Ballerina

A fascination with the dancing figure, and ballerinas, in particular, has long permeated the history of painting. Edgar Degas's beautiful impressionist oil renderings of ballerinas are undoubtedly the most famous paintings of this kind. This preoccupation with dancing bodies not only stems from the elegance of their form and movement but from the movement itself. Painters are drawn to movement like a fly to water. Dance is tremendously alluring to painters because it resists depiction in a static medium more than almost any other action. Lucille Lee artfully uses gestural brushwork in "Ballerina" to capture movement. The nebulous white and grey background is painted with an almost Abstract Expressionist abandon that establishes a highly frenetic atmosphere in which we can imagine the graceful swoops and twirls of the ballet dancer. Ballerina’s impressive scale, accommodating pallet, and masterful balance of figurative precision and abstract gestures result in a triumphant composition that compliments any setting.