We travelled down to a Degas exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts this week.
Edgar Degas was known as the 'painter of dancers' and said that his ballet scenes were 'a pretext for depicting movement'.
The exhibition featured many of his initial drawings made in the classroom where dancers were practicing and exercising for the stage.
Born in Paris in 1834, he grew up to become a leading figure in the Impressionist group, inventing new techniques to depict subjects from modern life. Photography was an emerging art at this time offering novel views of the world. Degas was cautious initially but by mid career he was interested in the work of the scientist Etienne-Jules Marey and the photographer Eadweard Muybridge, later using a camera himself in his pioneering compositions.
His first pictures to attract attention were of his dancers, where he strove for vivid realism. Dancers were often associated with dubious conduct off stage and his work was viewed with hostility by some of his contemporaries whilst others admired his bold compositions of modern life.
Degas spent many hours at the opera house where most operatic performances included dance interludes. He was from a music loving family and became aquainted with all aspects of the theatre, from musicians and singers to the back stage ballet des corps, gaining access to backstage areas and classrooms where the performers worked.
One of his earliest oil paintings which emerged from this process is The Rehearsal where dancers are shown working and at rest as well as the famous ballet master, Jules Perrot whose figure was depicted from a photograph. Photographs of famous people were available at this time but because of the limitations of photography where people had to freeze in position for some time, Degas was somewhat dismissive, since he was able to suggest movement in his work.
Much of his work was based on 'close looking' at the subject since he was trained in the traditional manner, he gradually explored alternative approaches such as actually moving around the subject and taking a series of drawings, which resulted in his sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, made of wax and dressed in real clothes and a wig.
In the 1870's Degas began a series of wide narrow canvases depicting ballet classrooms where figures are absorbed in their daily routines. These invite the viewer to scan the image from one side to the other and foreground to background bringing movement and animation to the scene. He may have been inspired by developments in photography where special cameras had been developed for panoramic scenes and could be rotated on a tripod or a wide plate moved behind the lens.
He was also aware, of the work of Muybridge and Marey.
Muybridge had established himself as a landscape photographer is America but is most famous for his high speed photographs of horses and the human figure in movement and these were featured in the French scientific journal La Nature. Muybridge travelled to Europe in 1881 to present his images in film-like form, one such presentation was made at Marey's house to and audience of artists, writers and scientists. Degas made a number of drawings from these photographs and some of his sequences of dancers reflect this.
Marey was a contemporary of Degas and specialised in human and animal locomotion, interested in art and dance he used adapted cameras to record movement. He stated that his work would benefit contemporary sculpors and painters.
By the 1880's Degas was celebrated as an aritist who specialised in dance and his fellow artists and contemporaries thought him 'haunted and preoccupied by the figure in movement', and some suggested that his approach was one of an analyst or physiologist.
Growing older Degas gradually withdrew from public life but continued to work in his studio producing work from models and memory. His work became more dynamic with strokes of pastel and brilliantly saturated colour. He often applied his rich palette in layers of contrasting colour, creating optical vibrations that add to the energy, he sometimes painted with his fingertips.
Degas died in 1917 during the first world war, his enormous body of work was sold and aquired by many major museums and his wax sculptures were caste in bronze for posterity.
He had worked in many mediums including oils, pastels and charcoal, it is his oils and pastels which most attract me. The depth of the medium on canvas and the many layered texture of the finished work, as well as the vibrant colours and compostion are absolutely fascinating, this is what I would like to work towards reproducing in a small way during this course.
He did depict other scenes from Parisienne life and his early work included portraits, I would like to get a painterly finish to the portrait work I have undertaken.
