Degas And History
One of the most interesting conversations I ever had about art history was with a girl I was trying to hit on in my college library. Nothing came of my advances, but I still have the conversation.
She was a grad student in art history and had just finished a paper on Degas. We were talking about it, and she mentioned the idea that some scholars considered Degas a proto feminist.
I asked her how they arrived at that. She talked about how many of Degas’ ballerina paintings seemed to include several seemingly small details: often, the ballerinas have black chokers around their necks, something like a velvet ribbon. She told me that in some of these paintings, there is a shadowy male figure dressed in black, usually on the edge of the frame or backstage.
“So?” I asked.
She explained that in the Paris of Degas’ time, many of the girls who studied dance were poor and their families could never have afforded the costs of training, lessons, conservatories, etc. But there were often older men who would offer to pay all those costs…for a price. Young women would basically become mistresses to older benefactors so that they could study dance.
Hence, the dark, threatening figures at the edge of the frame are these older men preying on the young women. And the chokers around the ballerinas’ necks are their slave collars, their shackles of servitude. To become ballerinas, many poor girls had to become, essentially, prostitutes.
Fascinating theory.
Is it possible that it was just in fashion at that time for ballerinas to wear velvet chokers? I don’t doubt that.
And the idea of older men behaving in a predatory, if financially beneficial, fashion towards young women dates back to the Stone Age, I’m sure.
But it’s fascinating to think that Degas coded in this idea of social commentary – or at the least, social observation – that may have been obvious to his audiences at the time, or might have been as initially hidden as it is to viewers in the 21st century.
It makes you wonder what other hidden treasures and fascinating stories that other artists have included in their works, that we pass over, unseeing.
