Blue Dancers (circa 1898)

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Degas Blue Dancers 1899: Introduction

Four dancers in blue fill an almost square sheet. One arm rises across the upper part of the picture, another figure bends her head, and a fourth head is cut by the lower edge. Their costumes meet in a broad field of turquoise, cobalt and pale blue. This is Edgar Degas's Blue Dancers in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, inventory Ж-3273. The site's older route includes “1899,” but the museum dates the pastel about 1898. ^{[1] [5]}

The Pushkin catalogue calls the work pastel on paper and gives its size as 65 by 65 centimetres. The near-square support matters: there is little empty stage or room around the dancers. Arms, shoulders, heads and skirts press against one another and against the edges. The closeness, along with a steep viewpoint, makes it possible to read the group first as an arrangement of colour and then as separate people preparing or moving. The image does not identify a ballet, a named performer or a precise backstage location. ^[1]

The work at a glance

• ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
• Museum titleBlue Dancers (Голубые танцовщицы)
• DateCirca 1898; “1899” in the familiar English title
• MediumPastel on paper
• Dimensions65 × 65 cm in the current catalogue
• CollectionPushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Ж-3273

Contents

1. Introduction
2. At a Glance
3. Four bodies, one moving pattern
4. Why the date and medium matter
5. From the Shchukin collection to the Pushkin

Four bodies, one moving pattern

The figures overlap so tightly that no dancer can be seen as a complete silhouette. At the left, a woman turns down toward her bodice. The dancer behind her extends an arm high, making a diagonal that pulls the eye across the top. Near the centre, another face is turned away; at right, an arm bends toward a shoulder. These gestures can suggest adjustment and preparation, but the work does not establish a sequence of actions. They are four visible figures within one composition, rather than documentary frames of a particular performance. ^[1]

The lower costumes fuse. Broad blue passages run from one tutu into the next, while pale green and yellow marks break up their edges. Degas outlines some arms more firmly than the skirts, so the bodies emerge and recede as the eye moves across the surface. The close viewpoint makes the dancers seem seen from above, with the lowest head partly beyond the sheet. Their spatial relations remain lively even where the setting dissolves into strokes of colour. ^[1]

Blue is the unifying colour, but it is never a single flat tone. Dark navy sits beside sharp cobalt and mistier, almost white-blue areas. Orange and rust marks in the background and in the hair make the blues look more intense. The pastel remains visibly worked: short vertical and diagonal touches build the costume and surrounding field. That texture is central to the picture's effect. The result is a rich, crowded surface rather than a clean outline filled with blue. ^[1]

The top of the sheet is especially unsettled. The raised arm cuts through green, ochre and blue, while a dark band and a bright patch appear behind it. The picture gives enough cues to separate arm from background but not enough to map a full room. The painter's focus is the movement and colour of bodies brought close together. Calling it a specific rehearsal room or wing of the opera would go beyond the owner record and the visible image. ^[1]

Watch: Edgar Degas

Explore his paintings, drawings and sculpture in three short videos.

Degas, The Dance Class

Smarthistory

Look closely at Degas’s off-duty dancers and his unusual view into the rehearsal room.

Watch on YouTube

▶01 · PaintingThe Dance ClassSmarthistory▶02 · DrawingDrawing movementThe Met▶03 · SculptureConserving DegasThe Met

Why the date and medium matter

The Pushkin dates the pastel circa 1898, as does its English Shchukin collection project. The “1899” in this page's address is therefore not an exact completion date. A museum accessibility page gives the dimensions as 64 × 64.6 cm, while the collection catalogue rounds them to 65 × 65 cm. Neither difference changes the object's identity. ^[1][2][3]

This Pushkin work is a pastel. A similarly named Blue Dancers at the Musée d'Orsay, inventory RF 1951 10, is an oil painting of a different composition. Degas repeatedly returned to blue-clad dancers, so a shared English title or approximate late date cannot justify using the Orsay image for this Pushkin work. The four close figures, square format and Pushkin inventory anchor this page. ^[1][4]

Pastel lets Degas draw with colour and alter edges without hiding every stroke. In this work, that quality is visible where the blue dresses meet and where marks of orange and green cross the surrounding field. It would be tempting to call the picture a snapshot of a single moment. Yet its carefully interlocking arms and heads show a composed image, not simply a neutral record. The visible gestures do not reveal how many studies Degas used or exactly where he stood. ^[1]

From the Shchukin collection to the Pushkin

The Pushkin's project on Sergei Shchukin's collection lists Blue Dancers among his holdings. Its current collection catalogue records the State Museum of New Western Art as the immediately previous holder and the work's arrival at the Pushkin in 1948. These records establish those stages of ownership but do not provide every intervening transfer date. ^[1][2]

Return to the crowded lower edge. The cut head and merging tutus prevent the dancers from settling into a tidy row. Above them, the lifted arm opens the composition for a moment before it closes again in dense colour. Degas made a group in which separate actions, bodies and strokes of pastel continually come together and pull apart. ^[1]

References

1. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Blue Dancers, Ж-3273, exact-object image, catalogue line and 1948 accession record. View source
2. Pushkin Museum, Sergei Shchukin collection list, listing of the pastel; see also its English object entry. View source · View source
3. Pushkin Museum, Shchukin collection accessibility programme, museum date and more precise measurement variant. View source
4. Musée d'Orsay, Blue Dancers, RF 1951 10, distinct oil painting with a similar English title. View source
5. Edgar Degas, Blue Dancers, circa 1898, pastel on paper. The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Ж-3273. Collection record. View source

Related DEGAS Paintings

Dance Class

The Ballet from Robert le Diable

Orchestra Musicians

The Millinery Shop

On the Racecourse

Dancers Backstage

A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers

Portrait of James Tissot