Meet Edgar Degas

Read About the Artist Edgar Degas

No art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament. . . . I know nothing.Edgar Degas

Because he came from a wealthy Parisian family, Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917) devoted himself exclusively to painting, without needing to sell a canvas. His training was conventional for the time. He spent five years in Italy, studied the Old Masters whose work was exhibited in the Louvre museum in Paris, and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Paris. Fellow Impressionist Berthe Morisot remembered him saying that the study of nature was meaningless, since the art of painting was a question of conventions, and that it was by far the best thing to learn drawing from Hans Holbein.

By the mid-1860s, Degas had turned to modern themes, particularly contemporary Parisian life. Unlike other Impressionists, he emphasized composition and drawing, and he usually did not paint outdoors. Degas was primarily concerned with depicting movement, from horses to women doing various activities such as dressing, bathing, and as cabaret performers. He painted the first of his ballet dancers around 1873.

In the last twenty years of his life, Degas lost much of his eyesight, so he worked mostly in pastel with increasingly broad, free strokes. He also made wax sculptures that were later cast in bronze after he had died.

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• How did coming from a wealthy family allow Edgar Degas to pursue becoming a painter?

• How was Degas’s painting style different from other Impressionists?

In late 19th-century France, some artists painted pictures that look like they were quickly sketched, using lots of small dots and strokes of color to create scenes that capture feelings and moments, like the way sunlight looks on water or the colors of a garden.

A chalk of dry pigment mixed with just enough binder to hold it together. The word also applies to a artwork made with this material. Because the colors remain on the surface in a powdery form, pastel paintings are extremely fragile.