The Dancer

Renoir's ballerina is a young dancer in the Paris Opera shown posing on the diagonal floorboards of the practice room, her tutu flaring up behind her. She assumes the ballet's fifth position, in which both feet cross each other, as we see here. Renoir's bright palette and energetic brushwork, so familiar to us today, struck his contemporaries as audacious. The girl's neck, clavicle, and shoulder are modeled in blue; her flesh tones are inflected throughout with touches of blue, green, and yellow. Despite the speed with which he worked, Renoir was attentive to details such as the black velvet choker that encircles the dancer's neck and the blue jeweled gold bracelet on her right wrist. He even suggests the tightness of the silk ribbons of the ballerina's new pink slippers.