isnβt it amazing how the width of the skirt, the heft and color and lift of it, changes the whole tone of the sculpture? Her previous tutu sagged on her body, and I remember when I saw it I thought of wilting flowersβthe crushed quality of the fabric and the multilayered brown just added to that sad, wistful effect; I thought Degas was conveying a kind of loneliness, a sense of being left out in the cold, a girl not quite a ballerina.
and then the new skirt! She looks like a Dior model. She fits with other paintings Degas made of dancers, and her whole pose reads completely differently. She looks like she's about to lift off or float away. The skirt is still aged but itβs no longer tattered. She's a dandelion now, ready to happily dance away, not a girl kicked out of the ball. Itβs shocking that her pose hasnβt changed at all, because the entire sculpture reads differently now.
And fascinating, too, that we donβt really know what Degas βintended.β All the changes that have happened to this sculpture over the years is a collective vision of what a Degas sculpture should be. From this video, it sounds like he didnβt plan for the bronze (which adds the tone of memory, solidity, history). He didnβt envision the skirt being dyed to match the body or its decay. It sounds like weβre not even sure how full he made the skirt originallyβthis conservator is going off of historically accurate looks from the time, ignoring whether degas might have intentionally flouted those to make a separate point. This is a Theseusβs ship of a masterpiece. Gorgeous and weird and totally divorced from what it started as.
