Jessica Webb: Seminar Presentation. Edgar Degas.

Edgar Degas

French Artist

(1834-1917)

Edgar Degas, 1855-1856, Oil on Canvas

Impressionist painter, etcher and sculptor

He came from a wealthy banking family and was well educated
His artistic gift was recognized early in his life by his father, he painted seriously early in life
He got accepted to study Law at University in 1853 but made little effort with his studies as he wanted to focus on his art

Artist:

Edgar Degas, The Belleli Family, 1862, Oil on Canvas, 200 x 250 cm

By eighteen he had created a studio in his home (1855)
During his early career, he painted portraits of individuals and groups
He got into an art school, The Salon where he studied drawing (alongside artist Louis Lamothe,) but he soon became disappointed with the Salon
He got taught in the traditional Academic style, with the focus on line and the importance of craftsmanship

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,

Napoleon I on the Imperial Throne

1806, Oil on canvas, 259 x 162 cm

He met Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres early in his art career who told him to draw lines and people, this followed in his style, Degas admired him greatly

Edgar Degas, Interior (The Rape), 1869, Grisaille

During his life, public reception of Degas' work ranged from admiration to contempt.
His drawings and sculpture were discovered after his death as they were not intended for exhibition
Degas put his own twist on artistic tradition
He was to remain an passionate copyist

Edgar Degas, The Cotton Exchange in New Orleans, 1873, Oil on Canvas,

73 x 92 cm

The Cotton Exchange in New Orleans was his only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime.
He was known for not finishing his pieces for this he blamed his eye troubles and also he was skeptical to consider a painting complete
His eyesight was affected when Degas enlisted in the National Guard during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1872, this left him little time for painting. During training his eyesight was found to be faulty, and his eye problems were a constant worry to him for the rest of his life
He always painted indoors, working in his studio, either from memory or a model

Subject

Edgar Degas, Portraits at the Stock Exchange

1879, Pastel on paper, pieced and laid down on

canvas; 28 3/8 x 22 7/8 in.

Degas went on to crop subjects awkwardly and choose unusual viewpoints
His work was prepared, calculated, practiced, and developed in stages
By the late 1860s, he had gone from focusing on history paintings to observation of contemporary life; portraying time accurately, including movement. During the change of focus so did his technique, from a dark palette to a palette with bright colours and bold brushstrokes.
The change of brushwork, palette and composition influenced the Impressionist movement and modern photography
He wanted other artists to paint "real life" instead of traditional historical paintings
He painted women at work, milliners, laundresses and dancers, he wanted the occupation to be revealed by their dress, activities and body types
In his paintings of dancers they were shown backstage or in rehearsal

v Dancers:

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877

Mixed media on canvas, 29 3/4 x 32 in

He wanted to show the identities of being a dancer among the glamour, he was interested in the backstage life
He wanted to show the discomfort, boredom and playfulness of dancing
It was posed in an art studio where he sketched then worked from them later, constructing from memory, sights, sensations and inventing the colours
His work shows revealing gestures
The figure remained his primary subject; his few landscapes were produced from memory or imagination as well.

Edgar Degas, Dance Class at the Opera, 1872, Oil on Canvas

Like the Impressionists, he sought to capture momentary moments in the flow of modern life, as he work with scenes in theatres and cafés illuminated by artificial light
He began to paint scenes of urban leisure activities horse racing, café singers and ballet dancers
He produced approximately 1,500 works on ballet dancers
He recognized the movement of the human body, exploring the physicality and discipline of the dancers
He turned to sculpture as his eyesight weakened but continued to focus on the subject of dancers.
It was not unusual for him to use the same subject multiple times, but changes the composition

Media:

Edgar Degas, Ballet Dancers in the Wings, 1900, Pastel on Paper

71.1 x 66 cm

In the mid-1870s he worked in etching, something he hadn’t done in ten years, and also began to experiment monotypes and worked over some of his prints in pastels
By the late 1870s Degas had mastered oil on canvas, but pastel as well.
By 1885, most of his more important works were done in pastel.

Impressionist:

Edgar Degas, In the Dance Studio, 1897, Pastel

He became disappointed with the Salon; he joined a group of young artists who were set upon organizing an independent exhibiting society, Impressionist Exhibitions, in 1874. This was due to the fact he rejected the rigid rules and judgments of the Salon -the Salon and general public initially rejected the experimental style of the Impressionists.
Degas took a leading role in organizing the exhibitions, and showed his work in all but one of them, but he had conflicts with others members in the group.

