3. Analysis of Degas Art

3.1 The Dance Class (La classe de danse)

3.2 At the Races

3.2 Absinthe Degas (L'Absinthe)

Summary

Toperfect Art supplies Edgar Degas biography and painting knowledge, which is useful for painters and art fans.

Our art gallery not only supply high-quality oil painting reproduction of Degas artwork for sale, but also tell you story about these famous paintings and impressionist style.

The famous artists in our art company are good at on canvas reproductions of Degas Dancers and other beautiful painting wholesale such as At the Races,
The Dance Class, impressionist,
horses racing, ballet, and dancers.

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About Edgar Degas

French Impressionist painter, engraver, lithographer, printmaker, pastellist, draftsman, photographer and sculptor
born 19 July 1834 - died 27 September 1917
Also known as: Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, Edgar Degas, Degas Edgar, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Hilaire Germain Edgar De Gas.
Friend of: Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931), Gustave Moreau (1826-1898).

Degas was born in Paris on the 19th of July 1834. is a French Impressionist painter and sculptor. The most famous Degas paintings are dealing with ballet dancers, women dancers and racing horses. Generally, he is regarded as an Impressionist, but some of Degas ballerina are with more features of Classicism, Realism and Romanticism. In 1862, he began to be interested in horse racing. In 1869, the artist drew a large amount of Degas pastel paintings, majority of them are about beach. In early 1870s, Degas was fond of drawing ballet dancers very much. Since 1880, his vision began to decrease. So he turned to create sculptures and wax crayon paintings with lower requirement of vision. Now, the price of some of Degas ballet has reached 16 million dollars. Several of paintings Degas may be seen at the Luxembourg Gallery, to which they were bequeathed, among a collection of impressionist pictures, by M. Caillebotte [1848-1894]. In 1880 he showed his powers of observation in a set of Portraits of Criminals, and Edgar Degas attempted modeling in a Dancer, in wax. The most famous ballet Degas are The Bellelli Family, The Dance Class, L'Absinthe. So, oil painting lovers are very interested in Edgar Degas bio, and reproductions of his paintings for sale in gallery are prevalent.

Analysis of Painting by Degas

Edgar Degas ballet subjects were increasingly painted by the artist since 1870. Backstage or rehearsal were shown in many paintings of Degas Dancers, the painter emphasized their professionals in doing a job. L’Absinthe and Singer with a Glove are examples of paintings by Edgar Degas who began to paint café life. Degas Dancer artwork was highly ambiguous due to hinted at narrative content.

The subject matter of Degas paintings changed so that his technique changed, too. The painting by Degas Place de la Concorde imparted a sense of movement and called as snapshots, in which the lack of color can be said to link with his interest, e.g. the 1874 Degas Ballet Rehearsal on Stage and the 1876 The Ballet Instructor.

The Orchestra of the Opera (1868–69) is another example, depicting fourteen musicians, one of them is in an orchestra pit, only the legs and tutus of the Degas dancers onstage can be seen above the musicians who were cropped by the edge of the artwork.

Edgar Degas neglected etching for ten years till the mid-1870s, his changes in media engendered paintings Degas. As painted in After the Bath, women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and bathing are themes of Degas art drawings and paintings. Artist use strokes to draw the form of Edgar Degas Dancer and ballerinas in simplified backgrounds more freely than before.

These paintings by Degas use the techniques of Impressionism, they're painted after the heyday of the Impressionist movement and late in Edgar Degas life.

The Dance Class (La classe de danse)

85×75cm 1873-1876
The painter paid attention to the colors and motions in the picture which are expressed by the motions and tutus of the ballet actresses. Degas chose a oblique point of view to expand the space, and he also used a corner of the ceiling to envelop the picture. Such a composition of Degas ballerinas is very original. Some balletdancers are practicing under the direction of their teacher. The teacher stands in the centre of Edgar Degas artwork with a crutch in her hand. In the first row, two ballet actresses are waiting their turn to dance. One of them is holding a fan while the other Edgar Degas Dancers are sitting on the piano twisting and scratching on her back. The Dance Class (La classe de danse) presents a striking contrast between the glamour of the dancing balletdancer and the inelegancy of the actresses in wait.
Large amount of paintings by Degas on the scene of ballet dancing won him the title of “painter of ballet actresses”.

