How Degas Held It All Together
Why spray glue onto a canvas?
Body Content
Working with powdery materials like charcoal and pastel can be tricky due to their fragile particles. In Après le bain (Femme s’essuyant), Edgar Degas used an innovative approach to stabilize these materials and build upon them for more depth.
In the second season of Getty’s Close Looking video series, Getty curators explore the details of artworks they cherish. For this installment, Michelle Sullivan, associate conservator of drawings at Getty, looks closely at this pastel by Edgar Degas. She demonstrates how the artist created it by employing techniques like tracing paper and spraying an adhesive over the surface to keep the materials from flying away or smudging. The result is texture-rich, “which is really what makes these drawings so visually appealing and so interesting,” says Sullivan.
Learn more by watching the video below!
Get an insider’s view of more works of art in Getty's Close Looking series, in which art experts and enthusiasts around Getty share some of their favorite works of art.
