III.

Degas’s Work

Degas’s early paintings consisted mainly of portraits (see portraiture) and historical subjects. Almost all of the early portraits are of friends and family, and they culminate in the group painting of the Bellelli Family (1858-1860, Musée d’Orsay, Paris)—Degas’s aunt, her husband, and their two daughters. The placement of the figures within the room, along with their gestures and glances, subtly indicates the relationships—and the tensions—between them. None of the family members make eye contact; Mr. Bellelli, isolated at one side of the painting, sits with his back to the viewer.

From the early 1860s on, Degas was attracted by theatrical subjects, and most of his works depict people as he saw them in theaters, cafés, music halls, rehearsal halls, drawing rooms, or boudoirs. Degas was a keen observer of humanity—particularly of women, with whom his work is preoccupied—and in his portraits as well as in his studies of dancers, milliners, and laundresses, he attempted to catch his subjects in poses as natural and spontaneous as those recorded in action photographs. Yet his art was anything but spontaneous. He carefully considered the pose, gestures, and placement of every figure, and he created numerous preliminary sketches before starting to paint.

Degas’s study of Japanese prints led him to experiment with unusual vantage points and asymmetrical compositions (see Japanese Art and Architecture). For example, some of his ballet scenes show dancers from overhead angles or from the wings of the stage. Among his daring off-center compositions is Woman with Chrysanthemums (1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City), in which the female subject of the picture is pushed into a corner of the canvas by a large, central bouquet of flowers. His subjects often appear abruptly cut off at the edges, as in Ballet Rehearsal (1876, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum) or Fin d’arabesque (End of an Arabesque, 1877, Musée d’Orsay). Like Fin d’arabesque many of his compositions feature strong diagonal lines.

Degas also experimented a good deal with technique. He tried various printmaking methods, and in his paintings he sometimes used unusual combinations of media, such as pastel or crayon with tempera paint. As he began to lose his sight in the 1880s, Degas increasingly worked in pastels as they were less demanding than oil paint. His pastels are usually simple compositions containing one or two figures. In these works Degas depended on vibrant colors and meaningful gestures rather than on precise lines and careful detailing. He went over outlines again and again in heavy charcoal, and he blended his pinks, purples, and greens to create brilliant color.

From the 1880s on Degas also made sculptures in wax. His poor eyesight mattered less when he could work by touch in this malleable medium. The subjects of his sculpture were the same he had chosen for his paintings: ballet dancers, women in the bath, and racehorses. In his sculpture, as in his paintings, he attempted to catch the action of the moment, and his ballet dancers and female nudes are depicted in poses that make no attempt to conceal their subjects’ physical exertions. One of his best-known sculptures is Petite Danseuse de Quartorze Ans (The Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, 1880-1881, Tate Gallery, London). Degas enhanced the lifelike quality of the wax figure by giving her a hair ribbon of satin and a gauze tutu. After Degas’s death, some of his wax sculptures, including the Little Dancer, were cast in bronze.