While Group of Dancers features Edgar Degas's signature subject of ballet dancers, it is also a curious experiment in medium and setting. Rather than drawing with pastels on paper, Degas worked on a wooden panel, a material more commonly used as a support for paint. The wood is streaked with layers of pastel and gouache (opaque watercolor), which together produce a refined satin finish; however, the wood grain of the panel remains visible and thus becomes part of the composition. Degas positions his dancers against what may be a stage backdrop showing a landscape with ancient ruins, likely the Athenian acropolis, as an allusion to a distant classical past.

Excerpt from

Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2015.

• YouTube
  Watch this animated video about Degas's depictions of ballet dancers from the "Art with Mati and Dada" series.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  Learn more about Edgar Degas.