Degas' mature style is distinguished by conspicuously unfinished passages, even in otherwise tightly rendered paintings. He frequently blamed his eye troubles for his inability to finish, an explanation that met with some skepticism from colleagues and collectors who reasoned, as Stuckey explains, that "his pictures could hardly have been executed by anyone with inadequate vision.
His interest in portraiture led him to study carefully the ways in which a person's social stature or form of employment may be revealed by their physiognomy, posture, dress, and other attributes. In his Portraits, At the Stock Exchange, he portrayed a group of Jewish businessmen with a hint of antisemitism; while in his paintings of dancers and laundresses, he reveals their occupations not only by their dress and activities but also by their body type.
His ballerinas exhibit an athletic physicality, while his laundresses are heavy and solid. By the later s Degas had mastered not only the traditional medium of oil on canvas, but pastel as well. The dry medium, which he applied in complex layers and textures, enabled him more easily to reconcile his facility for line with a growing interest in expressive color. In the mids he also returned to the medium of etching, which he had neglected for ten years, and began experimenting with less traditional printmaking media—lithographs and experimental monotypes.
He was especially fascinated by the effects produced by monotype, and frequently reworked the printed images with pastel. These changes in media engendered the paintings that Degas would produce in later life. Degas began to draw and paint women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and bathing.
The strokes that model the form are scribbled more freely than before; backgrounds are simplified. The meticulous naturalism of his youth gave way to an increasing abstraction of form. Except for his characteristically brilliant draftsmanship and obsession with the figure, the pictures created in this late period of his life bear little superficial resemblance to his early paintings. Ironically, it is these paintings, created late in his life, and after the heyday of the Impressionist movement, that most obviously use the coloristic techniques of Impressionism.
For all the stylistic evolution, certain features of Degas's work remained the same throughout his life. He always painted indoors, preferring to work in his studio, either from memory or using models.
The figure remained his primary subject; his few landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. It was not unusual for him to repeat a subject many times, varying the composition or treatment. He was a deliberative artist whose works, as Andrew Forge has written, "were prepared, calculated, practiced, developed in stages. They were made up of parts. The adjustment of each part to the whole, their linear arrangement, was the occasion for infinite reflection and experiment.
During his life, public reception of Degas' work ranged from admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, and in the several years following , Degas had a number of paintings accepted in the Salon.
These works received praise from Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the critic, Castagnary. Degas soon joined forces with the Impressionists, however, and rejected the rigid rules, judgements, and elitism of the Salon—just as the Salon and general public initially rejected the experimentalism of the Impressionists.
Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. The suite of nudes Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime. The overall reaction was positive and laudatory. Recognized as an important artist by the end of his life, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of impressionism".
Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with the other major figures of Impressionism and their exhibitions, his dynamic paintings and sketches of everyday life and activities, and his bold color experiments, served to finally tie him to the Impressionist movement as one of its greatest early artists.
His paintings, pastels, drawings, and sculpture—most of the latter were not intended for exhibition, and were discovered only after his death—are on prominent display in many museums.
Although Degas had no formal pupils, he greatly influenced several important painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain, Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert; his greatest admirer may have been Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Ballet Rehearsal, Dancers In Pink. Blue Dancers, c. Seated Bather Drying Herself. L Etoile. Four ballerinas on the stage. The Dance Class II. Orchestra Musicians. Although Degas abandoned oil painting later in life, he continued to work in a variety of media, including pastels and photography, yet sculpture became his preferred medium as his eyesight deteriorated.
He increasingly became a recluse, and most of his friendships with artists like Monet and Renoir, eventually dissolved.
These ruptures were hastened by Degas's outspoken anti-Semitism, which was amplified by his stance during the infamous Dreyfus Affair. He died in Although Degas suffered criticism during his lifetime, by the time of his death his reputation was secure as one of the leaders of late th -century French art. His distinct difference from the Impressionists, his greater tendency toward Realism, had also come to be appreciated.
His standing has only increased since his death, though since the s he was been the focus of a lot of scholarly attention and criticism, primarily focused around his images of women, which have been seen as misogynistic.
Some have even compared his treatment of the other sex linked to his antisemitism and overall lack of moral compass. Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. The Art Story. Overview and Artworks. In a joking manner, here Degas also declares his artistic lineage. Nude Wringing her Hair borrows from Degas heavily. Important Art by Edgar Degas.
Overview and Artworks Biography. Mary Cassatt. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Henri Fantin-Latour. Summary Concepts Artworks. Cite article.
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