static cling of classicism

Lack of investment in motion. No, not a financial term referring to the money trails and the velocity of cash but the problem in classical composition of human forms being as static as the natural and architectural forms that are also found in the work.

It is this static quality, especially of figures ostensibly going from point A to somewhere that is the element in classical painting which to many, limits its effectiveness. Degas, was one painter, ingenious as he was, that was to avoid this difficulty while retaining the quality of balance while engaging his figures in an activity based on the premise of motion. The question arises: how did Degas solve the contradiction?

---The Foyer of the Opera at Rue Le Peletier shows ten ballerinas being examined in the great hall. The white-clad Louis François Mérante, instructor at the opera house, is giving orders which the dancers have to follow. Those who are not busy exercising are watching the ballerina currently being examined with close attention. The work is organized around the polarity of group and single figure. The scene, remarkable for the rigour of its composition, has a distinctive energy centre in the vacant chair at the fore. ---click image for source...

—The Foyer of the Opera at Rue Le Peletier shows ten ballerinas being examined in the great hall. The white-clad Louis François Mérante, instructor at the opera house, is giving orders which the dancers have to follow. Those who are not busy exercising are watching the ballerina currently being examined with close attention. The work is organized around the polarity of group and single figure. The scene, remarkable for the rigour of its composition, has a distinctive energy centre in the vacant chair at the fore. —click image for source…

In Degas’s The Rehearsal in the Foyer of the Opera he finds the device of an instant of repose in the midst of continuous action. The ballet dancer holds the attitude of the moment as she listens for a comment from the ballet master while the violinist has lowered his bow at the same moment to relax. The other dancers, attracted by the tapping of the stick, pause to glance and listen. So, the picture is full of life and activity, yet it is still natural that each figure is perfectly still. Degas is then free to use each one as an object for disposition within a static, classical composition.

In addition, Degas turned his space at an eccentric angle, letting go of the picture plane idea while maintaining precise definition. The chair serves as a barrier to keep the viewer from entering the void in the center of the picture, deflecting us to the ballet master and the group around him or to the dancer on the left.

Importantly, the two sides achieve what can be termed a psychic balance, a tension of interest that overwhelms one end of a kind of compositional see-saw where the dancer’s isolation attracts as much attention as the massed figures competing with one another. In any event, the result is meaning through order and not that much concern with the apparent subject.

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