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Edgar
Degas, born in Paris, France in 1834, was the son of a banker
who wished him to go into business. Degas, therefore, did not begin
to formally study art until he was twenty-one. An Impressionist more
interested in movement than in color, he studied the work of Clouet
and Poussin at the Louvre, and after a year, he went to Italy and
studied the art of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance. |
Once Degas joined
the Impressionists, his subject matter changed. He now painted racetrack
scenes sketched from life and finished in his studio, theatrical and
ballet scenes, and many pictures of women. He worked in various mediums
and concentrated upon the portrayal of movement that hints toward
the action immediately preceding and immediately following that of
the moment captured by his rapid pencil or brush.
Degas also discarded classical rules of composition and frequently
used an oblique angle with light coming from below to create a new
type of theatrically focused space. In his oils, he applied his color
in translucent cross-hatching and for his pastels used a technique
in which color was applied in many successive layers, each layer except
the last fixed to give a powdery, soft effect that was particularly
effective in his ballet scenes. His hundreds of dancers-in oils, pastels,
tempera, gouache, charcoal, pencil and bronze-are revelations of human
movement; his horses seem alive; and his studies of women at work,
bathing, or in cafes, have a sense of reality that is both emotional
and intellectual.
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