Category Archives: Degas

Mary Cassatt at the Louvre – Edgar Degas

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Two Studies Mary Cassatt at the Louvre – Degas – 1879 – Charcoal and Pastel – Private Collection

Mary Cassatt at the Louvre – Degas – c. 1879 – Pastel – Philadelphia Museum of Art

At the Louvre (Miss Cassatt) – Degas – 1879 – Pastel –  Private Collection

Visit to a Museum – Degas – c. 1879 – 1890 -Oil on Canvas – Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Woman Viewed from Behind (Visit to a Museum) – Degas – c. 1879 – 1885 – Oil on Canvas – NGA

Young Woman Tying Her Hat Ribbons (Mary Cassatt) – c. 1882 – Pastel and Charcoal –                                   Musee d’Orsay

Mary Cassatt – Degas – c. 1879 – 1894 – Oil on Canvas – National Portrait Gallery , Smithsonian

Portraits in a Frieze – Degas – 1879 – Pastel – Private Collection

Degas/Cassatt Exhibit at NGA Through October 5, 2014

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Introduction

From the moment the American Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) made her debut in 1879 with the group of artists known as the impressionists, her name has been linked with that of the Frenchman Edgar Degas (1834–1917). Cassatt stated that her first encounter with Degas’s art “changed my life,” while Degas, upon seeing Cassatt’s art for the first time, reputedly remarked, “there is someone who feels as I do.” It was this shared sensibility as much as Cassatt’s extraordinary talent that drew Degas’s attention.

The affinity between the two artists is undeniable. Both were realists who drew their inspiration from the human figure and the depiction of modern life, while they eschewed landscape almost entirely.
 Both were highly educated, known for their intelligence and wit, and from well-to-do banking families. They were peers, moving in the same social and intellectual circles. Cassatt, who had settled in Paris in 1874, first met Degas in 1877 when he invited her to participate with the impressionists at their next exhibition. Over the next decade, the two artists engaged in an intense dialogue, turning to each other for advice and challenging each other to experiment with materials and techniques. Both made printmaking an important aspect of their careers and for a time collaborated on their endeavors. Their admiration and support for each other endured long after their art began to head in different directions: Degas continued to acquire Cassatt’s work, while she promoted his to collectors back in the United States. They remained devoted friends for forty years, until Degas’s death.degas_revised

Infrared reflectogram composite with Cassatt’s original demarcation (solid line), Degas’s alteration (broken line), and the dog’s alternative placement (circle)

“Little Girl in a Blue Armchair”: A Closer Look

In a letter to the French art dealer Ambroise Vollard, Cassatt wrote that Degas not only advised her as she painted Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, but even worked on the background. Recent
 cleaning, restoration, and technical
 analysis have been instrumental in 
identifying Degas’s role. The paint
 surface in the corner of the room
 beyond the furniture shows evidence
 of having been scraped or rubbed, a 
technique used often by Degas but 
only rarely by Cassatt. Infrared imaging,
 moreover, reveals that Cassatt had initially used a horizontal line to mark the edge of the floor and a single back wall that was parallel to the picture plane. Degas made the space more dynamic by adding the corner, creating a junction of two walls and thus introducing a diagonal that expanded the room spatially. The use of such wide angle diagonals to define interior architecture was common in Degas’s work, but unprecedented in Cassatt’s.

To accommodate the new corner, Cassatt had to adjust her composition. She repositioned the armless couch in the background to align with the now sloping wall. She also reconsidered the placement of the dog. While it now rests comfortably on a chair, the infrared image indicates that she had tried placing it on the floor, seated in front of the couch. Eventually, she painted it out there and set it back on the chair.

Mary Cassatt at the Louvre

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 Degas’s own planned contribution for the failed journal Le Jour et la nuit was the etching now known asMary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery. Cassatt once remarked that she posed for Degas “only once in a while when he finds the movement difficult and the model cannot seem to get his idea.” Yet the theme of Cassatt strolling through the Louvre clearly fascinated him, resulting in a rich body of work produced in a range of media over a number of years. Encompassing two prints, at least five drawings, a half-dozen pastels, and two paintings, the series marks one of Degas’s most intense and sustained meditations upon a single motif.

 DEX72

Beyond 1886

The final impressionist exhibition in 1886 marked a turning point in Degas and Cassatt’s relationship. Although their friendship endured until his death, their interactions noticeably diminished as they began to move in different directions. Cassatt focused increasingly on depictions of mothers and children. The once energetic brushwork of her earlier impressionist paintings gave way to greater precision, and she developed a proclivity for bold colors and elaborate patterns. Degas’s art underwent a radical stylistic transformation as well. His compositions became increasingly simplified, his colors more vibrant, his paint handling broader and more expressive. He also devoted much of his energy to reworking earlier canvasses.

