Edgar Degas PDF
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EEddggaarr DDEEGGAASS BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 2 Authors: Natalia Brodskaïa Edgar Degas Layout: Baseline Co. Ltd 61A-63A Vo Van Tan Street 4th Floor District 3, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam © Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA © Parkstone Press International, New York, USA IImmaaggee--BBaarr www.image-bar.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers, artists, heirs or estates. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification. ISBN: 978-1-78042-745-4 BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 3 Natalia Brodskaïa Edgar Degas EDGAR DEGAS BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 4 BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 5 CONTENTS Edgar Degas and his Works 7 Letters by Degas 49 Notes 196 Index 197 BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 6 6 BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 7 EDGAR DEGAS AND HIS WORKS BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 8 8 BO Degas 4C.qxp 26-Dec-11 3:56 PM Page 9 E dgar Degas was closest to Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the Impressionist’s circle, for both favoured the animated Parisian life of their day as a motif in their paintings. Degas did not attend Charles Gleyre’s studio; most likely he first met the future Impressionists at the Café Guerbois. It is not known exactly where he met Édouard Manet. Perhaps they were introduced to one another by a mutual friend, the engraver Félix Bracquemond, or perhaps Manet, struck by Degas’ audacity, first spoke to him at the Louvre in 1862. Two months after meeting the Impressionists, Degas exhibited his canvases with Claude Monet’s group, and became one of the most loyal of the Impressionists: not only did he contribute works to each of their exhibitions except the seventh, he also participated very actively in organising them. All of which is curious, because he was rather distinct from the other Impressionists. Degas came from a completely different milieu than that of Monet, Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. His grandfather René-Hilaire de Gas, a grain merchant, had been forced to flee from France to Italy in 1793 during the French Revolution. Business prospered for him there. After establishing a bank in Naples, de Gas wed a young girl from a rich Genoan family. Edgar preferred to write his name simply as Degas, although he happily maintained relations with his numerous de Gas relatives in Italy. Enviably stable by nature, Degas spent his entire life in the neighbourhood where he was born. He scorned and disliked the Left Bank, perhaps because that was where his mother had died. In 1850, Edgar Degas completed his studies at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and, in 1852, received his degree in law. Because his family was rich, his life as a painter unfolded far more smoothly than for the other Impressionists. Degas started his apprenticeship in 1853 at the studio of Louis-Ernest Barrias and, beginning in 1854, studied under Louis Lamothe, who revered Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres above all others and transmitted his adoration for this master to Edgar Degas. Degas’ father was not opposed to his son’s choice. On the contrary: when, after the death of his wife, he moved to Rue Mondovi, he set up a studio for Edgar on the fourth floor, from which the Place de la Concorde could be seen over the rooftops. Edgar’s father himself was an amateaur painter and connoisseur; he introduced his son to his many friends. Among them were Achille Deveria, curator of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Bibliothèque Nationale, who permitted Edgar to copy from the drawings of the Old Masters: Rembrandt, Dürer, Goya, Self-Portrait Saluting, 1865. Oil on canvas, 92.5 x 66.5 cm. Holbein. His father also introduced him to his friends in the Valpinçon family of art collectors, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon. at whose home the future painter met the great Ingres. All his life Degas would remember Ingres’ advice as one would remember a prayer: “Draw lines … Lots of lines, whether from memory Young Spartans Exercising, c. 1860. Oil on canvas, 109.5 x 155 cm. or from life” (Paul Valéry, Écrits sur l’Art[Writings on Art], Paris, 1962, p. 187). The National Gallery, London. Starting in 1854, Degas travelled frequently to Italy: first to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of his numerous cousins, and then to Rome and Florence where he copied Scene of War in the Middle Ages (detail), 1865. tirelessly from the Old Masters. His drawings and sketches already revealed very clear Oil on paper, on canvas, 83.5 x 148.5 cm. preferences: Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Andrea Mantegna, but also Musée d’Orsay, Paris. (pp. 10-11) 9 BO Degas 4C.qxp 28-Dec-11 10:38 AM Page 10 10
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