Edgar Degas, active in the 19th Century France and famous for his drawings, paintings, sculptures as well as prints, is one of my favorite artists of all times.
In the
mid-nineteenth century, Degas studied Renaissance arts in Italy, dedicated to
depicting historical scene. Later he turned to paintings with modern themes as
well as portraits. He explored a lot of mediums for his artwork ranging from
pencil to tempera and eventually settled down with pastel.
Through frequent
study and practice at the live scenes, Degas gained a lot of experience describing
the motion of the figures; with the tender colors he used, he achieved most of
the time a lively and soft atmosphere. Although often Degas chose an angle
behind the figures and only mentioned his physical presence at a distance, the
sentiments conveyed through his exquisite technique testified that he was
emotionally engaged and his works are calling for empathy from the audience. His
paintings reflected not only his ability to capture the beauty of the instant, but
also his sympathy for his fellow human beings.
Of Degas’ many
works related to dance, my favorite piece of work by Degas is Dance Class at the Opera (1872) as
below.
In this painting
which shows a daily scene of a dance class, Degas left the geometric center of
the canvas basically empty, driving our attention to the people surrounding.
The focus should be the ballerina close to the left corner, who is practicing
her steps in front of the instructor and is probably going to receive feedback.
The sunshine lights up her face, enabling us to observe her facial expressions
(although her face does not show strong emotions), and the wall sets her off
with a bright and warm yellow. I noticed, however, that her fellow dancers are
mostly concentrating on stretching and improving their own skills, few showing
interests for her performance, except for the one looking at her from a
distance (while standing on her tiptoe). The subtle loneliness of the figure
might well be suggesting the isolation among individuals, which is a theme
frequently seen in Degas’ works.
Unlike other
Impressionists, Degas highly emphasized the importance of drawing, and he believed
that colors were only subordinate to the line structures. It is very likely
that, because of his preference over drawing, he refused to adopt the conventions
to blur the view to acquire the sense of “impression”. Rather, he strived to
set comparatively clear contours for the scene in his works. Despite the fact
that people recognized him as one of the founders of Impressionism, he preferred
to be called a realist. His drawings show a great variety, both in the texture
and the materials he applied. In his later years, due to his visual loss, Degas
began to use charcoal and chalks in a lot of his drawings. In particular, the
two drawings that I found interesting are Head
of a Roman Girl (1856) and Two
Studies for a Music Hall Singer (1878-80).
The drawing above
was done during Degas’ visit to Rome. He might have slightly adjusted his style
and we can sense the influence of Italian artists of the Renaissance period.
Degas gave the drawing an interesting dynamic by lifting up the girl’s head and
twisting her neck to a certain angle, as if she was looking back at something. We
can also sense the parallel between this drawing and many paintings by previous
Italian artists such as Da Vinci and Raphael—the round eyes, the curvature at
the eyebrows, the somewhat chubby cheek, etc. Overall, Degas applied relatively
delicate lines to create the smooth outline, and though perhaps
unintentionally, he was able to generate the effect similar to chiaroscuro, which
in this case brings about internal peacefulness.
These two studies
are considered to be “the most absorbed and the most eloquent” singers drawn by
Degas, as Jean Sutherland Boggs wrote in her book Drawings by Degas (1966). Truly, we can feel the potential movement
of the singers’ bodies. The singer on the left is powerfully lifting up her
shoulders, ready to open her arms as her lines come out. Here, Degas also used
pastel for the drawing, and the singer on the right has a glow shedding on her.
The different costumes, however, might indicate that Degas managed to fit singers
in two scenes on one page to achieve a duet. Compared to the previous one, this
drawing bears more tension and intensive emotions. Although the lines appear to
be sketchy, they reach unison to create a vivid representation of the scene quite
well.
The mixture of
realism and impressionism makes him a unique artist, and his works have still
been inspiring more and more generations.
Links to the
examples used in this article are listed here:
Dance Class at the Opera, 1872, Oil
Head of a Roman Girl, 1856, Pencil
Two Studies for Music Hall Singers, 1878-80, Charcoal and pastel
I have also attached
four other works by Degas in different mediums below.
The Dancing Class, 1873-75, Oil
Three Studies of a Dancer, 1880, Conte crayon
Two Dancers at Rest, 1897-1901, Charcoal
Two Dancers, 1898/99, Pastel
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