Degas, (Hilaire-Germain-) Edgar
Degas, (Hilaire-Germain-) Edgar (b. July 19, 1834, Paris,
Fr.--d. Sept. 27, 1917, Paris)
French
artist, acknowledged as the master of drawing the human figure in motion. Degas
worked in many mediums, preferring pastel to all others. He is perhaps best
known for his paintings, drawings, and bronzes of ballerinas and of race
horses.
The
art of Degas reflects a concern for the psychology of movement and expression
and the harmony of line and continuity of contour. These characteristics set
Degas apart from the other impressionist painters, although he took part in all
but one of the 8 impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. Degas was the
son of a wealthy banker, and his aristocratic family background instilled into
his early art a haughty yet sensitive quality of detachment. As he grew up, his
idol was the painter Jean Auguste Ingres, whose example pointed him in the
direction of a classical draftsmanship, stressing balance and clarity of
outline. After beginning his artistic studies with Louis Lamothes, a pupil of
Ingres, he started classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts but left in 1854 and
went to Italy. He stayed there for 5 years, studying Italian art, especially
Renaissance works.
Returning
to Paris in 1859, he painted portraits of his family and friends and a number
of historical subjects, in which he combined classical and romantic styles. In
Paris, Degas came to know Édouard Manet, and in the late 1860s he turned
to contemporary themes, painting both theatrical scenes and portraits with a
strong emphasis on the social and intellectual implications of props and
setting.
In
the early 1870s the female ballet dancer became his favorite theme. He sketched
from a live model in his studio and combined poses into groupings that depicted
rehearsal and performance scenes in which dancers on stage, entering the stage,
and resting or waiting to perform are shown simultaneously and in counterpoint,
often from an oblique angle of vision. On a visit in 1872 to Louisiana, where
he had relatives in the cotton business, he painted The Cotton Exchange
at New Orleans (finished 1873; Musée Municipal, Pau, France), his
only picture to be acquired by a museum in his lifetime. Other subjects from
this period include the racetrack, the beach, and cafe interiors.
After
1880, Pastel became Degas's preferred medium. He used sharper colors and gave
greater attention to surface patterning, depicting milliners, laundresses, and
groups of dancers against backgrounds now only sketchily indicated. For the
poses, he depended more and more on memory or earlier drawings. Although he
became guarded and withdrawn late in life, Degas retained strong friendships
with literary people. In 1881 he exhibited a sculpture, Little Dancer
(a bronze casting of which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and as his
eyesight failed thereafter he turned increasingly to sculpture, modeling
figures and horses in wax over metal armatures. These sculptures remained in
his studio in disrepair and were cast in bronze only after his death.
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