Degas et les danseuses - L'image en mouvement

Edgar Degas

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement, Royal Academy of Arts, London until 11 December 2011

Edgar Degas is best known for his vivid studies of dancers. He captured his young female subjects warming up, practising at the bar or mid-performance with a stunning immediacy and accuracy, on canvas, paper and in bronze.

Illustrated with drawings, pastels, paintings, prints and sculpture, this beautiful book proposes that Degas's ballet imagery is more than simply an expression of his lifelong engagement with the figure in movement.

Exploring the artist's innovative approach to his subject matter in the context of contemporary developments in photography and film, the renowned Degas scholars Richard Kendall and Jill DeVonyar bring together photographs taken by the artist and his contemporaries and samples of film from the period, establishing the importance of early visual technologies to Degas's work for the first time.