The Rehearsal

 

This painting is an Edgar Degas piece and it's called The Rehearsal. This is an impressionistic piece.

 

This painting looks like a candid shot taken in the middle of practice. People are comming down the stairs, in the middle of dancing, and patiently waiting until they can dance. Just like a regular day at the dance studio or class and it feels real, like instead of a picture that a whole bunch of ballirenas grouped together for a picture. To me it feels like an ordinary day because you see the girl in the corner sitting, in a fashion that works out her inner thighs, watching another dancer. Then you see the other girls behind her in the middle of practicing and some of them are cut off by the swirling staircase on the left.

I think the staircase helps with showing depth also the slanting in the floor pushes you back into the piece where the other dancers are; the windows take me a little higher then i look at the girl comming down the stairs, so my eyes deffinately move around the piece. Even the dancers have strong diagonal lines that lead your eyes a bit. Another example of showing depth is the dancers in the back don't have as much detail as the girl sitting down.

You can even see her facial expression a little, to me it looks like she kind of doesn't have a care in the world; like she's daydreaming while watching the girl that is standing infront of her. The woman behind the girl that's standing is helping the girl get dressed. Also the figure behind the women is a guy named Jules Perrot and he is beating his hand with a stick to show time or pace.

The information i got this from is in the following website ( http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/degas/events/online-resources/learn-more-the-rehearsal-by-degas,1846,AR.html )