Member-only story
Art, Objectification, and Edgar Degas’ Obsession with Women
An artist’s admiration or a misogynist’s gaze?
Edgar Degas painted ballet dancers with an almost obsessive curiosity. Nearly half of his oil paintings and pastel works depict ballerinas at the corps de ballet at the Paris Opéra.
Many of the works focus on the backstage preparations: teaching classes and dress rehearsals. A friend once noted, “He comes here in the morning. He watches all the exercises in which the movements are analysed . . . nothing in the most complicated step escapes his gaze.”
Degas was enthralled by the spectacle. He enjoyed the company of the dancers and chatted with them as they posed.
Yet a difficulty hangs over Degas’ images of women. A reputation for misogyny has gathered around the artist, founded upon numerous testimonies, from both himself and others. Some critics have noted how Degas’ models are invariably facing away from the artist, creating a sense of anonymity and leaving the images open to interpretations of voyeurism.
Degas himself once wrote about the off-guard quality of his work, “It is as if you looked through the keyhole.”
