กระจกในภาพจิตรกรรมของเอ็ดการ์ เดอกาส์ชุดห้องเรียนบัลเลต์

บทคัดย่อ

This article aims to identify the spatial complexity of mirror use in the ballet classroom paintings by Edgar Degas, the Impressionist French artist. Studying and analyzing Degas’ oil paintings, the researcher selected 3 paintings from a set of ballet classroom paintings which were dated before 1875; They include The Dancing Class (c. 1871-72), Dance Class at the Opera (1872), and The Dance Class (1874). These chosen paintings portrayed the mirror(s) and the reflection of figures and space in the scene. The result of the study showed that the ambiguity of space created by the mirror(s) in these paintings follows 3 factors: arbitrary manipulation in pictorial space, spatial association, and interests in bodies and movements. This ambiguity enhances these paintings by Degas to be more remarkably different from those by other artists before his time. It can also be another approach to the study about his influence on his contemporaries and other following artists.