Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and for me Degas's Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is really beautiful. But when it was first exhibited in 1881 it received mixed reviews with the majority of critics being shocked by the piece. It's hard for me to imagine that they compared the dancer to a monkey and an Aztec and referred to her as a "flower of precocious depravity," with a face "marked by the hateful promise of every vice" and "bearing the signs of a profoundly heinous character." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dancer_of_Fourteen_Years). Woooo...Goodness me....that seems a bit harsh and so far removed from how she is viewed today.

The sculpture was modelled on Marie van Goethem, the daughter of a Parisian laundress and tailor, Marie was one of the ballet "rats" at the Paris Opera. The original sculpture is 2/3rd life size and the body was made of wax with real tutu, bodice, hair, hair ribbon, ballet slippers being added and then coated in wax. After Degas's death his heirs had 28 bronze copies cast from the original and they are in galleries and private collections. The original, which was the only sculpture by Degas exhibited during his lifetime, has not survived.

I wonder what future generations will think about current western aesthetics. Will they find beauty where we don't, or will they be critical of what we see as beautiful as being something quite foreign and different.

My little figurine, bought at Tate Modern, London, sits on a window sill near a stained glass window and as I walk down the top few stairs before turning, she is directly in front of me. I often stop at the turn when carrying my granddaughters so they can have a look at her. Lulu, aged 7, gets to take her down and examine her more closely, and that makes her feel pretty special and grown up.