Edgar degas biography timeline books
Timestamp: Sat, 22 Feb 2025 07:31:40 UTC
Edgar Degas: 1834-1917: on the Dance Floor of Modernity
Degas defied his viewers' expectations by portraying common-place scenes, or horses and jockeys before a race, backstage ballerinas, women washing themselves or ironing or singing or trying on fanciful hats. Not historical scenes, not mythology, nothing heroic, rarely landscapes.
He pioneered compositional innovations, cropping figures halfway off the canvas, filling the immediate foreground with an empty table or chair, or with the backs of peoples' heads, often cramming figures at the sides of pictures leaving the center empty. In one picture astonishing architectural precision is the background for a female acrobat hanging by her teeth from a cable. Views of figures are shown from below or above, or are unflatteringly close. The light in his pictures sometimes fills the entire canvas, other times has spotlight intensity.
He believed whole-heartedly in completing pictures only in the studio, never outdoors, yet working with models or from memory he was able to conjure and capture instances of candid and intense realism.
Some of his paintings look like photo-realism, exactingly documentary, yet his late pastels are fervid with color and texture and motion like an abstract expressionist.
Growe's book is configured in eight sections, each with a focus on a period of the artist's life. It's comprehensive within the limitation of less than 100 pages, with many pages showing large and presumably accurate color reproductions. A brief chronology and even briefer bibliography close the book.
The only element lacking for me is a further explanation of why Degas chose the subjects he did, the quotidian scenes, the young ballerinas scratching themselves and yawning. Why the bold compositions and unusual coloring, why the defiance of viewers' expectations? What motivated such avant-garde brilliance emerging from suc
Edgar Degas
French Impressionist artist (1834–1917)
"Degas" redirects here. For other uses, see Degas (disambiguation).
Edgar Degas | |
|---|---|
Self-portrait (Degas Saluant), 1863 | |
| Born | Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas (1834-07-19)19 July 1834 Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Died | 27 September 1917(1917-09-27) (aged 83) Paris, France |
| Known for | Painting, sculpture, drawing |
| Notable work | |
| Movement | Impressionism |
Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, French:[ilɛːʁʒɛʁmɛ̃ɛdɡaʁdəɡa]; 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a FrenchImpressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Degas also produced bronzesculptures, prints, and drawings. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist, and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did.
Degas was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers and bathing female nudes. In addition to ballet dancers and bathing women, Degas painted racehorses and racing jockeys, as well as portraits. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and their portrayal of human isolation.
At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classical Western art. In his early thirties he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.
Early life
Degas was born in Paris, France, into a moderately wealthy family. He was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole .