Edgar Degas' Biography - Essay Example

Edgar Degas was born in Paris in 1934 and belonged to a well connected Parisian family. Naples was the place where Edgar’s grandfather came to settlefor fear of being persecuted in France because of his involvement in the French Revolution. Thus Degas’ family had many Italian connections. However his father chose to return to Paris and thus the artist received his schooling in France. Degas received his early education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, and then went on to study Law. However it soon became apparent that his real passion lied in the art since he spent bulk of his time in the galleries of the Louvre, getting himself acquainted with the art of the Old Masters. At the young age of twenty, he decided that art was the field for him and urged his father to let him try. Before entering the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he took lessons from a rather unknown artist of his time Louis Lamothe, who himself had learnt from Ingres. This association was more than enough for Degas who had nourished a lifelong fascination with Ingres’ work and admired the artist immensely. Luckily for him, he also managed to meet Ingres himself whom he considered a master in Arts. Ingres gave him a good piece of advice that Degas fondly recalled many years later. He told him to: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from the life and from memory." Degas never forgot this advice and kept it close to his hear throughout his career. In 1856 Degas went to Italy to reconnect with his Italian relatives and stayed for extended time in both Rome and Florence. At that time, it was considered important for every serious student of art to visit Italy at least once. For Degas there was more than one reason to see Italy since it is where his relatives lived and this is where art is present in all its historical glory. Once he returned to Paris, he made Paris his home for the rest of his life with an occasional trip here and there. Upon Degas’ return to Paris in 1960, the artist was still very young and had been deeply under the influence of the Old Masters. This classical training was the norm in his time and he drew many copies of the paintings by the Masters. Degas was not moved by all the Old Masters or perhaps he was, but the ones he closely paid attention to were those who emphasized linework such as Botticelli, Pollaiuolo, Ghirlandajo, Mantegna.1 Fortunately however Degas did not allow his work to become too sentimental or poetic as a sign of showing respect and admiration to the Masters. We may often see this kind of tainted sentimentality in the works of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and the other Pre-Raphaelites. Degas was moved by the works of Quattrocento masters rather than to the great names of the High Renaissance2 because he found the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael way too magnificent and huge for his taste. He found something lacking in the magnitude of their work and wanted to focus on subjects that looked more real and truthful. Degas has started working on his own pieces while he was still in Italy. It was not like he simply copied from other artists but in Italy he made some very fine paintings of old Italian street women, following in the footsteps of Léopold Robert, who felt that the most magical of people were the ordinary folks of Italy. Degas started out with oil paintings but later on, began using less and less of oils and used some other techniques. These included pastels, gouache, tempera, monotypes, oil-colors diluted with turpentine. One painting where he used oil thinned with turpentine was “WOMAN WITH CHRYSANTHEMUMS, 1865.” The size was (30 x 36½″) and it was where he used oil diluted with turpentine on paper which was later mounted on canvas and now hangs at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Another technique that he would use was gouache and would also use pastels in an untraditional manner. He would draw long vertical lines across the canvas so that shades would stand in contrast. One example of this is “BALLET REHEARSAL, 1875.” This is done in Gouache and pastels. The colors in this pastel painting are much different from his oil paintings. Though all of them show brilliant use of color palette, his pastels paintings can catch the flow and fluidity of the situation as well. This is clear from the Ballet Rehearsal work. There is a haunting quality present in the portraits that Degas made of himself and his family members. These portraits reveal something about the psychological state of Degas that became more visible during later years. Fosca (1954) writes: “These youthful self-portraits come as something of a surprise, so sure and workmanlike is the hand that made them. Their psychological insight is mature and convincing, and in them we already have Degas the complete man, just as he was to remain his life long. As we scan the sullen lips, the aloof demeanor, the vague melancholy lurking in the eyes, we recognize him: restless, dissatisfied with himself, easily discouraged, always ready with the biting retort that sets up a barrier between himself and those whose tastes and opinions are not his own.” (p.16) Some of the most impressive portraits include the ones of the Bellelli family where we can see the Baron with his wife and two daughters. These were family members of the artist since the Baroness was Degas’ aunt. There is something amazing about the choice of colors in this painting. The painting is done in the shades of black, grey and white. This picture “with its tightly knit drawing and its smooth, highly accurate brushwork, brings just as readily to mind Raphaels portraits of the Florentine period--those of Angelo Doni and his Wife, for example--or Bronzinos Medici portraits as it does those of Ingres.” (p. 16) Degas was perhaps more concerned with the realistic aspects of paintings and would often shy away from bold over simplification that we find in the work of those he admired so dearly. He successfully managed to draw the portraits as realistically as it was possible without turning them too dull or unanimated. In the decade after his return from Italy, Degas devoted his time to the study of the many shades of human face. But later he lost interest in portraits or perhaps simply pushed them to the background as he became obsessed with the themes that we still associate with his name such as milliners, dancers and nudes. He was also largely known as an impressionist which some think was wrong association. Doren (1937) observes: “Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas had the misfortune to be identified against his will with a "school." From the day he joined forces with the Society of Painters, Sculptors and Gravers, later dubbed Impressionists, and exhibited at Nadars photographic gallery on the rue des Capucines, he too became known among that contemptuous general, to whom he was not caviar, as an Impressionist.” (p. 13) Though somewhat successful, Degas unfortunately had a short and lonely career. Even though he managed to gain some degree of success with his portraits and landscapes, still the artist began to lose his sight around the age of forty. This major loss turned into a gloomy lonely fellow and he gave up painting except for some occasional modeling of statues of dancers and women. He spent the last days of his life wandering in the streets of Paris, blind and tired of life. He left this world a lonely sad man on September 27, 1917. References Harold L. Van Doren, "Introduction," trans. Randolph T. Weaver, Degas: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Crown Publishers, 1937) Francois Fosca, Degas, trans. James Emmons (Geneva: Albert Skira, 1954) Read More