Green Dancer (Swaying Dancer)

Edgar Degas

Pastel and gouache on paper

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum

Known formally as Danseuses basculant (Danseuses vertes), or Swaying Dancer (Dancer in Green) in English, this work is one of Edgar Degas's most celebrated pastel and gouache compositions, executed on paper around 1877–1879. The scene presents a group of ballerinas caught in mid-performance, viewed from an elevated side box: a single dancer in a vivid green tutu is shown full-length executing a swift, complex turn, while surrounding figures are cropped at the edges, and a row of ballerinas in orange costumes awaits in the background against painted stage scenery. Degas's signature off-centre, fragmented pictorial space—deeply influenced by photography and Japanese woodblock prints—conveys the fleeting, transitory quality of the performance through rapid, virtuosic pastel strokes. Born in Paris in 1834, Degas devoted a remarkable portion of his career to the world of ballet, finding in its combination of disciplined form and ephemeral movement the ideal subject for his investigation of modern life and artificial light.