The Dance Foyer at the Opera by Edgar Degas

This painting is The Dance Foyer at the Opera painted by Edgar Degas.

I've been staring at this painting for the last three or so years, every day. (It's my mousepad!) Even after looking at it for so long, I cannot find anything wrong with it. It's... perfect!

One of the things I love the most about Degas paintings is the fact that in most of the pictures, there's somebody doing an arabesque of some sort - the people are always in action. You can actually tell that it's people, not robots that he's drawing. And (wait, it gets better) the legs look like they're attached to the body.They're not raised in some humanly impossible way, and you can tell that it's attached to the person it's closest to.

One thing interests me, though. This is supposed to be some sort of ballet class or rehearsal - whatever you want to call it. I don't quite understand who the two men are. I would suspect that one of them is the musician, but there is no piano. (I doubt the musician played recorder for the ballet.) The other man is probably the director/teacher, but I would think that he would be wearing something he can demonstrate moves in... Maybe not... Maybe the ballerinas are supposed to be so good that they can read his mind and tell what he wants them to do. Maybe those are just his comfortable dance clothes.