Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (b. July 19, 1834, Paris, Fr.--d. Sept. 27, 1917, Paris) was
a French painter and sculptor whose innovative composition, skillful
drawing, and perceptive analysis of movement made 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 impressionist exhibitions. However, his training in
classical drafting and his dislike of painting directly from nature produced
a style that represented a related alternative to impressionism.
Degas was born into a well-to-do banking family on July 19, 1834, in Paris.
He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under a disciple of the famous French
classicist J. A. D. Ingres, where Degas developed the great drawing ability
that was to be a salient characteristic of his art. After 1865, under the
influence of the budding impressionist movement, he gave up academic
subjects to turn to contemporary themes. But, unlike the impressionists, he
preferred to work in the studio and was uninterested in the study of natural
light that fascinated them. He was attracted by theatrical subjects, and
most of his works depict racecourses, theaters, cafés, music halls, or
boudoirs. Degas was a keen observer of humanity—particularly of women, with
whom his work is preoccupied—and in his portraits as well as in his studies
of dancers, milliners, and laundresses, he cultivated a complete
objectivity, attempting to catch his subjects in poses as natural and
spontaneous as those recorded in action photographs.
His study of Japanese prints led him to experiment with unusual visual
angles and asymmetrical compositions. His subjects often appear cropped at
the edges, as in Ballet Rehearsal (1876, Glasgow Art Galleries and Museum).
In Woman with Chrysanthemums (1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
City), the female subject of the picture is pushed into a corner of the
canvas by the large central bouquet of flowers.
In the 1880s, when his eyesight began to fail, Degas began increasingly to
work in two new media that did not require intense visual acuity: sculpture
and pastel. In his sculpture, as in his paintings, he attempted to catch the
action of the moment, 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.
He was obliged to depend on vibrant colors and meaningful gestures rather
than on precise lines and careful detailing, but, in spite of such
limitations, these works are eloquent and expressive and have a simple
grandeur unsurpassed by any of his other works.
Degas was not well known to the public, and his true artistic stature did
not become evident until after his death. He died in Paris on September 27,