Edgar Degas Ballerina Statue - The Fourteen Year Old Dancer (1881) - Large

About Edgar Degas Ballerina Statue - The Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (1881)

This Edgar Degas Ballerina Statue is a resin reproduction of the French Impressionist artist's iconic work "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans" (1881), made after Marie van Goethem, a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet. Edgar Degas' original ballerina sculpture was made in wax featuring a real bodice, tutu, ballet slippers and a wig of real hair. Every aspect of the sculpture with the exception of the hair, the ribbon and the tutu were covered in wax. Although scholarship continues to debate on the exact relationship of the young dancer and Edgar Degas, it is known that it was common for young ballerinas at the Opera during the 1880s to seek for protectors among the wealthy visitors backstage. Edgar Degas, whose prolific and highly creative artistic career spanned six decades, is best known for his portrayals of ballet dancers. He spent years behind the footlights, drawing the movements of these young ballerinas. Degas's interest in the subject was inspired by his passion for music and the opera, as well as the visual possibilities provided by the interior space of theaters, such as the intriguing contrast between light and shadow, illusion and reality, beauty and triviality. Although Degas is often categorized with the Impressionists and he displayed his works at seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions, he preferred to call himself a realist. In contrast to Impressionist masters like Claude Monet, who worked outdoors to explore the transitory effects of natural light, Degas was fascinated by artificial light and the modernity of Paris; showing little interest in landscapes. The charming appearance of spontaneity in many of his pieces is deceptive. More details on Edgar Degas Ballerina Statue - The Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer: