Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

French Realist/Impressionist Painter and Sculptor

Early Life

Edgar Degas was born in Paris on July 19, 1834 to a family of aristocrats. He was exposed to the finer things in life: ballet, opera, art, music. In 1855, he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts and studied drawing. In 1856, he traveled to Italy. He stayed there for 5 years, studying Italian art, especially Renaissance works. By 1860, he had made more than 700 copies of classical paintings it was his way of learning how to be an artist.

Self Portrait (1854)

Rome

He observed the street life in Rome and, like his contemporaries, painted pictures of beggars and peasants.

A Roman Beggar Woman (1857)

Degas idol

Edgars idol was the painter Jean Auguste Ingres, whose example pointed him in the direction of a classical draftsmanship, stressing balance and clarity of outline.
Draw lines, young man, always lines, and you will be an artist.

- Ingres to Degas

Career

In 1859 Degas returned to Paris and moved into a large studio. He began painting portraits, paintings based on stories from history, and horses. His work was classical in style, and was accepted by the Salon.

Racehorses at Longchamp (1874)

Daughter of Jephthah (1859-1860)

The Bellelli Family (1860)

A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (1865)

Portrait of Lorenzo Pagans, Spanish tenor, and Auguste Degas, the artist's father (1869)

Orchestra of the Opera (1869)

Early Works

On a visit in 1872 to Louisiana, where he had relatives in the cotton business, he painted The Cotton Exchange at New Orleans (finished 1873; Muse Municipal, Pau, France), his only picture to be acquired by a museum in his lifetime.

Impressionism

He returned to Paris in 1873. His brother had run up debts, so he began to paint as a way to make money. Degas was tired of the Salon, and joined a group of young artists who were organizing their own exhibiting society. They were called Impressionists, for their colorful, less classical style. Degas didnt like the label Impressionist. He called himself a realist with Achille de Gas as a Naval Cadet (1855) contemporary subjects.

Cafe Concert - At Les Ambassadeurs (1877)

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879)

Degas Hallmarks

Degas liked photography so he painted similar to how a camera would capture a picture.

Place de la Concorde (1875)

LAbsinthe (1876)

Degas Hallmarks

Degas frequently left unfinished portions in his paintings. He described himself as having a habit to begin a hundred things and not finish one of them.

The Star (1876-77)

Ballet Theme

In the early 1870s the female ballet dancer became Degas favorite theme. He sketched from a live model in his studio and combined poses into groupings that depicted rehearsal and performance scenes in which dancers on stage, entering the stage, and resting or waiting to perform are shown.

Ballet Rehearsal (1873)

Ballet Theme

Dancers at the Bar (1888)

The Song of the Dog (1875-77)

Ballet Theme

Ballet Rehearsal, (1876)

Blue Dancers (1898-99)

Ballet Theme

Dance class at the Opera (1872)

Ballet Theme

The Dance Class (1874)

Ballet Theme

The Dance School (1874)

The Dancing Class (1873-75)

Horse Theme

Horses Before the Stands (1866-68)

Horse Theme

Jockeys Before The Race (1869-72)

The Races. Before the Start (1873)

Horse Theme

At the Races (1877-80)

Late Works

By the late 1880s, Degas eyesight had begun to fail, perhaps as a result of an injury suffered during his service in defending Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 187071. After that time he focused almost exclusively on dancers and nudes, increasingly turning to sculpture as his eyesight weakened.

The Tub (1886)

The Tub (1886)

Late Works
At the Milliner's (1883)

Laundry Girls Ironing (1884)

Sculpture

Degas was never interested in creating public monuments, and, with one exception, neither did he display his sculpture publicly. The exception was The Little 14Year-Old Dancer. It was shown in the 6th Impressionist exhibition held in Paris in 1881, but the work has little to do with Impressionism. Modeled in wax and wearing a real bodice, stockings, shoes, tulle skirt, and horsehair wig with a satin ribbon, the sculpture wasnt praised by critics who complained of its appalling ugliness.

Wax and plasticine models from Degas (1860s)

Wax and plasticine models from Degas (1860s)

Degas outside Art

Degas was difficult and argumentative, driving away friends and artists alike. He believed that an artist needed to be alone, with no social life, and that is how he lived his life. He never married. Around 1910 his poor eyesight forced him to quit working. Having lived the life of a solitary bachelor, he spent the last years of his life alone, wandering the streets of Paris, until he died in 1917 at the age of 83.

"A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain, you end up boring people. - Edgar Degas