Introduction

The Man

The Artist

Chronology of Life and Work

(Text by ORAZIO CENTARO)

Introduction

When looking for an explanation for my unconditional admiration for Degas, I have to take into account that Degas has given me the possibility, by means of a deep study of his works, of bringing together the two greatest passions of my life, painting and photography.

The bold composition of his paintings, the innovative angles, his subjects’ spontaneous movements, also belonging to the photographic language made it difficult for me not to be stimulated, as both a photographer and painter.

For this reason, I decided to dedicate an entire Gallery in my Web Site OCAIW to my great idol.

The lack of space forced me to painfully exclude many of his important works. Even so, I have been able to include both works which are little known, and those more famous. Although some of the more famous already exist in other virtual galleries, I feel they are fundamental to the understanding of Degas' work.

The Man

Degas’ contemporaries weren’t very indulgent in their judgement, labelling him as an eccentric and bizarre artist. Actually, Degas made no efforts at all to gain approval either from strangers and even less, from art critics.

From a very young age, he was ill tempered; he was temperamental, restless and insecure. His eyes, as we can see in his self-portrait as a young artist, were sad and gloomy. His mother’s early death, when he was only thirteen, as well as a strict education, surely contributed, to the shaping of his personality.

Nevertheless, referring to his personality, he himself would concede, "It was perhaps a vicious impulse arising from scepticism and bad temper which caused me to appear unpleasant towards everyone. I thought about myself as inferior, so fragile, so unable; my artistic calculations being, on the other hand, so precise. I was ill tempered towards everybody, including myself".

Degas was lonely, and sometimes he himself complained about this. He used to spend almost all his time in his studio, entirely focused on his work experimenting with the most diverse painting techniques. The only entertainment he granted himself was an occasional outing to the theater and visiting with some very close friends such as Manet, Moreau, Paul Valpinçon, Boldini, the Rouarts and the Haleivies.

As to women, his relationship was of mere tolerance, which sounds very strange since he had, during his entire life, studied women’s movements and habits with a minute, almost unreasonable attention. He used to say to his friends that women should focus their attention on fashion; otherwise, in the lack of such an interest, they would make men’s lives unbearable.

His gradual loss of sight, around the age of 60, and serious economical problems due to unfortunate financial speculations by his brother Achille made him yet more gloomy and lonely.

The Artist

Nowadays, Degas is known worldwide as the master of the human figure in movement, a superb drawer and a great innovator in the art of the portrait. His works are currently celebrated for their compositional originality and his unrivalled technique.

Although some critics of his time had recognized the artistic qualities of that ‘bizarre’ young man at an early stage, he only attained real success in the last years of his life, but his true acclaim came only after his death. This was mainly due to the fact that Degas, usually keeping aloof, rarely showed his works. His only one-man exhibition was held in 1893, when he was almost 60, and where he presented about thirty landscapes in pastel. Between 1865 and 1870 he exhibited a couple of works each year at the Salon and also participated in seven of the eight exhibitions held by the Impressionist group.

Degas’ artistic production was intense, although many of his works weren’t finished, and there were a number of drawings, drafts and sketches left waiting to be completed in his studio.

From a very young age, visiting the Louvre and other large museums, mainly in Italy, Degas was attracted by the works of Poussin, Velasquez, Goya, David, Ingres, and the 15^th cent Italian painters, Ingres being the object of his fervent admiration.

Although called an Impressionist, Degas cannot actually be considered as one of them, since he follows a completely different path. Like the Impressionists he wished to push artistic expression towards modernism. Unlike this movement, Degas never really wanted to break completely with the past. His artistic challenge was always to build bridges between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. On this subject, there is his famous quote: ‘Ah! Giotto! Let me see Paris! And you, Paris! Let me see Giotto!’

Degas took pleasure in defining himself as a ‘realist’, proving that by the time of the Eighth Impressionist exhibition, held in 1886, he wanted it to be presented as an "Exhibition of a group of independent, realist and impressionist artists".

Let’s follow the evolution of Degas’ artistic path. At 19 he is a pupil of Barrias’ and often visits the Louvre and the Cabinet des Estampes at the National Library, Paris where he copies the works of the great masters of the past. Nevertheless, his presence at Barrias’ studio does not last long, and he becomes one of Louis Lamothe’s pupils, who had,  been a pupil of Ingres’. And it was through Lamothe himself that Degas met Ingres, therefore becoming Ingres’ fervent admirer. Due to the influence that Ingres, even if indirectly, exerted upon him, Degas always supported the thesis that drawing, by means of ‘wide and continuing’ lines, should be the basis for all artistic composition.

