The Singer in Green

The Singer in Green, created by Edgar Degas between 1879 and 1889, captures a fleeting moment from the vibrant world of the Parisian café-concert. This drawing is executed in pastel on light blue laid paper, a medium the artist favored for its immediacy and its capacity to render complex atmospheric effects and the artificial illumination of the stage. Degas devoted much of his career to depicting contemporary life, focusing particularly on women in modern settings, whether at the opera, the ballet, or the popular café-concerts where singers performed.

The composition focuses intensely on the performer, whose face and shoulders are dramatically illuminated by unseen stage lights. The vibrant green of the subject’s costume gives the piece its title and provides a sharp contrast to the darker, implied background, typical of Degas's methods for isolating his subjects. He often used the dynamic perspectives borrowed from photography, employing abrupt cropping to bring the viewer into the immediate proximity of the performers.

This piece exemplifies Degas’s mastery of the pastel technique, demonstrating layered strokes that combine the quality of drawing with the richness of painting. It is an important record of turn-of-the-century popular entertainment. This acclaimed drawing, which remains a key example of Degas’s focus on singers and the energy of performance, resides in the distinguished collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a historic work of art, widely reproduced today, high-quality prints of this image are readily available through public domain sources.