Dancers

Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867-1947) – Dancers, c.1896 (Oil on cardboard. Musée d'Orsay) - - The composition is charming, offering a high-angle view on a ballet, without flattening the dancers nor depriving them of their airiness ; they fill the stage in lines, each group executing a different dance step, in varying degrees of synchronization. The subtle allusion to Degas is obvious, but benevolent, devoid of the lustful eye of the male often found in many of the master’s paintings…