Kirkus Reviews QR Code
CHASING DEGAS by Eva Montanari

CHASING DEGAS

by Eva Montanari & illustrated by Eva Montanari

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8109-3878-6
Publisher: Abrams

A young ballerina excited about the evening’s upcoming performance discovers that she and Monsieur Degas, at work in the rehearsal studio on The Dance Class, have switched bags. He has her tutu and she has his paints. Frantically, she pursues him through Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day, past Monet’s Boulevard des Capucines and Renoir’s Bal du Moulin de la Galette, Montmartre. She enters a studio where Cassatt is at work on Little Girl in a Blue Armchair and returns in triumph to star in Degas’s Ballet: L’Étoile. Readers will enjoy a charming study of French Impressionism as the dancer is directed from one great painter to the next. Montanari melds images of the artists at work on their canvases with a young dancer moving and posing beautifully. The slightly elongated figures combined with unusual perspectives and a pastel palette of yellows, browns, blues and pinks evoke the time and set the tone. Along the way, there are nuggets of information about the artists’ techniques. A lovely book to share with budding artists and families off to visit an art museum or Paris. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)