Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Degas modeled two versions of the Danseuse s’avançant, les bras levés: the première étude is offered here (the original wax model is in the Mellon Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The deuxième étude exists in cast bronze only, however, and in an incomplete state—the original wax model did not survive the casting process (Hébrard, no.72; Rewald, no. XXVI). The artist’s efforts in creating two closely related variants of this pose attest to its usefulness when he depicted figures engaged in stylized, forward movement in his late drawings and pastels. As the dancer steps forward, shifting her weight to the leading left leg, she raises both arms in an expression of joyous wonderment and praise.
Working from the present complete first version of Danseuse s’avançant, in lieu of a live model in the studio, Degas could easily turn the table-top sculpture according to his desired vantage point, and repeat the process with slight adjustments when depicting multiple figures in ensemble compositions. The rhythmical repetition of angled or straight limbs, creating a patterned arabesque effect in his dance compositions, preoccupied the artist after 1895. In two series of pastels ascribed to 1898-1900, Degas took particular interest in the parallel array of raised arms (Lemoisne, nos. 1336-1339 and 1386-1390).
In contrast to the more formally concentrated, rigorously disciplined, raised leg arabesque and battement positions that Degas created, his treatment of movement in Danseuse s’avançant displays a more extravert, rustic, Dionysian exuberance. Charles W. Millard noted the similarity between the present Degas Danseuse and the Fauno danzante discovered in Pompeii in 1830, preserved in the ash that enveloped an opulent private residence known thereafter as the Casa del Fauno (op. cit., 1976, p. 69 and fig. 98). The 28 inch (71 cm.) Fauno danzante quickly became popular in bronze and plaster reproductions. One may easily imagine Degas’s nude Danseuse in a troupe of maenads, the young female followers of Dionysus (Bacchus to the Romans), intoxicated with love of the vine and their congenial, licentious god, ecstatically dancing.
Other casts of the present sculpture can be found in public institutions including: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil; Musée d’Orsay, Paris and NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.