  Degas – Woman Viewed from Behind c. 1879 – 1885

Degas’s choice of the Louvre as the setting for this group of works spoke to the two friends’ mutual appreciation for art and its tradition. In the series, he depicted Cassatt as an elegantly dressed museum goer, wholly absorbed in her study of art. Nearby, a seated companion (usually identified as Cassatt’s sister Lydia) looks up from her guidebook. Cassatt, with her back turned fully to the viewer, balances against an umbrella in a pose that highlights the curve of her body and underscores her air of assurance. Although the precise relationship between the various works is not entirely certain, Degas most likely began with drawings and pastels of individual figures that served as references for the series as a whole. The more elaborate pastels and paintings of women visiting a museum culminate the series

The previous information is from:  http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/features/degas-cassatt.html

 

National Gallery of Art Post Impressionism Gallery 83 – Slides and Collage

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West Building Main Floor Gallery 83 – National Gallery of Art Washington DC – Post Impressionism

Click on any Image Below to Launch Slide Shows and See Details

National Gallery of Art Gallery 83 Edgar Degas The Dance Lesson

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From Wikipedia:

“The Dance Lesson (sometimes known as The Dancing Lesson) is an 1879 oil-on-panel painting by the French artist Edgar Degas. It is currently kept at National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. There is at least one other work by Degas by this title, also made in about 1879, which is a pastel.[1]

The painting is the first of a series of about 40 pictures that Degas painted in this horizontal, frieze-like format. [2] It measures 38 x 88 cm.[2]

To the far left is a double bass with an exhausted dancer wearing a bright orange shawl sitting on it.[2][3]There was also an open violin-case, which although painted out, is still visible.[2] In the centre of the painting is a dancer in a pink shawl sitting on a chair with another dancer, turned away, standing just behind her adjusting the dark coloured sash of her dress.[2] To the far right, at the back of the room, is a group of dancers practising their moves in the light from a large window.[2]

The painting was carefully composed and shows the inspiration Degas drew from Japanese prints, with figures deliberately placed off-centre or cut off at unexpected angles and the large expanse of floor which appears to tilt upwards.[2]

The painting The Dance Lesson is currently kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[4] Prior to its donation in 1995, the painting was part of the collection of Paul Mellon, who purchased it in 1957.[5] Prior to this it had been loaned to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the 1920s and was loaned to a 1937 Degas exhibition in Paris by its then owner, Mrs Fiske Howard.[5]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a painting titled Dancers in the Rehearsal Room with a Double Bass, dated 1882-85, which is possibly the second painting in the sequence.[6] Another painting from the sequence, Before the Ballet (1890/1892), is also in the National Gallery of Art.,[7] and Ballet Rehearsal (La salle de danse, c.1885) is in theYale University Art Gallery.[8] When placed side by side in a frieze format, the paintings take on a decorative aspect although were not originally intended to be hung this way.[9] It has been suggested that the 40-odd paintings collectively show how Degas examined his theory that the “intervals between figures and space were the basis for creating ornament”.[9]

References

  1. Jump up^ “The Dance Lesson (pastel)”. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g “The Dance Lesson”. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  3. Jump up^ Willis, Margaret (30 September 2011). “Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement Exhibition”. Balletco. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  4. Jump up^ “The Dance Lesson by Edgar Degas”. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b “Provenance of “The Dance Lesson””. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  6. Jump up^ “Dancers in the Rehearsal Room with a Double Bass”. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 30 June 2012.
  7. Jump up^ “The Dance Lesson by Edgar Degas (page 2)”. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  8. Jump up^ “The Dance Lesson by Edgar Degas (page 5)”. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2012.
  9. ^ Jump up to:a b “The Dance Lesson by Edgar Degas (page 5a)”. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 10 July 2012.

National Gallery of Art Gallery 83 Edgar Degas Before the Ballet

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National Gallery of Art Gallery 83 Edgar Degas Before the Ballet

Click for Detail

Before the Ballet is very, very small.  Compared to Four Dancers by Degas, Before the Ballet is dwarfed.  Again, this is difficult to perceive when you only experience art via photographs of paintings.

