Little Dancer of Fourteen Years
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (French: "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans") is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem.
Waiting (Degas)
The background is formed from a wide variety of oranges, browns and blacks, while the younger woman is portrayed in pink, blue, and creamy tones which highlight her softness compared to the severity of the older woman. The work is executed with an innovative mixture of subtle (the woman's feet), slashed (the bench) and hatched (the younger woman's dress) strokes.
Degas was taken by the peripheral world of the dancers, the rehearsals and backstage moments, a world to which he did not have access to until 1885; he only became interested in the ballet in 1870, and backstage was strictly limited to long term patrons. His removal from the moment reflected in the image is highlighted by the unusually steep perspective; the viewer seems to be positioned far above the two women; looking down as if seated in a box above the auditorium.
Degas was aware from an early point in his studies of the exhaustion of the girls, and the extent to which they pushed the limits of their bodies for fleeting moments of elegance. He was further conscious of the brevity of a ballerina's career, and the positioning of the older chaperone–more than likely an ex-dancer herself–in this work adds to its poignancy; the younger woman representing what her forlorn looking companion once was. Degas, mindful of this, presents an interesting irony - while the young woman waits to make her entrance the older woman waits for her to leave. The tip of the chaperone's umbrella points in the direction the dancer must take; towards the stage and away from her guardian.