Degas Dancer Pics: Hard Truths Behind Them

Misty Copeland and NYC Dance Project recreated some of Degas’ painted dancer scenes for an issue of Harper’s Bazaar. But Sebastian Smee points out: ‘It always makes me deeply uneasy to see [people] take to Edgar Degas’ ballet pictures as if they were some sort of grand affirmation of their art. They’re really not. … These poor girls were commonly known as ‘les petits rats,’ the little rats, and Degas, who also called them his ‘little monkey girls,’ was precisely interested in this sordid aspect.’

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