DEGAS and the Dancer
In probably around 1879, this girl of the eleve-class at the opera with a still slight and awkward body posed for the first time as Degas' model. He probably started to first sketch her in a little cheese-cloth skirt or in the nude obviously attracted by the angular forms of the long legs and the crossed arms over the flat chest. Did he already visualize a statue? Did he try out varying poses? This is not known - however, as soon as he found what he sought: "this upright pose of the girl, one foot in front of the other, the hands crossed at the back and the head uplifted with an indescribable expression of simultaneous indifference and audacity", he produced a series of sketches in preparation of the execution of his statue or rather statues; for Degas wanted to start with a wax sculpture of the small nude dancer before beginning the work he really envisaged. The sketches show his young model in the nude and dressed and these are the only examples of Degas actually producing sketches for one of his sculptures. In truth, this constituted an extremely important work of art, not only due to its size being three quarters of life-size but also due to the innovations which Degas pursues and due to his intention to exhibit this sculpture and thereby presenting himself for the first time to the public as a sculptor.
The innovations planned by Degas were of rather a surprising nature: he would dress his statue with a real bodice, a little cheese-cloth skirt and ballet shoes; the wax-covered real hair would be tied in the nape of the neck by a silk ribbon and the wax would be coloured to achieve a natural look. This realism, of course, necessitated very careful preparation; for the slightest exaggeration in co-ordinating different materials normally not destined to be assembled in this way nor to be combined with and, even less, amalgamated into a statue would lead this experiment into the grotesque. Degas wanted to actually create a statue and not a doll.
After first modelling the nude body of the girl to become familiar with the forms and possibly also to be better able to fashion the costume, Degas turned to the definite work he envisaged. He probably had to bespeak the small shoes and the bodice by special order; and, while working on the statue, the latter was to be covered by a thin layer of wax to better incorporate it into the sculpture but to retain its special texture. The details, only hinted at by the artist in the nude statue, are minutely executed in the clothed statue up to the indicated wrinkles of the stockings below the knees. The more or less coarse execution of the preliminary study is replaced by a smooth facture unlike anything Degas produced before. The facial features, primarily modelled without detail, are then executed with painstaking accuracy. Renoir reports to have seen in this dancer in wax "a mouth, only a suggestion, but what a graphic expression!" He added with regret that as Degas had been continually told to have forgotten the mouth he yielded to his friend Bartholome and refashioned the mouth. It is possible that Renoir got just mixed-up over the two statues as the one of the nude dancer actually shows in great detail engraved in wax more of a 'drawing' of a mouth than the clothed dancer. According to a comment by Degas, only a single feature was important to a face, i.e. the nose; and this girl's nose is distinguished by an impertinence intensified by the eyes and the mouth of the clothed statue while the somewhat brutal mouth slightly weakens the expression of the nude statue. By the way, one may doubt that Bartholome influenced his friend in the slightest degree in the matter of style research. However, it is correct that he helped Degas with technical details of the work and it was he who removed the obstinate wire ends of the skeletal support protruding here and there from the body of the little dancer on the eve of the exhibition.
Degas registered his statue for the exhibition of impressionists in 1880 and to be entered in the catalogue. The exhibition opened on April 1st but, if Degas is to be believed, without his statue as he could not complete it in time. By the way, his consignment was so extensive - Degas exhibited approximately ten important paintings and drawings - that it cannot be ruled out that the artist withheld his statue for a later and more advantageous exhibition. In fact, only a few of his paintings were shown when he sent it to the exhibition of impressionists in the following year thereby giving it a prominent place among his contribution of this artistic manifestation. While the dancer was thus waiting in Degas' studio for a whole year, she could not fail being noticed by friends and rare visitors of the painter causing sundry rumours to spread in the artistic circles of Paris. In this way, a success through curiosity was prepared for the exhibition in 1881.
Inevitably, the statue became the centre of a lively discussion. Confronting this work of art, disconcertion was mainly triggered by the textile accessories and above all by the real hair. The visitors were more taken aback by these novelties than by Degas' work of art itself. Even those who deprecated this work of art could not withhold their esteem in front of this consummate achievement. "The outcome is nearly frightening..." Paul Mantz writes in Le Temps. "This unfortunate child stands upright, dressed in a cheap cheese-cloth skirt, a blue ribbon round the waist, feet in small shoes... Frightening the way she seems without conception; with beastly impudence she raises up her face or rather her small snout... There is something in this displeasing figure with a purpose dictated by a philosophy in the manner of Baudelaire which originates in an observing and loyal artist. This is the perfect truth of pantomime, the accuracy of an almost mechanical movement, the attitude's artificial grace, the shy awkwardness of the eleve... The facial expression has obviously been desired. Monsieur Degas dreamt up an ideal of ugliness. What a happy individual! He materialized it... If he continues to sculpture and if he retains his style, he will gain his small place in the history of gruesome arts."