The following is from Wikipedia:

“Edgar Degas (French: [ilɛʁ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɛdɡɑʁ dəɡɑ]; US /deɪˈɡɑː/ or UK /ˈdeɪɡɑː/); born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas; (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) 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 ofImpressionism, although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.[1] He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his renditions of dancers, racecourse subjects and femalenudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.[2]

“At the beginning of his career, he wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.[3] …

“By the late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial forays into history painting to an original observation of contemporary life. Racecourse scenes provided an opportunity to depict horses and their riders in a modern context. He began to paint women at work,milliners and laundresses. Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet La Source, exhibited in the Salon of 1868, was his first major work to introduce a subject with which he would become especially identified, dancers.[28]

In many subsequent paintings dancers were shown backstage or in rehearsal, emphasizing their status as professionals doing a job. From 1870 Degas increasingly painted ballet subjects, partly because they sold well and provided him with needed income after his brother’s debts had left the family bankrupt.[29] Degas began to paint café life as well, in works such as L’Absinthe and Singer with a Glove. His paintings often hinted at narrative content in a way that was highly ambiguous; for example, Interior (which has also been called The Rape) has presented a conundrum to art historians in search of a literary source—Thérèse Raquin has been suggested[30]—but it may be a depiction of prostitution.[31]

“As his subject matter changed, so, too, did Degas’s technique. The dark palette that bore the influence of Dutch painting gave way to the use of vivid colors and bold brushstrokes. Paintings such as Place de la Concorde read as “snapshots,” freezing moments of time to portray them accurately, imparting a sense of movement. The lack of color in the 1874 Ballet Rehearsal on Stage and the 1876 The Ballet Instructor can be said to link with his interest in the new technique of photography. The changes to his palette, brushwork, and sense of composition all evidence the influence that both the Impressionist movement and modern photography, with its spontaneous images and off-kilter angles, had on his work.[26]

“Blurring the distinction between portraiture and genre pieces, he painted his bassoonist friend, Désiré Dihau, in The Orchestra of the Opera (1868–69) as one of fourteen musicians in an orchestra pit, viewed as though by a member of the audience. Above the musicians can be seen only the legs and tutus of the dancers onstage, their figures cropped by the edge of the painting. Art historian Charles Stuckey has compared the viewpoint to that of a distracted spectator at a ballet, and says that “it is Degas’ fascination with the depiction of movement, including the movement of a spectator’s eyes as during a random glance, that is properly speaking ‘Impressionist’.”[32]

“Degas’s mature style is distinguished by conspicuously unfinished passages, even in otherwise tightly rendered paintings. He frequently blamed his eye troubles for his inability to finish, an explanation that met with some skepticism from colleagues and collectors who reasoned, as Stuckey explains, that “his pictures could hardly have been executed by anyone with inadequate vision”.[33] The artist provided another clue when he described his predilection “to begin a hundred things and not finish one of them”,[34] and was in any case notoriously reluctant to consider a painting complete.

References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 31
  2. Jump up^ Brown 1994, p. 11
  3. Jump up^ Turner 2000, p. 139
  4. Jump up^ The family’s ancestral name was Degas. Jean Sutherland Boggs explains that De Gas was the spelling, “with some pretentions, used by the artist’s father when he moved to Paris to establish a French branch of his father’s Neopolitan bank.” While Edgar Degas’s brother René adopted the still more aristocratic de Gas, the artist reverted to the original spelling, Degas, by age thirty. Baumann, et al. 1994, p. 98.
  5. Jump up^ Werner 1969, p. 14
  6. Jump up^ Canaday 1969, p. 930-931
  7. Jump up^ Dunlop 1979, p. 19
  8. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 43
  9. Jump up^ Thomson 1988, p. 48
  10. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 23
  11. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p.29
  12. Jump up^ “Michael Musson and Odile Longer: Degas’ aunt and uncle in New Orleans”. Degaslegacy.com. 1973-03-30. Retrieved 2013-03-18.
  13. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p.33
  14. Jump up^ Armstrong 1991, p. 25
  15. Jump up^ “In the final inventory of his collection, there were twenty paintings and eighty-eight drawings by Ingres, thirteen paintings and almost two hundred drawings by Delacroix. There were hundreds of lithographs by Daumier. His contemporaries were well represented—with the exception of Monet, by whom he had nothing.” Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 37
  16. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 26
  17. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 34
  18. Jump up^ Canaday 1969, p. 929
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p. 56
  20. ^ Jump up to:a b Bade and Degas 1992, p. 6
  21. Jump up^ Thomson 1988, p. 211
  22. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 41
  23. Jump up^ Hartt 1976, p. 365
  24. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 11
  25. Jump up^ Armstrong 1991, p. 22
  26. ^ Jump up to:a b Roskill 1983, p.33
  27. Jump up^ Baumann, et al. 1994, p. 151
  28. Jump up^ Dumas 1988, p. 9.
  29. ^ Jump up to:a b c Growe 1992
  30. Jump up^ Reff 1976, pp. 200–204
  31. Jump up^ Krämer 2007
  32. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p.28
  33. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p. 29
  34. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p.50
  35. Jump up^ Kendall, et al., Richard (1998). Degas and The Little Dancer. Yale University Press. pp. 78–85.
  36. Jump up^ http://discovermagazine.com/photos/12-darwins-dystopias-ghastly-visions-inspired-by-the-theory-of-evolution
  37. Jump up^ Muehlig 1979, p. 6
  38. ^ Jump up to:a b Thomson 1988, p. 75
  39. Jump up^ Mannering 1994, pp. 70–77
  40. Jump up^ Benedek “Style.”
  41. Jump up^ Gordon and Forge 1988, p. 9
  42. Jump up^ “Bailey, Martin, “Degas bronzes controversy leads to scholars’ boycott”, ”The Art Newspaper”, 31 May 2012. Retrieved January 4, 2013″. Theartnewspaper.com. Retrieved 2013-03-18.
  43. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Werner 1969, p. 11
  44. Jump up^ [1][dead link]
  45. Jump up^ Nochlin, Linda (1989). Politics of Vision: Essays on 19th Century Art And Society. Harper & Row. Retrieved 2013-03-18.
  46. Jump up^ Bowness 1965, pp. 41–42
  47. Jump up^ Muehlig 1979, p.7
  48. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p.46
  49. Jump up^ Thomson 1988, p. 135
  50. Jump up^ Mannering 1994, p. 6-7
  51. Jump up^ J. Paul Getty Trust
  52. Jump up^ Guillaud and Guillaud 1985, p. 48

