Edgar degass biography
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The approach is characteristic of his modern, realist approach to composition. He increasingly became a recluse, and most of his friendships with artists like Monet and Renoir, eventually dissolved. This, combined with a growing sense of disillusionment with the art world, led Degas to withdraw from public life and focus on his private work.
After his death in 1917, Degas' legacy as a French national treasure and one of the most influential artists of the 19th century began to emerge.
The overall reaction was positive and laudatory." His La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, or Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, was probably his most controversial piece, with some critics decrying what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming."
Recognized as an important artist by the end of his life, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of impressionism".
He often used unconventional framing and cropping techniques to create a sense of immediacy and intimacy, drawing the viewer into the scene and inviting them to experience the energy and dynamism of the ballet.
Impressionist Movement
Degas' involvement with the Impressionist movement was a complex and often contentious relationship.
Their tendency to present themselves, and to respond defensively to their awareness of being watched, was no longer an impediment to truth-telling. In 1855 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied drawing under the academic artist Louis Lamothe, a former pupil of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The outspoken, well-regarded Manet was a very different personality from the introspective, and often self-doubting Degas.
He was intrigued by the human figure, and in his many images of women - dancers, singers, and laundresses - he strove to capture the body in unusual positions. The picture also demonstrates the artist's use of pastel, which he usually painted on tracing paper - the paper allowing him to produce numerous sketches that are easily manipulated across his many studies of form.
Pastel on paper - Pushkin Museum, Moscow
Biography of Edgar Degas
Childhood
Edgar Degas was the eldest of five children of Célestine Musson de Gas, an American by birth, and Auguste de Gas, a banker.
Degas is even later said to follow Ingres's maxim: "Draw lines, young man., draw lines." That same year, the Exposition Universelle took place, and Degas was enthralled by Gustave Courbet's Pavilion of Realism.
Early Period and Training
In 1856, when Degas was aged 22, he traveled to Naples, Italy, to visit his aunt, the Baroness Bellelli and her family.
As well, he preferred to work from sketches and memory in the traditional academic manner, while they were more interested in painting outdoors (en plein air).
(From wikipedia)
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Degas wanted to capture that." Indeed, often in his works music is playing, or else, for example, a woman is bathing and similarly dropping her guard. But Degas's academic training, and his own personal predilection toward Realism, set him apart from his peers, and he rejected the label 'Impressionist' preferring to describe himself as an 'Independent.' His inherited wealth gave him the comfort to find his own way, and later it also enabled him to withdraw from the Paris art world and sell pictures at his discretion.Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they can feel that I am disarming them. In the center, reading a newspaper, is Degas's brother, Rene, and in the foreground, somberly handling a ball of cotton, is Rene's father-in-law, Michael Musson, who operated the cotton exchange.
I show them without their coquetry, in the state of animals cleaning themselves." Yet, it is possible that what appeared to be abusive treatment of the "fairer sex" was merely a commitment to his work. Degas' drawings are characterized by their precision and their ability to capture the essence of a subject, whether it was a dancer in motion or a woman lost in thought.
In addition to his mastery of drawing, Degas also experimented with a variety of other media, including pastels, photography, and monotypes.
By this time he had discovered his true muse - Paris. He was particularly fascinated by the world of the theater and the ballet, and his paintings of dancers, both on stage and in the rehearsal studio, have become some of his most iconic works.
Degas' innovative use of perspective and his attention to detail have made these ballet scenes some of the most celebrated in the history of art.
It is characteristic of a number of wax sculptures he produced after the 1860s. His distinct difference from the Impressionists, his greater tendency toward Realism, had also come to be appreciated.