to remain inconspicuous.

Even on those rare figures where the dancers are on stage or in rehearsal, they are always depicted in the boundary moments: nods, listening to comments, preparing for the dance. The artist depicts the everyday work of the most exquisite of the arts. Only manufacturers of chocolates and calendars in search of lightness and elegance can use "ballet" Degas cycle as illustrations. They would have been worse for Degas's imaginary wife, from which the artist was most afraid of, one day, to hear about one of his paintings: "How cute you made it!" Cute... why not married.

In 2008 at auction "Sotheby's" this pastel was sold for 37 million dollars – a record for the entire work of Degas amount. And it was already the second record "Resting dancer": nine years earlier, in 1999, it was sold for 28 million.

Author: Anna Sidelnikova
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