Degas Paintings

Degas became a member of the Impressionists group, painting scenes of modern life with bright colors and broken brush strokes, instead of the historical and mythological images akin to previous artists.  Unlike his Impressionist friends who enjoyed painting outdoor scenes, Edgar Degas was largely an urban painter, who preferred to paint the enclosed spaces of stage shows, leisure activities and studios.  Degas spent more time painting in a studio than most Impressionists and he painted from sketches or from memory instead of from nature.  As with other Impressionists, Degas was interested in lighting effects, movement, and real subjects captured in everyday life.  He studied movement and made numerous sketches and paintings of the human body in motion. 

Degas seemed to favor ballet dancers, women at their toilette, café life, and race-track scenes.  Degas is well-known as a painter of the ballet.  By the end of his career more than 1,500 of his works of art portray the Paris Opera-Ballet.  He was interested not only in the dancing but the entire sequence of activity from stretching, to dancing, to resting, and everything in between.  His paintings illustrate all phases.  He attempted to portray the tension and exhaustion that a ballerina feels in his paintings.  He tried to make each gesture and position as realistic as possible.  Ballet dancers were invited to Degas’ study so he could sketch and paint while they stretched and practiced.  Later he was invited to the ballet rehearsals and performances to work backstage. 

Degas experimented with ideas that he got from studying Japanese prints.  He experimented with flat surfaces of color as well as unusual points of view.  He used large empty spaces in his compositions to help direct the eye around the picture.  Influenced by photography he deviated from the traditional ideas of a balanced painting and would make paintings look more natural.  In his unusual cropping technique he would cut figures off at the edge of the canvas, similar to a photograph, painted from unusual angles, and painted subjects off center. 

In the 1890s Degas’ eyesight started to fail and his style became brighter in color and more liberated and expressive in style.  Instead of painting, he began to direct his attentions to pastels, charcoal drawings, and sculptures.  By 1898 Degas was nearly blind. 

Degas ultimately mastered a variety of media including oils, pastels, printmaking, sculpture, and photography.  He had an influence on many younger colleagues including Picasso, and Matisse.