Three Studies of a Dancer in Fourth Position

What you are looking at

Three young female dancers are shown in a single compositional study, each rendered in a slightly different pose but all in the characteristic posture of ballet practice. The drawing is executed in charcoal and pastel on tan paper, with the figures occupying most of the frame and set against a neutral background. The leftmost dancer stands with her body angled away, head tilted back and arms positioned as if in movement. The central figure faces more toward the viewer, her upper body upright and arms held at her sides or slightly extended. The rightmost dancer echoes the pose of the left figure, also with her body in profile and head raised. All three wear the simple practice tutu of the Parisian ballet studio—a short, bell-shaped skirt rendered in pale wash that sits at mid-thigh, paired with fitted bodices that reveal the working anatomy of the torso. The artists has paid particular attention to the articulation of the legs and feet: each dancer wears ballet slippers, and the legs are rendered with anatomical precision, showing the turned-out position at the hip and the delicate pointing of the feet. The paper's grayish tone and the use of black wash for contour and shadow create a study of form rather than a finished work for exhibition.

The dancing

Each dancer stands with her weight held upright in a position characteristic of classical ballet vocabulary—externally rotated at the hip, with elongated legs and feet pointed or flexed. The three poses are variations on a held position: the outer dancers both turn their heads back while maintaining vertical spinal alignment, while the central figure looks forward. The arms are held in soft positions, neither dramatically extended nor hanging slack, and the torsos show the controlled engagement of the abdominal and back musculature required for sustained positions. The repetition of the pose across the three figures—what the title calls "fourth position"—suggests a study of a single movement or stance held at different moments or angles, a method of drawing from life or memory that was standard in academic ballet training.

The dance depicted

This is a study of ballet, the dominant theatrical dance form of the Paris Opera in the late nineteenth century. Fourth position in classical ballet is a fundamental stance in which one foot is placed directly in front of the other, both turned out from the hip, with the weight distributed between them. The drawing captures the moment of stillness or the held pose that precedes or follows movement—not the leap or the turn, but the quiet work of balance and control. The identical repetition of the pose across three figures suggests Degas was studying the position itself rather than a sequence of steps, perhaps as preparation for a larger composition or simply to understand how the body holds and sustains the external rotation and vertical alignment that ballet demands. The context is unmistakably the ballet studio or stage of the Opéra in Paris, where Degas was allowed access to watch rehearsals.

How it was made

This is a drawing in charcoal and pastel on paper, a medium that allowed Degas to work quickly from observation and to layer color and tone with great flexibility. The use of charcoal for the contour lines gives a searching, linear quality—the artist is looking hard at the structure of the body and the position of the limbs. The pastel washes, particularly the pale pink and buff tones used for the tutu and the flesh of the legs, build form through color rather than through line alone, a technique that gives the figures a soft, ephemeral quality even as the underlying anatomy is rendered with precision. The stumping technique—rubbing and blending the charcoal and pastel with a stump or the artist's fingers—creates areas of soft modeling, especially in the torso and upper legs. This was a working method suited to the studio and to rapid notation from life; it was also a method that could be transferred to canvas or used for study and reference. The work shows no signature and bears no indication of having been prepared for exhibition or sale.

About this work

This is a study of the classical ballet dancer in repose, rendered by Edgar Degas in charcoal and pastel around 1879. It captures three variations on a single pose—fourth position—as if the artist were turning the model or the drawing itself to examine the stance from slightly different angles. The work is part of Degas's sustained engagement with the Paris Opera ballet, a subject that occupied him for nearly four decades. The drawing records not a spectacular moment of performance but a moment of stillness and control: the unglamorous, demanding work of maintaining the classical line and the external rotation that ballet required. It is a document of how the body was trained and held in the nineteenth century, and of what the artist chose to look at: not the face or the costume, but the musculature and the stance.

The work sits between the studio and the academy. It is a working drawing, made from observation, with the character of a note or a study. But it is also a finished drawing, signed by the artist and carefully worked in a medium that was at the cutting edge of artistic practice in Paris. It shows Degas's commitment to drawing from life and from movement, and his refusal to settle for the conventional ballet pose. The three figures are not identical; they show the variety and effort involved in sustaining a single position, the small shifts of weight and head that make the pose a living thing rather than a statue.

How to look at it

Look at the pose itself: the external rotation at the hip, the vertical alignment of the spine, the pointed foot. These are not natural to the human body; they have been trained into it. Notice how the artist has rendered the effort involved: the tension in the thigh, the engagement of the abdominal muscles, the way the head is held. The three figures are not identical, even though they are meant to show the same position. The small variations—in the tilt of the head, the angle of the shoulders, the distribution of weight—show the artist attending to the living reality of the pose, not to an abstract ideal. Look at the way the pastel has been used to model the form of the leg and the tutu: the soft blending creates the sense of flesh and fabric, while the charcoal lines define the structure underneath.

The artist

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) was a French painter and draughtsman who made the ballet of the Paris Opera a central subject from the 1870s onward. He had access to rehearsals and backstage spaces, and he drew and painted dancers obsessively, producing hundreds of works in every medium: oil, pastel, charcoal, monotype, and lithography. He was not interested in the spectacle or the illusion of the stage; he was interested in the body, the light, the effort, and the unglamorous reality of training and performance. His drawings and paintings of dancers are among the most acute anatomical studies of the moving body in nineteenth-century art, and they show a profound engagement with the physical and emotional reality of the performers. He was associated with Impressionism but maintained his own commitment to drawing and to the figure.

The period

In the 1870s and 1880s, French ballet was undergoing a transformation. The era of Romantic ballet—the sylphs and maidens of the early nineteenth century—was giving way to a new vocabulary of spectacle and athleticism. The Paris Opera ballet was a major cultural institution, and the dancers were celebrities. At the same time, there was a growing interest in the scientific study of movement: photography of motion, anatomical drawing, the precise notation of gesture. Degas's studies of dancers coincide with this moment of transition, and they reflect a modern sensibility—an interest in the actual body and the actual effort, not the ideal or the romantic.

In art, the 1870s saw the emergence of Impressionism, with its commitment to observation from life and its interest in light and color. Degas was involved with the Impressionists but maintained his own distinct approach, rooted in drawing and in the figure. His studies of dancers, done in charcoal and pastel, show the influence of Impressionism—the soft tones, the interest in light, the immediacy of observation—but they are also deeply committed to structure and to the human body.

Where it lives

This drawing is held in the Prints and Drawings collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is part of the museum's extensive holdings of works on paper, a collection that reflects the historical importance of drawing as a major art form in nineteenth-century Paris.

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