Mademoiselle La La at the Cirque Fernando

The Cirque Fernando was established in 1875, in 1890 it was renamed Cirque Medrano. It was a major attraction for Montmartre artists. In January 1879 Degas went there several times to see a mulatto trapeze artist who called herself Mlle La La. In the present painting Degas’s attention is on the visual interplay of artiste and architecture. Everything else (the trapeze, the ring, the audience) has been left out.

The sheer, angular viewpoint from below is a modern variation on Baroque sotto-in-su perspective.