ballet-dancers, and the women bathing count among the most important.
The race-courses have inspired Degas with numerous pictures. He shows in
them a surprising knowledge of the horse. He is one of the most perfect
painters of horses who have ever existed. He has caught the most curious
and truest actions with infallible sureness of sight. His racecourse
scenes are full of vitality and picturesqueness. Against clear skies,
and light backgrounds of lawn, indicated with quiet harmony, Degas
assembles original groups of horses which one can see moving,
hesitating, intensely alive; and nothing could be fresher, gayer and
more deliciously pictorial, than the green, red and yellow notes of the
jockey's costumes strewn like flowers over these atmospheric, luminous
landscapes, where colours do not clash, but are always gently
shimmering, dissolved in uniform clearness. The admirable drawing of
horses and men is so precise and seems so simple, that one can only
slowly understand the extent of the difficulty overcome, the truth of
these attitudes and the nervous delicacy of the execution.

[Illustration: DEGAS

THE DANCING LESSON--PASTEL]

The dancers go much further still in the expression of Degas's
temperament. They have been studied at the _foyer_ of the Opera and at
the rehearsal, sometimes in groups, sometimes isolated. Some pictures
which will always count among the masterpieces of the nineteenth
century, represent the whole _corps de ballet_ performing on the stage
before a dark and empty house. By the feeble light of some lamps the
black coats of the stage managers mix themselves with the gauze skirts.
Here the draughtsman joins the great colourist: the petticoats of pink
or white tulle, the graceful legs covered with flesh-coloured silk, the