|
Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917)French painter and sculptor, whose innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive analysis of movementmade him one of the masters of modern art in the late 19th century.Degas is usually classed with the impressionists, and he exhibited with them in seven of the eight impressionistexhibitions. However, his training in classical drafting and his dislike of painting directly from nature produced astyle that represented a related alternative to impressionism. Degas was born into a well-to-do banking family on July19, 1834, in Paris. He studied at the �cole des Beaux-Arts under a disciple of the famous French classicist J. A. D.Ingres. After 1865, under the influence of the budding impressionist movement, he gave up academic subjects to turnto contemporary themes. But, unlike the impressionists, he preferred to work in the studio and was uninterested inthe study of natural light that fascinated them. He was attracted by theatrical subjects, and most of his works depictracecourses, theaters, caf�s, music halls, or boudoirs. Degas was a keen observer of humanity�particularly ofwomen, with whom his work is preoccupied�and in his portraits as well as in his studies of dancers, milliners, andlaundresses, he cultivated a complete objectivity, attempting to catch his subjects in poses as natural and spontaneousas those recorded in action photographs. His study of Japanese prints led him to experiment with unusual visual anglesand asymmetrical compositions.In the 1880s, when his eyesight began to fail, Degas began increasingly to work in two new media that did not requireintense visual acuity: sculpture and pastel. In his sculpture, as in his paintings, he attempted to catch the action of themoment, and his ballet dancers and female nudes are depicted in poses that make no attempt to conceal their subjects'physical exertions. His pastels are usually simple compositions containing only a few figures. Degas was not wellknown to the public, and his true artistic stature did not become evident until after his death. He died in Paris onSeptember 27, 1917.
|
