Stlukesguild

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas- 1834 –1917

Recent discussions on the board pertaining to Mary Cassatt, Jean Forain, Berthe Morisot... even Utamaro lead me to thin that we have all been skirting around the one giant figure that links all of these artists together. I am speaking of Edgar Degas. Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) stands along side Monet as one of the two most influential artists of the second half of the 19th century. Degas was born into a relatively wealthy family and was afforded the advantage of art lessons from early on. He received a baccalauréat in literature from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in 1853 and then dutifully registered at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris with the goal of becoming a lawyer as his father expected. In 1855 he met his idol, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and then gained admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The following year he travelled to Italy where he would remain for three years, studying the great Italian masters of the Renaissance and Baroque. During this period he mastered the techniques of classical academic art. He, along with Manet, were the two truly superb draftsmen of the Impressionist movement.

While Degas is commonly associated with Impressionism (and did frequently exhibit with the group) he never considered himself a true Impressionist, and actually preferred to be known as a "realist". Unlike most of the other Impressionists, Degas began his career with the aspirations of becoming the next great "history painter" in the tradition of his idols Raphael and Ingres. The histoire or "history painting" was the most respected genre of painting, consisting of multiple figures engaged in a narrative drawn from history, mythology, or religion. It was the artistic genre that demanded the most technical mastery from the practitioner. Unfortunately, by Degas' time history painting had largely died out... or was rather recognized as having become stale and atrophied... the domain of the stiff academic artist.

Degas made several abortive attempts at painting his own history paintings, including the Young Spartans Exercising:



The artist soon recognized that there was something dated about the historical classical narrative. In another attempt at narrative painting Degas was far more successful. Le Viol was set in the present and suggested a sexual drama strait out of the great realist novels of Zola, Flaubert, or Tolstoy:



The strongest body of work from Degas' early work, however, was largely to be found in the genre of portraiture. Just as his idol, Ingres, Degas discovered that there was much to be achieved within the genre if it was approached as if it were something worthy of the highest effort. He was able to suggest familial tensions:



In the portrait of his young blind cousin in New Orleans he was able to suggest a real depth of feeling:



The strongest work among his portraits capture his subjects as they go about their daily work in urban Paris:





With time Degas began to realize that he could could capture much of the same motion and compositional relationships (as well as employ his skills with the human figure) in working with subjects drawn from the urban life around him... the bars and night clubs:



... in the cabarets:



... at the horse races:





... at the circus:



... on the streets of Paris:



... at the ballet:





While Degas and Monet were almost polar opposites in every way (Degas despised plein air painting to the point that he called for the police to hunt down such artists) he nevertheless shared one major stylistic similarity. Like Monet, Degas made a great habit of working in series. For most of his mature career Degas worked in a serial manner... often re-using the same pose or the same composition numerous times. Among his most important themes explored in a serial manner to a great extent by Degas one must certainly count the women dressing/shopping at the haberdasher, the ballet, and the bathers.

While much has been made of Degas' supposed misogyny... (the artist, after all, never married), his art certainly exhibits a continual fascination with women and their world. In his defense one might point out his support and friendship of such female artists as Mary Cassatt and Suzanne Valadon and suggest that in all reality "misanthropy" would be a more apt charge, as Degas was certainly a rather curt, surly, and curmudgeonly figure with a limited range of friends. Degas once famously suggested that women have the ability to be the greatest of artists considering that much in art revolves around visual decision-making, something that women do continually in dressing and home-making.

One of the great themes that would result in a marvelous series of paintings was that of women shopping/trying on clothing or hats/dressing. Degas often played with the issue of the voyeur: the watcher watched. In these paintings Degas looks intently... and invites us to look just as intently... at common Parisian women as they look intently at clothing... hats... and their own reflections: