Elena Rossi
Edgar Degas was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, prominent in the Impressionist movement. Degas was interested in the human figure, particularly the female form, and his paintings often depicted dancers, singers, and laundresses. He is known for his paintings of ballerinas and women at their toilette, and for his studies of the human body in motion. Degas produced approximately 1,500 works on the subject of ballet, exploring the physicality and discipline of dancers through contorted postures and unexpected vantage points. His interest in the human form extended to sports, with his earliest studies of horses created in 1861, and his later paintings of horse racing, such as Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (1866).
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Sport | Horse racing |
| Subject | Human figure, especially female |
| Occupation | Painter, sculptor, printmaker |
| Art Movement | Impressionist |
| Techniques | Oil, pastel, gouache, etching, lithography, monotype, wax modelling, photography |
| Focus | Dancers, singers, laundresses, café-concert singers, ballet dancers, nudes, portraits |
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What You'll Learn
Horse racing
The French painter, sculptor, and printmaker Edgar Degas is well known for his paintings of ballerinas and dancers, but he also produced a significant body of work depicting horse racing.
Degas was passionate about horse racing and created an important series of paintings on the theme, entitled "Scenes of Modern Life". These paintings depicted the power and prestige of horse racing in 19th-century France, where the sport was growing in popularity. In his paintings, Degas captured the atmosphere of the races, showing riders preparing for a race in a vast landscape under the twilight sun.
Degas' interest in horses began in 1861 when he visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Ménil-Hubert-en-Exmes and made the earliest of his many studies of horses. His first painting of a horse racing scene was "Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey" (1866), which marked a shift in his artistic focus towards contemporary subject matter. This painting was followed by others such as "Before the Races" (c. 1882) and "The Fallen Jockey" (1896-98).
Degas' skill in capturing the human figure in motion is evident in his horse racing paintings, which showcase his extraordinary draftsmanship and his ability to convey balance and clarity of outline. His works in this genre include both intimate drawings and vibrant pastel compositions, demonstrating his mastery of a wide range of media.
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Ballet dancers
Edgar Degas was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, prominent in the Impressionist movement. Degas is well-known for his images of Parisian life, with his principal subject being the human figure, especially the female form.
Degas' work often depicted dancers and ballerinas, and women at their toilette. This focus on dancers was initially considered a marginal preoccupation, earning him the title of a "painter of dancers". However, today, his work is recognised as complex and innovative, influencing many 20th-century artists, including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.
Degas' interest in dancers extended beyond the stage to the behind-the-scenes world of the rehearsal room, the dance class, and the dressing rooms. He was interested in capturing the informal moments of the dancers' preparation, their tension before a performance, and the relaxed moments that followed.
Degas' paintings of dancers are known for their expressive forms and vivid colours. He worked with a variety of media, including pastel, which allowed him to "draw with colour". His paintings often feature soft, hazy lighting, capturing the delicate, ethereal quality of the dancers and their tutus.
Degas' work also reflects his commitment to his craft. He practised tirelessly, creating countless preparatory studies for each painting. This dedication mirrors the rigorous training and repetition undertaken by the dancers themselves.
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Women at their toilette
Edgar Degas was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, widely celebrated for his images of Parisian life. Degas' principal subject was the human figure, especially the female form. Ballet dancers and women at their toilette were subjects that preoccupied him throughout his career.
'Woman at Her Toilette' is a pastel-on-paper artwork by Edgar Degas, dating from approximately 1869 to 1899. The piece is part of the Impressionist movement, a genre painting reflecting the scenes of everyday life. The artwork portrays an intimate act of grooming, with the subject's head tilted back, her hair flowing down her back and over her arms. Another figure can be seen behind her, assisting with the toiletry process, giving the scene an air of domesticity and private ritual. The use of pastels allows for a soft, luminous quality that conveys the texture of skin and hair, as well as the tactile nature of the fabrics and surrounding objects. The hallmark brushwork of Impressionism, with its loose and expressive nature, creates a sense of spontaneity.
The colour palette is vibrant and varied, with a play of contrasting and harmonious hues that complement each other, resulting in a visually rich composition. The painting captures a fleeting moment within the private quarters of the subject's life, revealing the intricate interplay of light, colour, and form that defines Degas' artistic practice.
Degas' interest in the female form and intimate scenes is further reflected in his photographs, which often feature single light sources, creating a sense of intimacy and darkness from which figures emerge. This style of lighting and composition is also evident in his paintings and pastels.
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Singers
Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. He also produced bronze sculptures, prints, and drawings. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist, and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did.
Degas was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers and bathing female nudes. In addition to ballet dancers and bathing women, Degas painted racehorses and racing jockeys, as well as portraits. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and their portrayal of human isolation.
Degas’s choice of subject matter reflects his modern approach. He favored scenes of ballet dancers, laundresses, milliners, and denizens of Parisian low life. His interest in ballet dancers intensified in the 1870s, and eventually, he produced approximately 1,500 works on the subject. These are not traditional portraits but studies that address the movement of the human body, exploring the physicality and discipline of the dancers through the use of contorted postures and unexpected vantage points.
After about 1870, Degas also began to paint scenes of café-concert singers. One of his notable works is "The Singer in Green" (ca. 1884), which demonstrates Degas’s use of pastel to achieve the effect of the glare of footlights illuminating his subject from below and his use of coarse hatching to suggest the curtained backdrop behind the singer.
Degas was intrigued by the human figure, and in his many images of women—dancers, singers, and laundresses—he strove to capture the body in unusual positions. While critics of the Impressionists focused their attacks on their formal innovations, it was Degas's lower-class subjects that brought him the most disapproval.
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Laundresses
Edgar Degas was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, prominent in the Impressionist movement. He is celebrated for his images of Parisian life, with the human figure as his principal subject, especially that of the female form.
Degas' early ambition was to become a history painter, but he soon changed course, bringing traditional methods to contemporary subjects, thus becoming a classical painter of modern life. This shift was influenced by the work of Édouard Manet, whom Degas met in 1864.
Degas' laundresses are a series of artworks that were featured in his earliest and most significant exhibitions. He created around 30 depictions of laundresses, which were revolutionary in their emphasis on women's work, the strenuous nature of their labour, and social class. These working-class women were a visible presence in the city, washing and ironing in shops open to the street or carrying heavy baskets of clothing. Their job was poorly paid and difficult, and some laundresses were forced to supplement their income through sex work.
Degas was fascinated by the repetitive, specialised gestures made by laundresses as they worked. One of his paintings, 'A Woman Ironing' (c.1874), is distinguished by its dramatic chiaroscuro, with the laundress silhouetted against a luminous white backdrop. This painting was one of five pictures of laundresses shown by Degas in the 1876 Impressionist exhibition, where they were praised by critics as epitomising modernity.
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Frequently asked questions
Edgar Degas' paintings often depicted the sport of horse racing, as well as scenes from the world of ballet.
Degas was interested in capturing fleeting moments in the flow of modern life, and these sports offered dynamic and expressive subjects for his work.
In addition to his interest in sports, Degas often painted dancers, singers, laundresses, cabaret singers, milliners, and prostitutes. He was known for his exploration of the female form and his use of unconventional compositions.
