One of the things that Edgar Degas is famous for is his attraction to the world of ballet, portrayed by him in the vast majority of his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. But, rather than depicting the grandeur and luxury of the spectacles themselves, the artist always preferred to register the prose of the backstage, the subtle poetry that he saw as permeating the daily life of those who spent the better part of their lives striving to perfect their bodies and movements for the entertainment and cultural aggrandizement of their audience.

Painted circa 1890, when the artist was already starting to lose his eyesight and with that, the capability of portraying minute detail, this oil on canvas depicts the graceful backstage of the French ballerinas, focusing not on the elements of their dress or mien, but in the slight natural movement, in the preliminary poses, and even on the almost familial relation between the dancers as they prepare to present their art. Now in possession of the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, this magnificent piece of work not only represents dancers but goes further, describing the late years of an extraordinarily imaginative artist, who kept dedicating his life to his art even as his body failed him.

The dancers are not idealized, either, but real, natural. Their feet hurt, their poses are tired and their clothes, as pretty as they are, require adjustments. And that was precisely Degas’ objective in portraying them, to paint the pretty fabrics and the natural movement, covering those in the color and light as perceived by his own eyes and later mind. In the background, another group of ballerinas dressed in yellow seems to be doing their scene, being under the limelight, but not in the focus of the painting.

In that way, this piece is emblematic of Degas’ work, which always focused not on the ballerina on the stage, but on the ones outside of it, not in the character interpreted for the spectacle, but in the real person behind the character in the moment when that person is just her tired self. The four dancers dressed in bright turquoise tutus who occupy the foreground of the composition could be understood not as being four different people, but as being the same ballerina in different parts of her preparation, making it a record of Degas’ memory of a moment, not of a static scene.