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Lot Essay
Edgar Degas was one of the principal painters of fans among the Impressionists, and La farandole, which treats one of his most celebrated subjects, the ballet, is a particularly fine example of its kind.
There are in existence twenty-five fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were made between 1878 and 1885. The present work, La farandole, was executed in 1879, a particularly productive year for the artist who was enthusiastically planning for the exhibition of the Indépendants, a room that would be entirely devoted to fans painted by Pissarro, Morisot, Forain, and Félix and Marie Bracquemond. In the end, however, only Pissarro and Forain exhibited their fans alongside Degas who presented five of these works. This was to be the only time that Degas would exhibit his fans.
The farandole is an old dance from Provence in which long human chains are formed by linking hands. Degas' lifelong interest in dance developed in the 1860s, when as young man he regularly attended the ballet and other performances such as opera, café-concerts, and the circus. Degas was attracted to the spectacle and excitement of live entertainment and found an endless source of inspiration in ballet, sketching the performers from nature. In this manner he was able to study both the natural unguarded gestures of dancers at rest and the stylised movements of classical ballet as depicted in the present work.
There are in existence twenty-five fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were made between 1878 and 1885. The present work, La farandole, was executed in 1879, a particularly productive year for the artist who was enthusiastically planning for the exhibition of the Indépendants, a room that would be entirely devoted to fans painted by Pissarro, Morisot, Forain, and Félix and Marie Bracquemond. To Degas' chagrin, the room never evolved, but twenty-one fans by him, Pissarro and Forain were exhibited intiating what the critic Arthur Baignières described as "une epidémie d'éventails". This was to be the only time that Degas would exhibit his fans.
Several reasons inspired the Impressionist painters to explore the fan shape. Most influential were three exhibitions organised in Paris by the Japanese government between 1867 and 1878. This exposure to the East created a fascination in Europeans for anything Japanese. Fans were exported from Japan by the millions, making them very fashionable and easily obtainable.
Degas was also attracted both by the Japonisme of fan painting and the demands it placed on his approach to composition. As Siegfried Wickman describes: "Degas's interest in the fan was not so much in the object itself, but in the compostional challenge posed by the peculiar shape of the pictorial surface... Among the principal influences on Degas was the Japanese fan painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (c.1570-1640), who lived in the Dairo-ji temple in Kyoto. His fans show unusual views, notably seen from above, just as in the present fan. Degas is also close to Sotatsu in his use of colours, showing a preference for browns, pink, ochres, and whitish tones, used to strangely abstract effect" (S. Wickmann, Japonisme: The Japanese influence on western art since 1858, London, 1981, p. 162).
Indeed, the sweeping view from a high vantage point is characteristic of many of Degas' fans, but in this instance the effect is enhanced by the unusually large number of dancers included in the design. Micheal Pantazzi describes the composition of La farandole as follows: "To the right, the corps de ballet, like dragonflies in flight across the stage, is shown in a curved formation that gently counterposes the rounded shape of the fan. To the left, the leading ballerina, based on a figure who also appears in the background of the L'Etoile (The Star) in the Art institute of Chicago, holds the stage alone with a melodramatic wave of the arm. As noted by Jean Sutherland Boggs, there is considerable humor in the rendition of the dancers and the drawing is as free and unhibited as it is formal and controlled in the artist's paintings of the same period" (quoted in exh. cat., Degas, New York and Paris, 1988, p. 327).
In the decade between 1875 and 1885, Degas began to experiment with different media in order to increase the variety of represented textures. "In the fan designs, Degas achieved a virtual tour de force by using pastel, gouache and peinture à l'essence to establish the forms, adding gold and silver paint to the costumes and decor and finally sprinkling on flecks of gold leaf in a manner reminiscent of Japanese surimono prints, so that the surfaces themselves would suggest the brilliant artificiality of the theatres in which such fans were meant to be used" (T. Reff, Degas. The artist's mind, London, 1976, p. 284).
The sweeping view from a high vantage point is characteristic of many of Degas' fans, but in this instance the effect is enhanced by the unusually large number of dancers included in the design. Micheal Pantazzi describes the composition of La farandole as follows: "To the right, the corps de ballet, like dragonflies in flight across the stage, is shown in a curved formation that gently counterposes the rounded shape of the fan. To the left, the leading ballerina, based on a figure who also appears in the background of the L'Etoile (The Star) in the Art institute of Chicago, holds the stage alone with a melodramatic wave of the arm. As noted by Jean Sutherland Boggs, there is considerable humor in the rendition of the dancers and the drawing is as free and unhibited as it is formal and controlled in the artist's paintings of the same period" (quoted in exh. cat., Degas, New York and Paris, 1988, p. 327).
