Waiting (Degas)

The ballerina series follows his earlier studies of both lower and middle-class women, where he looked at the moment when they let their public face drop and pretence gave way to an awareness of the reality of both themselves and their surroundings.

[2] Waiting is an empathetic example, depicting a ballerina accompanied by her chaperone, bent over ostensibly to massage her foot but whose body language indicates a person racked with anticipation before she takes stage.

His removal from the moment reflected in the image is highlighted by the unusually steep perspective; the viewer seems to be positioned far above the two women; looking down as if seated in a box above the auditorium.

[6] He was further conscious of the brevity of a ballerina's career, and the positioning of the older chaperone–more than likely an ex-dancer herself–in this work adds to its poignancy; the younger woman representing what her forlorn looking companion once was.

They surprise us with their ugliness, these girls, whose whole life gradually descends into their legs so that on their low, twilight brows nothing remains except a dull memory of things never known, and that will soon be lost in the acquired smile..."[8] The work is jointly owned by the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.