The Impressionism of Degas Edgard

Degas Edgar was born on July 19, 1834 in Paris to Celestine Degas and Augustin Degas. Degas was the eldest of 5 who later died in Paris on the 27 September 1917. He was French and considered a master in drawing the human figure in motion. He was a good painter painting and began painting at a very young age. Young Degas in his eighteens had already a studio where he trained on copies of art from the louvres. It is worth noting that Degas went against the wishes of his father who wanted him to study the law and become a lawyer. Degas enrolled at the faculty of law of the university of Paris in 1853 but was little or not really interested. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Dominique who inspired him to draw. While searching some painting knowledge, Degas went to Italy where he lived for 3 years, during his stay there he drew pieces of Michelangelo, Raphael and other artists of the renaissance period. On the personal side of his life Degas never got Married because he believed that as a popular painter and a public figure he had no private life. His last years where somehow miserable Paris where he died in 1917.

Degas style of artwork is best described as an impressionist. Impressionism originated from the 1860’s and 70’s and grew in part from realism of such painters as Courbet and Corot; The impressionist painted the realities of the world around them using bright colors, concentrating primarily in the effects of light and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy. Degas on the other hand differs technically from most impressionists because he never adopted the impressionist color fleck and he continually snubbed their painting “en plain air”. Even though he differed from most of them, he is still described accurately as an impressionist. One of Edgar Degas favorite quote to explain his style was “no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of the reflection and the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing.”

Edgar Degas was both inspired and was an inspiration to some of his contemporaries, as a requirement of this paper I will limit myself to two cotemporaries. The first contemporary Edgar Degas influenced was Mary Stevenson Cassatt, an American painter and print maker born in May 22, 1844 and died in June 14, 1926, she lived in France for the most part of her adult life, where she became friends with Edgar Degas, a friendship which later became the ever known in art history and they were grouped among the impressionists. Their works are similar because Degas influenced most of her paintings and she became extremely good in the use of pastels. They were both unlike most impressionists and seldom painted landscape. Their relationship was regarded by many as a teacher and a pupil. Both painted scenes of the Paris opera. Degas also influenced Cassatt by giving his opinion on her famous 1878 painting “little girl in the blue armchair” Cassatt wrote the model was “a child of friends of M. Degas” and “he found it to be good and advised me on the background.”

Edouard Manet was another contemporary who influenced and was influenced by Edgar degas, Manet’s brilliance and success may have convinced Degas in the studies of paintings and sculpture of movements which were to create his historic stature, ballet dancers and their admirers, working class women and the world of horse racing. Two of Degas superb paintings are those of Manet reclining on a couch and his wife Suzanne seated on a piano and another of Edouard manet seated turned to the right. Their works are both similar because they are both part of the impressionist movement.

Edouard Manet and Mme. Manet (1868-1869).

This is a portrait of Manet and his wife and this shows Degas as the “distant spectator,” painting down a moment of solitude that the subjects might prefer to go unnoticed. However, a thesaurus surrounds it. Degas made this painting as tribute to his friends, and it originally showed Mme. Manet playing the piano. However, sometime after he had presented the portrait to them, he visited their house and discovered that the painting had been disfigured and the right of the picture had been cut away. Degas was furious and removed the picture, though it was never repaired. It remains unknown why Manet tore one side of the picture.

Foyer de la Danse (1872) 

Degas in this piece has a special way of studying ballerinas. In Foyer de la Danse he presents us with a work that is different from others and brings out a different perspective., Degas in this piece chooses to create a striking arrangement of space, which brings to light the experiences his contemporaries might have had throughout the new modern city. To achieve this therefore, rather than putting the figures in an orderly and centered fashion, he spreads them all over the canvas, leaving a chair bizarrely placed in the center foreground. Instead of seeing the room as a traditional box-like space for the figures, he paints it at an angle, giving the impression of multiple vintage points. The approach by Degas is to show the qualities of his modern, realist approach to composition.