Edgar Degas

Overview: Edgar Degas was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers, racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.

Career

Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting The Bellelli Family—an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon, although it remained unfinished until 1867. He also began work on several history paintings: Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859–60; Sémiramis Building Babylon in 1860; and Young Spartans around 1860.
He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, which attracted little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon during the next five years, he submitted no more history paintings, and his Steeplechase—The Fallen Jockey (Salon of 1866) signaled his growing commitment to contemporary subject matter.
Degas produced a number of works, many depicting family members. One of Degas's New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans, garnered favorable attention back in France, and was his only work purchased by a museum (the Pau) during his lifetime.

Legacy

During his life, public reception of Degas's work ranged from admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a number of paintings accepted in the Salon between 1865 and 1870.

Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, or Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming".

Recognized as an important artist in his lifetime, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of Impressionism". Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with the other major figures of Impressionism and their exhibitions, his dynamic paintings and sketches of everyday life and activities, and his bold color experiments, served to finally tie him to the Impressionist movement as one of its greatest artists.

Degas's paintings, pastels, drawings, and sculptures are on prominent display in many museums, and have been the subject of many museum exhibitions and retrospectives.

On View

National Gallery of Art East Building, Washington D.C.
Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Art Institute of Chicago
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
National Gallery, London
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton
Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Hachioji
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
British Museum, London
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum, New York City
Beyeler Foundation, Riehen
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Burrell Collection, Glasgow
The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
Morgan Library Museum, New York City
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
Stadel Museum, Frankfurt
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo
Albertinum, Dresden
National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Foundation E.G. Buhrle, Zurich
Pushkin Museum, Moscow
The Kreeger Museum

ArtWorks

A Cotton Office in New Orleans

In this painting Degas depicts the cotton brokerage business of his uncle Michel Musson, who is seen examining the quality of raw cotton in the painting. His brother Rene is reading the The Daily Picayune, his brother Achille is leaning against a window wall while others go about their usual business. A Cotton Office in New Orleans was the first painting by Degas to be purchased by a museum, and the first by an Impressionist.

After The Bath Woman Drying Herself

This artwork belongs to a famous series by Edgar Degas in which he depicted nude women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, bathing etc. In the series he often showed women in awkward poses which has led to criticism as well as praise. While some believed he depicted the subjects in their ordinary, private poses; others considered the representations as misogynist.

Ballet Rehearsal on Stage

He depicted them from various angles in hundreds of different positions. This is among his several paintings which depict the rehearsal of the ballerinas. It is interesting to note the contrast in the expressions and gestures of the dancers who are rehearsing and ones who are waiting to perform. Ballet Rehearsal paintings are among the most cherished and celebrated masterpieces created by Edgar Degas.

Interior

Also known as The Rape and described as “the most theatrical of all Degas’s compositions of modern life”, this famous work depicts an intriguing scene of a man and a partially clad woman in a bedroom. The scene remains a mystery due to which it is referred to as the most puzzling major work by Degas. Scholars have attempted to read it as a representation of literary works of the time but none of the explanations have been universally accepted.

Place de la Concorde

This artwork depicts a cigar smoking Vicomte Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic with his daughters and dog crossing the famous Parisian square. Lepic was a French artist and archaeologist, and a friend of Degas. The other man in the painting towards far left is writer Daniel Halevy, another friend of Degas. The painting is known for its political commentary and the placement of Lepic’s hat to cover the Strasbourg statue is often pointed out by art enthusiasts.

The Absinthe Drinker

The most famous painting by Edgar Degas is a representation of the increasing social isolation in Paris during its stage of rapid growth. It depicts a woman staring dully with a glass of Absinthe in front of her. A man who looks like an alcoholic sits beside her. Degas asked the famous actress Ellen Andrée and Bohemian artist Marcellin Desboutin to pose as two absinthe addicts in his favorite Parisian cafe, the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes in Paris.

The Bellelli Family

This painting depicts his aunt Laura; her husband the baron Gennaro Bellelli; and their daughters Giulia and Giovanna. Laura is pregnant and dressed in black as she is mourning for the death of her father, who is shown in the portrait behind her. Degas lived with his aunt for a period of time and knew about the strains in the family.

The Dance Class

He observed the most spontaneous and natural movements of the dancers at various stages to create imaginary scenes which seemed true to life. The above painting, along with another which shares its title, is the most ambitious and remarkably complex representation of dancers by Edgar Degas.

The Millinery Shop

This painting, which depicts a woman examining one of the lady’s hats at a millinery shop, is his largest and only museum scale work on this subject. Advent of factories meant that the private milliner’s shops with handmade works were becoming obsolete. This artwork is not only viewed as a painting about vanity but also as an artist’s tribute to a dying artistic profession he respected.