National Gallery of Art Gallery 83 Edgar Degas Four Dancers

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National Gallery of Art Gallery 83 Edgar Degas Four Dancers

Edgar_Degas_-_Four_Dancers_-_Google_Art_Projectlargedetaildancersmostdetail

When you only see art that has been photographed for books/and or for websites, it is difficult to imagine the scale of the pieces.  Four Dancers is enormous–almost 6 feet wide.  Much of the painting is mere suggestion.  For instance, the dress has very little detail at all.  When rendered in a photograph, the image is compressed; and the viewer is able to quickly digest the brushstrokes–getting the “impression” that the painter was suggesting.  Yet, when the painting is viewed live–the way that it was actually painted–that visual compression is not there.  It is almost as though photographed art is art’s Cliff’s Notes or Art for Dummies.  This is especially true for the Impressionists and other art since that period.  Yet, while it may be easier to see the artist’s aim via photographed art, the true art experience is only available when viewing actual art–and not by mere glancing–but by actually seeing what the artist painted.

Click on the following small portion from the dress to see how very little detail there is.  The entire dress [dresses because it is the same dress repeated–just as it is the same model repeated] is like what you see in this square.

Edgar_Degas_-_Four_Dancers_-_Google_Art_Projectlargedetaildress

Now click on the faces to compare the detail — and/or lack thereof.

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Now click again.

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Now click again.

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Click Again

Edgar_Degas_-_Four_Dancers_-_Google_Art_Projectlargedetaildancersmostplus

This is what you miss, if you never visit a museum or gallery to see fine art first hand.

Let’s look at what the NGA has to say about Degas and his painting Four Dancers

“Degas studied his preferred subject, ballet performers, in hundreds of works. Four Dancers, one of the largest and most ambitious of his late works, exists in several variants that show different kinds and degrees of modification. While Degas suppressed descriptive detail elsewhere in the painting, emphatic dark lines shape the heads and arms, underlining the artist’s formal concerns. Theatrical lighting over the off–stage performers recolors the figures and creates a simple color scheme of complementary red–orange and green hues.

Two of the figures repeat poses of a model who appears in a unique set of three photographic negatives. Shot between about 1895 and 1898, the original plates solarized into colors that resemble, in reverse, the oranges and greens in Four Dancers. Degas owned the photographic plates and may even have taken the pictures. The same model, hair piled on her head and features indistinct or hidden, posed for all three photographs, and the four dancers in the painting resemble her. Eadward Muybridge’s sequential photographs may also have influenced the arrangement of the four dancers, particularly his 1887 book, Animal Locomotion. Their poses, a succession of preparatory gestures, depict a progression of intricate movements.”

Degas, Edgar
French, 1834 – 1917
Four Dancers
c. 1899
oil on canvas
overall: 151.1 x 180.2 cm (59 1/2 x 70 15/16 in.)
framed: 176.9 x 207.7 cm (69 5/8 x 81 3/4 in.)
Chester Dale Collection