Degas and the Ballet: The Royal Academy

The work of Edgar Degas is probably more widely known than that of any other artist through its appearance on a thousand chocolate boxes and greetings cards, but despite their easy accessibility and pleasing charm, these paintings and drawings are the work of a major artist, and to see such a large collection of the original works is a rare privilege. But the most interesting aspect of the exhibition is its concentration on the way in which the works were achieved. During the late 19th century the techniques of photography were swiftly developing, and towards the end of Degas’s life (he died in 1917) film was coming into its own. In this show we see how scientists and artists began to use photography, and then film, to study human movement. Degas himself took photographs, and was also influenced by the experiments in photography of men like Eadweard Muybridge and the Lumière brothers.

There are several examples of ‘animated photographs’ in which we see dancers and athletes apparently in movement. One surprise is that their technique is better than one might have expected; the other — particularly in the case of a lady performing an endless series of ‘entrechats’ — is that they seem slightly less chubby than those depicted by the artist in his paintings.

In the final room of this huge exhibition we see Degas himself in movement. In 1915, the film director Sacha Guitry asked several painters and sculptors for permission to film them for a documentary on senior living French artists. Monet, Renoir and Rodin were among those who took part. Degas refused, but Guitry set up his camera in the street and filmed the now near-blind artist as he walked by, a distinguished figure in a great white beard; a romantic artist who nevertheless used the latest advances in science to help achieve his results.

n Degas and the Ballet, sponsored by BNY Mellon, is at The Royal Academy until December 11.