Stlukesguild

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas- 1834 –1917, pt. 3


Part of the reason for Degas' explorations of sculpture was the fact that his eyesight began to worsen with age. He soon abandoned working back stage or in the ballet schools and spent all of his time sequestered in his studio with a few long-term models who allowed the artist to freely feel their limbs and torsos as he struggles to grasp what he once saw with such clarity. He became even more anti-social as a result of his poor eyesight... not wanting to go out in public... and his hermetic ways and rumors of his "relations" with his models led to endless exaggerations and still fuel the biases in certain feminist critical circles against the artist as sexist or misogynistic.

In spite of Degas' sensory loss his last works would become his most profound. The artist moved away from the ballerina and began to focus upon the single, solitary bather. Degas saw his modern bathers as continuing in the grand tradition of classical art, but to many the theme was shocking. Under the prudish concepts of the time even a husband (at least of the upper classes) rarely if ever saw his wife bathing in the nude. It was thus assumed that Degas' women were quite assuredly in no way respectable. This belief was undoubtedly furthered by the rumors of Degas' relationships with his models (and the fact that he had never married... and made himself a respectable husband).

As the artist moved in closer and closer upon the single nude figure, they took on a certain grandeur... not unlike the late works of Michelangelo, Titian, or Rembrandt. In spite of his failing eyesight (or perhaps as a result of it) these works began to use a far more expressive... almost electrifying... range of color harmonies. At the same time... the surfaces of his works... oil paint or pastel... became quite encrusted with a texture that almost suggests the patina of weathered antique frescoes:

















Degas' influence on art was no less than profound. While never abandoning his classical, academic training and his admiration for the great figurative painters such as Raphael, Rubens, and Ingres, he was (unlike the academic painters of the French "salon") able to infuse these with ideas drawn from the contemporary world, including subjects rooted in the reality of the urban Paris in which he lived, the innovative approaches to color and atmosphere developed by the Impressionists, the graphic compositional elements and "tilted space" of the Japanese Ukiyo-e prints that were then circulating throughout the Parisian art world, the originality of an almost voyeuristic point of view, and the originality of composition inspired by the odd croppings found in the new art form of photography. The largest innovation of Degas' work, however, may have been owed to his unique exploration of pastel. Where pastel had been a rather delicate... subtle... even "effete" medium (even today the term "pastel colors" refers to something less than bold and "manly"), Degas unearthed the very real potential of the medium. Creating his images through layer after layer of unblended hatchings and lines he was able to create an amazing range of coloristic effects... even suggesting something of the texture or patina of weathered antique fresco paintings:
At the same time... the medium allowed for a rapid execution that straddled the line between drawing and painting.

Even the list of Degas' most obvious followers is quite impressive: Toulouse-Latrec, Mary Cassatt, Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Fairfield Porter, Jim Dine, R.B. Kitaj, Jim Peters, Howard Hodgkin, Walter Sickert, Balthus, Lucian Freud, Paula Rego, etc... and I must surely count myself among his acolytes. His influence upon painting and drawing as a whole is equally profound... to say nothing of pastel, where he is still the single unrivaled giant. His impact continues to be absorbed into the present... by artist such as Freud, Kitaj, Dine, rego, Jim Peters, and others.