At the Races

Except for the scene of ballet, Degas artist created a number of horse racing paintings on canvas. He seldom depicted the on going horse racing because he concerned more about the occasional scene in the horse racing field, such as the posture of the horse and the expression of the rider in the painting of At the Races. Painter Degas was more interested in the atmosphere there. At the Races is the most outstanding in the series of Degas horse racing oil painting.

Degas Absinthe (The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe)

This Degas artwork is 92 cm × 68 cm Oil on canvas finished in 1876, it's French title is L'Absinthe, and English name is The Absinthe Drinker or Glass of Absinthe, as known much as Degas Absinthe.

This painting by Degas was translated original as A sketch of a French Café and then Figures at Café, finally changed to L'Absinthe, the title the artwork is known as Absinthe Degas. Now the Musée d'Orsay in Paris collects the Edgar Degas painting permanently.
Degas Absinthe depicts a woman and man sitting at the center and right. The man looks to the right, while the woman stares vacantly downward and a glass of greenish liquid sitting before her. The Degas art is a representation work in depiction of the social isolation due to rapid growth in Paris.
Absinthe Degas was showing at first in 1876 and was panned by critics, they said that the painting is ugly and disgusting. In 1893 after change the title to L'Absinthe, the Edgar Degas artwork was shown again in England and burned a sparked controversy.
English critics said that the persons in the Degas Absinthe were degraded and uncouth, a warning lesson against wine and the French in general through this piece of Absinthe Degas by these critics. The paintings of Edgar Degas was regarded as a blow to morality during the show.

Biography Edgar Degas

When Edgar Degas was thirteen, his mother died. He graduated with a baccalauréat in literature in 1853. The young artist began to paint early in life by turning a room in his home into his first studio. Edgar Degas ever studied drawing in the style of Ingres. In July 1856, he traveled to Italy and stayed there for three years. The painter Degas ever drew and painted many copies after Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and other Renaissance masters. He usually selected from an altarpiece in detail and copied as a independent portrait.

The early painting masterpiece, The Bellelli Family, was made in 1858 when Edgar Degas stayed in Naples. Later on several history paintings were finished in 1859. The artist exhibited Scene of War in the Middle Ages at the Salon, but attracted little attention. Paintings of Degas were submitted to the Salon paintings of Degas during the next five years, not history paintings any longer, but dancing for Degas and instead of more Edgar Degas ballerina. It's said that he met Édouard Manet in 1864, and was influenced primarily by Manet, resulting in the change in Degas art.

Degas finally moved his interested from history oil paintings to original observation of contemporary life such as ballerina Edgar Degas, horse racing, little dancer, etc.. His racecourse scenes depicted horses and riders, female works painted women at work, milliners and laundresses. The first major work to introduce Edgar Degas ballerinas subject such as Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet La Source, the painting was exhibited in the Salon of 1868, Degas dancers was especially identified.

The greatest works of ballet Degas were produced from 1874 to 1884 benefiting on sales of his artwork for income. Degas took a leading role in organizing 7 Impressionists shows by showing Degas paintings in all till 1886. He mocked Monet and the other landscape painters for painting outdoors so that had little in common with them.

Through the sales of Degas Dancer his financial situation improved well, in such terms he collected works by contemporaries as Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh, as well as old masters El Greco, Ingres, Delacroix, and Daumier.

Degas photographed in his double portrait Renoir and Mallarmê and more photographs depicting Degas ballerinas, dancers and nudes, which are reference used in some drawings and paintings by Degas.

The artist never married. He spent the last years of his life wandering restlessly the streets of Paris and almost blind till his death in September 1917.

1. Paintings Degas for Sale

2. About Edgar Degas