Ballet at the Paris Opéra

Ballet at the Paris Opéra by Edgar Degas: One of the nineteenth century’s most innovative artists, Edgar Degas often combined traditional techniques in unortho…

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One of the nineteenth century’s most innovative artists, Edgar Degas often combined traditional techniques in unorthodox ways. In Ballet at the Paris Opéra , the artist creatively joined the monotype technique, rarely used in his time, with the fragile medium of pastel. Described as “the powder of butterfly wings,” pastel was the perfect medium to illustrate the onstage metamorphosis of spindly young dancers into visions of beauty as perfect and short-lived as butterflies. This work, executed on one of the widest…