Friday, January 21, 2022

Edgar Degas (Dancers and Others)

Edgar Degas
Dancer in Pink
1878
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Edgar Degas
Dancers
ca. 1890-95
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Edgar Degas
Dancers in Yellow (in the Wings)
ca. 1874-76
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Edgar Degas
Frieze of Seated Dancers
1895
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Edgar Degas
Frieze of Seated Dancers (detail)
1895
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Edgar Degas
Dance Studio of the Opéra on rue Le Peletier
1872
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
Dance Studio of the Opéra on rue Le Peletier (detail)
1872
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
Mademoiselle Marie Dihau at the Piano
ca. 1869-72
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
Henri Degas and his niece Lucie Degas
(the artist's uncle and cousin)
ca. 1875-76
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Edgar Degas
Portrait after a Costume Ball
(Madame Dietz-Monnin)
1879
pastel and distemper on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Edgar Degas
Hélène Rouart in her Father's Study
ca. 1886
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Edgar Degas
Portrait of Elena Carafa
1875
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Edgar Degas
Portrait of the cellist Pilet
ca. 1868-69
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
Portraits at the Stock Exchange
ca. 1878-79
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas
The Pedicurist
1873
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) – Though his subjects and his involvement in the promotion of Impressionism marked him out as a member of the group, he did not embrace their priorities.  He painted a few subtle landscapes, but was impatient with the doctrine that painting was to be done out-of-doors and preferably at one go.  His feeling for modern subjects and for colour and texture as major factors in painting fused with convictions about the organization of images that were essentially classical while also reflecting new concepts of space and vision derived from photography and Japanese prints.  . . .  Degas's fascination with inelegant, commonplace subjects marks him out as dramatically modern, breaking once and for all the old link between serious art and high-minded, time-honoured themes.  He left over 2000 oils and pastels.   

– excerpted from the Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists (2000) by Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton