Degas's Little Dancer: The Mystery
Chin up, shoulder blades pulled towards each other, arching her back in a way only ballet dancers do, and feet turned out in a loose fourth position, or perhaps the beginning of a tendu, Edgar Degasās 14-year-old dancer stands with her hands hidden behind her back, like she is trying to conceal herself in the back of a crowded studio. There are noticeable sharp lines, as if her bone structure is clinging to her skin, with seemingly no fat or muscle separating the two.Ā
It was the greatest failure of Edgar Degasās career,Ā the first and final sculpture he publicly displayed. He called it āLe Petit Rat,ā the nickname given to preteen ballerinas because they were so small and scrawny. People found the sculpture ugly. They wanted to see dancers as angelic and beautiful creatures, but Degasās sculpture showed the reality instead.Ā
Many who see the statue today probably assume itās a representation of a girl raised in wealth, but this couldnāt be further from the truth. The dancers of theĀ Paris Opera Ballet lived extremely difficult lives, training for 10 to 12 hours a day with no breaks. Most couldnāt afford food on a regular basis. The ballet company would often give them a spoonful of soup at the door, so they wouldnāt pass out while dancing. It was not uncommon for dancers, like many of Franceās working class, to die of starvation. To survive, they prostituted themselves out to Parisās elite. Being an opera rat was not a sustainable source of income by any stretch of the imagination, so receiving sponsorship from wealthy gentlemen was crucial for most dancersā survival. Many of these arrangements were made by mothers looking for a way for their daughters and the rest of the family to survive.Ā It wasnāt so unlike mothers in the upper class, searching for a match for their daughters. The difference was that, for the mothers of ballerinas, it was life or death.
The subject of Degasās statue was named Marie Van Goethem, though we donāt know much about her beyond that. Degas had a complicated relationship with his subjects, admitting āI have perhaps too often considered women as an animal.ā Maybe this was the reason he did not keep a thorough record of his subjects. We do know that Marieās mother was a laundress and her sister worked in the sex industry, both common sources of income for women living in poverty at the time. Shortly after Degasās sculpture was published, Marie was dismissed from the ballet for being late to a rehearsal. After that there is no historical record of her. Her identity after dance is a complete mystery.Ā
Most assume that Marie faded into the Parisian underworld, taking up prostitution as a full-time profession. Itās possible she was picked up by a gentleman who saw her at the ballet and lived in hiding as his mistress, but itās more likely that she lost all contact with the upper class and sank into more commonplace prostitution. Some say she might have become a pickpocket, others that she died shortly after her release from the ballet. Degasās statue is more than bony; her arms and legs are unnaturally slim, her elbows and knees sharp as knives. Her face is swollen, and her skin is sunken in around her collar bone. Every detail of the sculpture represents Marie as malnourished. What looks today like a stylistic choice probably reflected Marieās lived reality. Dying of starvation was shockingly common for girls in Marieās situation, especially in the late 1870ās, a time of financial depression that began with the panic of 1873 and lasted nearly two decades. Degasās sculpture was published in the 1880s, right at the peak of this depression. This would have increased the odds that Marieās family could not afford sufficient food supply. It was also a time when diseases like Cholera and Tuberculosis ran rampant in the Paris streets, especially among the working class.Ā Ā Ā
Weāll never know what happened to Marie, but what we do know is how Degas saw people like her. We know it in more depth than we will ever know about Marieās life or any of Degasās subjects. Degas himself tried to explain his unique view on women on more than one occasion, saying, āWomen can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry. Oh! Women can never forgive me.āĀ
Ā Degas was infamously celibate claiming that building a connection with a woman would prevent him from accurately portraying her. He saw his subjects as repulsive, disgusted by the opera girls that had hypnotized every other man in Paris.Ā
For dancers, working with Degas was an alternative to taking on a patron, but it was not an escape from a misogynistic and demeaning gaze. There were reports of Degas using scare tactics and verbal abuse, paying little, and forcing models to work long hours. It could be that Marie was in just this position, working late for Degas when she missed the rehearsal that caused her to lose her job.
It is almost unimaginable that Marie would have been late for a rehearsal unless something, or someone, stopped her. None of the dancers would have. The ballet was their livelihood and they knew how lucky they were to have a position there at all. Not one girl in the company would risk losing it. If Degas had never chosen Marie to be his muse, perhaps she would have stuck with dance, living a life like her sisterās, who went on to teach at the ballet for decades. Without Degas, Marie Van Goethem would have been forgotten, every trace of her life erased. However, in the process of immortalizing her, Degas may have taken away her opportunity to have a happy, stable life. Degasās gaze, the way he saw these women, was more than his artistic perspective, it had a real impact on these womenās lives. But itās also the only record we have of the ballerinas who were not the stars of the show. He immortalized a group of people who otherwise would have been erased from history.Ā
Art is often the only information we have of people at the margins ā both of what their life was like and how they were seen by others. Iām interested in looking at art from this angle, as a record of how groups of people have been perceived throughout history and as proof that the way we choose to perceive other people shapes their lives. Our empathy relies on our gaze, the amount of attention we direct towards the struggles of others. For this reason, the study of art is also, inevitably, the study of human rights. Marieās life is not unique, so many people's struggles have been recorded through art work. Art itself is one of the most consistent records we have of our history, and therefore our rights.Ā
Source: Degas's Little Dancer: The Mystery
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