There are in existence twenty-five fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were made between 1878 and 1885. The present work, La farandole, was executed in 1879, a particularly productive year for the artist who was enthusiastically planning for the exhibition of the Indépendants, a room that would be entirely devoted to fans painted by Pissarro, Morisot, Forain, and Félix and Marie Bracquemond. In the end, however, only Pissarro and Forain exhibited their fans alongside Degas who presented five of these works. This was to be the only time that Degas would exhibit his fans.
The farandole is an old dance from Provence in which long human chains are formed by linking hands. Degas' lifelong interest in dance developed in the 1860s, when as young man he regularly attended the ballet and other performances such as opera, café-concerts, and the circus. Degas was attracted to the spectacle and excitement of live entertainment and found an endless source of inspiration in ballet, sketching the performers from nature. In this manner he was able to study both the natural unguarded gestures of dancers at rest and the stylised movements of classical ballet as depicted in the present work.
There are in existence twenty-five fan pictures by Degas, and with the exception of three painted around 1868-69, the majority of these were made between 1878 and 1885. The present work, La farandole, was executed in 1879, a particularly productive year for the artist who was enthusiastically planning for the exhibition of the Indépendants, a room that would be entirely devoted to fans painted by Pissarro, Morisot, Forain, and Félix and Marie Bracquemond. To Degas' chagrin, the room never evolved, but twenty-one fans by him, Pissarro and Forain were exhibited intiating what the critic Arthur Baignières described as "une epidémie d'éventails". This was to be the only time that Degas would exhibit his fans.
Several reasons inspired the Impressionist painters to explore the fan shape. Most influential were three exhibitions organised in Paris by the Japanese government between 1867 and 1878. This exposure to the East created a fascination in Europeans for anything Japanese. Fans were exported from Japan by the millions, making them very fashionable and easily obtainable.
Degas was also attracted both by the Japonisme of fan painting and the demands it placed on his approach to composition. As Siegfried Wickman describes: "Degas's interest in the fan was not so much in the object itself, but in the compostional challenge posed by the peculiar shape of the pictorial surface... Among the principal influences on Degas was the Japanese fan painter Tawaraya Sotatsu (c.1570-1640), who lived in the Dairo-ji temple in Kyoto. His fans show unusual views, notably seen from above, just as in the present fan. Degas is also close to Sotatsu in his use of colours, showing a preference for browns, pink, ochres, and whitish tones, used to strangely abstract effect" (S. Wickmann, Japonisme: The Japanese influence on western art since 1858, London, 1981, p. 162).
Indeed, the sweeping view from a high vantage point is characteristic of many of Degas' fans, but in this instance the effect is enhanced by the unusually large number of dancers included in the design. Micheal Pantazzi describes the composition of La farandole as follows: "To the right, the corps de ballet, like dragonflies in flight across the stage, is shown in a curved formation that gently counterposes the rounded shape of the fan. To the left, the leading ballerina, based on a figure who also appears in the background of the L'Etoile (The Star) in the Art institute of Chicago, holds the stage alone with a melodramatic wave of the arm. As noted by Jean Sutherland Boggs, there is considerable humor in the rendition of the dancers and the drawing is as free and unhibited as it is formal and controlled in the artist's paintings of the same period" (quoted in exh. cat., Degas, New York and Paris, 1988, p. 327).
In the decade between 1875 and 1885, Degas began to experiment with different media in order to increase the variety of represented textures. "In the fan designs, Degas achieved a virtual tour de force by using pastel, gouache and peinture à l'essence to establish the forms, adding gold and silver paint to the costumes and decor and finally sprinkling on flecks of gold leaf in a manner reminiscent of Japanese surimono prints, so that the surfaces themselves would suggest the brilliant artificiality of the theatres in which such fans were meant to be used" (T. Reff, Degas. The artist's mind, London, 1976, p. 284).
The sweeping view from a high vantage point is characteristic of many of Degas' fans, but in this instance the effect is enhanced by the unusually large number of dancers included in the design. Micheal Pantazzi describes the composition of La farandole as follows: "To the right, the corps de ballet, like dragonflies in flight across the stage, is shown in a curved formation that gently counterposes the rounded shape of the fan. To the left, the leading ballerina, based on a figure who also appears in the background of the L'Etoile (The Star) in the Art institute of Chicago, holds the stage alone with a melodramatic wave of the arm. As noted by Jean Sutherland Boggs, there is considerable humor in the rendition of the dancers and the drawing is as free and unhibited as it is formal and controlled in the artist's paintings of the same period" (quoted in exh. cat., Degas, New York and Paris, 1988, p. 327).