Yellow Dancers (In the Wings)
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917)
1874–76
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 73.5 × 59.5 cm (28 15/16 × 23 7/16 in.); Framed: 91.5 × 78.2 × 7 cm (36 × 30 3/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Palmer, Mrs. Bertha P. Thorne, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Wood, and Mrs. Rose M. Palmer
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Edgar Degas first painted dancers as an independent subject in 1871. He was to devote almost half his output as an artist to this subject, observing countless performances and rehearsals at the Paris Opéra. Here he placed the viewer in the wings, as if among the elite Opéra subscribers who roamed and socialized backstage. Dance subjects allowed Degas to contemporize his lifelong interest in showing the human body in complex movement, shifting the scene from ancient history to modern Paris. He finished and signed the present canvas in time for the second Impressionist exhibition, in April 1876.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