But the fascination exerted upon him, either by Ingres or other great masters of the past did not prevent him from searching a new path with stubborn zeal. The world flows, renovates itself, and Degas is attracted by this new reality. Since his first portraits, one can feel in them the presence of a relationship between ‘past’ and ‘present’, which will accompany him through all his future activity.

Unlike the Impressionists, Degas did not like to work "en plein air", definitely preferring the artificial light of the indoors, that gave him more freedom and ability to manipulate the subjects and modify the pose - where nothing, as he used to say, should be left to chance. Even the outdoor subjects, such as race horses, jockeys, hunting scenes, as well as landscapes, although studied in their minutes detail "in loco", by means of drafts and sketches, were to be later remade in his studio.

We have said that Degas thought himself a ‘realist’, but his contact with reality is cold, analysed and well thought out. While Manet loved to work instinctively, ‘reproducing everything he had seen’, as he himself used to say, Degas, on the contrary, constantly analysing his work, would say, "I know nothing of inspiration, spontaneity, temper; what I do is the result of a long reflection and study of the great masters’.

It sounds strange that he, who never had an important relationship with a woman, chose women as one of his main subjects. But the ‘women’ as seen by Degas, his dancers, his bathing, ironing and washer women are neither delirious, nor romantic figures - they are the object of a meticulous, obsessed study of their working movements, and intimate daily activities.

The ballet dancers and bathing women look like a film sequence, all of them equally fascinating for their innovative compositions, their decentralized pagination, their unusual angularity: in this sense, the then highly fashionable influence of Orientalism is obvious, and one can see their relation to Japanese prints, of which Degas was a fond collector. But Degas is also outstanding for the delicate lines of his drawings, as well as his exemplary interpretation of light.

Nevertheless Degas does not aim to surprise us: his is a constructs a plot less narrative. The situation he shows us, be it the ballet dancer’s movements or the ironing women’s gestures when pressing the iron upon the cloth, is simply its harmonious representation, the aesthetic moment fixed on the canvas. How many trials and errors needed to represent that which looks like a simple gesture imprisoned by an alert, instantaneous vision! On this Degas noted, "It is necessary to redo the same subject ten, one hundred times. Nothing in art should look casual, especially movement’.

Before we go through the most important chronological data of Degas’ life and work, I would like to finish these notes about the artist by quoting some critical opinions of his contemporaries.

"Up until now, he is the person who best represents in a modern form, what may be called the soul"(E. de Goncourt, Journal, Feb 13, 1874).

In 1876, Edmond Duranty, on the occasion of the Second Impressionist exhibition, wrote about Degas: "So this series of new ideas was mainly formed in the mind of a designer, one of ours, one of those showing now in these rooms, a man gifted with the most rare talent and of the most rare intelligence. Several people made use of his concepts and his artistic selflessness, and it is about time justice be made and the world be made aware of the source from which many painters profited but never conceded to reveal. I hope this artist keeps on exercising his prodigious ability as a philanthropist, not as a businessman like many others.”

G. Rivière, in 1877, on the occasion of the Third Impressionist exhibition, so writes about Degas: "He does not try to make us believe in a naiveté he does not possess; on the contrary, his prodigious knowledge commands whatever it be; his ability, so attractive and peculiar, displays his subjects in a most unforeseeable and pleasant way, nevertheless remaining always true and natural". And still referring to Degas, he goes on: "He is an observer, he never goes for exaggeration, the effect always stemming from reality itself, without ever being forced. This makes him the most precious historian of the scenes he represents".

Referring to Degas’ nudes, in 1889, K. Haysmans wrote: "... It is no longer the cold and smooth nude flesh of goddesses he represents, ... but it is true flesh, naked, real, alive...".

Among Degas’ own notes on his works, we recall just some of his most precious ones: "Happy am I, who never found my style, something that would enrage me in the extreme. Painting is not so difficult when one does not know it... but once one has got the cognition... oh! Then... it is something else entirely."

On his feminine nudes, Degas wrote: "... the animal being that takes care of himself, a cat that licks itself. Up to this moment, the nude has been presented in poses that had a public in mind; my women, on the other hand, are simple, honest people who bother with nothing but the very caring of their bodies".

Finally, about Art, Degas wrote: "Art is a vice: one does not marry it legally, but rapes it ".