Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys

Notes from the museum

In 1859 Edgar Degas returned to Paris following a prolonged stay in Italy, where he visited relatives in Naples and Florence and attended life classes at the Académie Française in Rome. This picture, undertaken around 1860, speaks to his ambition to realize canvases featuring scenes from the Bible, as well as ancient and more recent history. Degas took his subject from the life of Lycurgus, a legendary ninth-century b.c. Spartan lawgiver. Lycurgus’s social reforms included an unusual method of physical training in which adolescent girls competed on an equal footing with boys, exercising nude in public. Degas would have worked up this monochromatic sketch with layers of color had he completed it, but he left it unfinished when he began a second version of the subject (National Gallery of Art, London).

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.

Painter profile →