Life of Edgar Degas
The art of Hilaire Germain Edgar
Degas, b. Paris, July 19, 1834, d. Sept. 26, 1917, 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 (see IMPRESSIONISM), 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 Edouard 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; Musee 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he became guarded and withdrawn late in life, Degas retained strong friendships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.