Monet, La Grenouillère, 1869, Oil on canvas, 29 3/8 x 39 1/4 in.

He had little in common with Monet and the other landscape painters, whom he insulted for painting outdoors
He bitterly rejected the label Impressionist that the press had created

Jean-François Raffaëlli, The Port of La Rochelle in Autumn

1876, Dimensions: Unknown, Oil on Canvas

The ending in 1886 was due to his decision on including traditional artists as Jean-Louis Forain and Jean-François Raffaëlli
They painted the realities of the world around them, infusing scenes with immediacy
He never adopted the Impressionist colour palette
He is described as an Impressionist due to his off-centre compositions, his experiments with colour and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist artists
Recognized as an important artist by the end of his life, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of impressionism".
He preferred to call himself a "Realist" or "Independent"

Inspiration:

Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, 1510, 280 x 570 cm

In 1856 he travelled to Italy, he drew and painted copies of Michelangelo, and other artists of the Renaissance, often selecting from a certain area such as the head, which he treated as a portrait.

Edgar Degas, The Bolting Horse, c. 1866, 231 x 355 mm

Graphite and charcoal on paper

In the early 1860s, he visited Paul Valpinçon in Normandy, and this is where he made his first studies of horses
When he met Édouard Manet in 1864 he was influenced by him and from then became a change in his art

Cezanne, Dish of Apples, 1875–77, Oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 21 3/4 in.

He collected the works by artists he admired, old masters such as El Greco and such contemporaries as Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, 1865, Oil on canvas

65.4 x 90.2 cm

Three main artists he idolized, Ingres, Delacroix, and Daumier, were in his collection
He was a collector of Japanese prints; it influenced his work, as did the realism of illustrators of Gavarni
Following the opening of trade with Japan in 1854, many French artists, including Degas, were increasingly influenced by Japanese prints.

He Influenced:

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,

At the Circus: The Spanish Walk, 1899

Graphite, black and colored crayons, and charcoal

13 3/4 x 9 13/16 in.

He greatly influenced several painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain, Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert, although his greatest admirer may have been Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Photography:

Edgar Degas, Dancer Adjusting Her Shoulder Strap

In the late 1880s, he developed a passion for photography
He photographed many of his friends, often by lamplight
He also photographed, dancers and nudes, and were used as a source and guidence in some of his drawings and paintings

Life:

Edgar Degas, Two Standing Horses, 1880, Charcoal, 9 3/4 x 12 3/4"

The family became into debt so Degas was forced to sell his house and a collection of art he had inherited. He found himself dependent on sales of his artwork for income. His financial situation improved through sales of his own work
Later years he became isolated, he believed that a painter could have no personal life.

Edgar Degas, Dancer In Fourth Position, 1885

The Dreyfus Affair controversy made him break contact with all his Jewish friends. In later life, Degas regretted the loss of those friends
He never married and spent the last years of his life, nearly blind, restlessly wandering the streets of Paris before dying in 1917.
Degas' last years were sad and lonely, he outlived many of his friends
In later life, Degas became isolated, miserable, and given to spells of depression

Quotes

Edgar Degas, Three Dancers in an Exercise Hall

I got the quotes from a website that also states other things that Degas has said:

http://artquotes.robertgenn.com/auth_search.php?authid=284

The secret is to follow the advice the masters give you in their works while doing something different from them
Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and overlapping talk. Why shouldn't painting be too?

Edgar Degas, Dancer Adjusting Her Slipper

1873, Graphite heightened with white

chalk on faded pink paper; sheet, 13 x 9 5/8 in.

Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.
A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy.
Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

Why I choose this artist

Edgar Degas, Seated Dancer Adiusting her Shoes

Charcoal and white on greyish-blue paper

47.3x30.5 cm, 1876

What interested me about Degas is his portraits of dancers in particular as they are so elegance and effortless almost ghost like
His sketches show movement due to him repeating a part of the image, The scratchiness and rush in the image comes across like he unintended to create some lines yet manages to make it work, as if they were always meant to be there
His sketches where there is limited colour creates a cold feeling it shows the energy it takes to being a dance, the pressure and strictness of the profession

Edgar Degas, Spanish Dancer, 1884

Bronze, 17 x 8 3/8 x 6 in.

He isn’t scared to leave the marks that was made by mistake
That he can leave space on the page and it can look complete or he can put multiple figures on one page and look it still looks right
Even with the rough look he manages to get the correct proportion
Also that he uses his imagination as well as his sketches to complete a piece, and uses photographs as a reference
He can convert his drawings into sculptures