In contrast to the cautious reserve shown by this critic, there is the warm enthusiasm with which J.-K. Huysmans welcomed Degas' statue; his review reads: This year, neither his paintings nor his drawings constitute the most sensational contribution to the exhibition... but it is a figure in wax... from which the terrified and benumbed viewers flee in horror. The statue's awful reality obviously causes uneasiness; the viewers' general conception about works of sculpture being those cold lifeless white figures, those for centuries replicated noteworthy stereotyped works of art, is upset. In reality, Monsieur Degas has violated the tradition in the art of sculpture just as he jolted at the conventionalism in the art of painting for a long time. Taking up again the mannerism of the old Spanish masters, Monsieur Degas, however, transforms this through the originality of his talent to something very special, very modern. Comparable to certain maquillaged and dressed Madonnas, to that image of Christ in the Burgos' cathedral whose hair is real hair, whose crown of thorns has real thorns, whose clothes are made of real fabric, Degas' dancer wears a real skirt, real ribbons, a real bodice, has real hair.
The head painted, slightly tilted backwards, raised chin, half opened mouth in a sickly and seedy face which appears tired and aged betimes; hands entwined at the back, the flat chest covered by a white bodice, its fabric wax-covered; legs full of strife; wonderful, exercise-formed, nervous and tense legs which are shielded by the layered skirts as by an arbour; the rigid neck encircled by a leek-green ribbon; the hair, real horsehair, reaching to the shoulders and gathered in a bun tied by ribbon like the one around the neck - thus, the dancer stands and, when observing her, seems to come to life and ready to step off her pedestal.
Simultaneously artful and barbaric, this statue in its adept costume, its painted flesh which is alive and furrowed by the working of muscles is the only really modern approach which I know in the art of sculpture."
Degas will not repeat this experiment and thereby retains "his small place in the history of gruesome arts" as prophesied by the reviewer of Le Temps. Since then, he did not exhibit nor execute any sculptures dressed in real clothes although George Moore reveals in his memoirs "to have seen a number of figurines fallen to pieces, small dancers modelled in red wax of which several were wearing cheese-cloth skirts - weird dolls - dolls modelled by a genius, if you like." Without doubt, Degas viewed this attempt more in the line of an experiment than an expandable possibility and thus, he subsequently had to turn his mind to other problems. When he then produced further dancers in skirts - he made at least one which has been preserved - he modelled her costume in wax like the rest of the figure. It is quite interesting to note that the fourteen-year-old dancer praised by Huysmans as "the only really modern approach in the art of sculpture" stayed singular, not only among Degas' sculptures, but also remained without successors since then. In the history of modern art of sculpture, she occupies a place on her own: Evidence of brilliant daring and creative genius which seems to run counter to all the 'laws of the crafts' and achieves for wildly varying components to submit and render service to the sublime will of the Master.
Recently, Sacha Guitry wrote about this work of art: "Well, this small, life-sized dancer is the piece of art which I should like to possess above any others... She is an allegory for penury, degeneracy and submission. She represents one of the culminations of art and sculpture but also of painting and drawing. Also, there is something else to which no name may be given. Though, she appears to have the look of a mummy she however is life itself. A unique article. So distant from the customary as not to have any kind of successor. This is something final. At the same time the model and the conclusive result. This is absolute perfection! One would have to go very far back in time, back to ancient Egypt, and to reach very high to be able to meet with a comparable, highly finished work of art. Alas, it is only an insignificant dancer from the opera; nonetheless, she is eternal. Degas incorporated in this work of art the labour of his entire life. He created twenty paintings, a hundred pastels and a thousand drawings of her. Perhaps he drew of her about five-hundred-thousand sketches. And all these sketches, drawings, pastels and paintings only served to reach this goal. Of all those, she is the consolidation - the synthesis and the culmination. To immortalize her in this way, motionless - how many times did he have to create her in the way she walked, she approached, she danced, she towelled herself, she combed her hair, she dressed! He had to get familiar with her tiniest movements for her immobility to become a pose - with the whole precision of movement".