Who painted The Dance Class?

• A. Goya
• B. Degas
• C. Renoir
• D. Van Gogh

Answer: (B)

Depicting movement through everyday moments is the hallmark here, shown by a real studio scene of a ballet class in progress. The Dance Class is a work by Edgar Degas, who is famous for focusing on dancers in rehearsal and backstage moments, not glamorous stage performances. He repeatedly captured the rhythm of gesture and the secrecy of practice—the teacher guiding the students, the varied poses, and the subtle balance of bodies in space—often using unusual angles and cropped compositions to emphasize motion and atmosphere.

That attention to ballet life is why this painting belongs to Degas. Goya’s focus is drama and intensity from earlier periods and different themes; Van Gogh is celebrated for his bold color and expressive brushwork across landscapes and portraits; Renoir did paint dancers and social scenes, but the specific image of a dance class—the studio moment with instructors and young students—aligns with Degas’s distinctive subject matter and approach.