Dinner at the Ball

Edgar Degas mixes a multitude of rich colours while still portraying a significant scene. As part of the upper class, the impressionist artist held the opportunity to attend a number of wealthy events and performance.

The artist was gifted with the chance to spend an ample amount of time studying the beautiful form of ballerinas in which his famous works such as Blue Dancers, Dancer Tilting, and Ballerinas Adjusting Their Dresses derived from. While the artist is most often compared to his contemporaries Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, his work often had a different feel to it. Degas adored capturing scenes in which other people did not. He felt a certain pride to be able to grasp a significant moment and then depict it into his work.

He adored feeling like an insider that understood things that other people around him did not. This brilliance influences his work tremendously as viewers do feel a story when they look into the artist’s work. The beauty of art is the idea that the artist expressing a certain portion of history in the way they view it. These stunning artworks do exactly that and manifest onto the viewer the artist’s desire.

It's quite evident that Dinner At The Ball does exactly this and seizes the viewer’s interest. Bright shades and colours fill the room, taking the viewer's attention to not one particular place but rather the picture at large. The large room is filled with endless characters with hundreds at scale. The viewer is able to get a glimpse of some of the bodies moving throughout the painting. While most of the artist's work brings attention to a particular character, all of the people in the frame merge together as one. When studying the painting, the viewer could spot some French military personnel near the bottom left of the painting. The rest of the characters blend into one another. However, upon looking at closer inspection, the viewer is able to locate some women in large grand ball gowns. Blue, red, green, and yellow dresses gently make appearances throughout the painting.

The artist uses a classic impressionistic brush strokes to illustrate the details onto all of the characters. Small swift dabs create the painting. Colours are merged together without many harsh lines. In a sense the colours merge together as one and create the captivating art piece. The other grasping element of the piece is the large ceiling that fills exactly half of the painting. The large ball room is able to fit hundreds of people together if not thousands. The grand ceiling is roughly 5 stories high as it captures all of the energy.

The viewer can easily spot a number of grand white chandeliers hanging off the ceiling. Degas uses immense detail to showcase the chandelier near the left of the painting. The viewer can see his soft dabbing technique used to create detailing. Degas uses hints of blue and green to add a tad of contrast apart from the yellow-orange tones. Large columns fill the background of the room holding the structure together. They beautiful arch in a classic French architecture with vines. While Degas usually did not create vast scenic paintings such as Dinner At The Ball, it’s quite obvious that he was intrigued by the structure of the hall and vast number of people. The artist beautifully depicts what a classic ball looked like during the 19th century in Paris. The painting is truly a moment of history as it beautifully brings architecture and social gathering to light.