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Lot Essay
While Degas experimented with new techniques throughout his life, his interest in the ballet and theatre life as a subject matter never waivered. The ballet was a central feature of his oeuvre for over forty years, and he executed his works with the same discipline and precision he saw in the lives of the dancers. "The dancer could be seen as an incarnation of drawing. Line was the governing element of her achievement, the right, and wrong of what she was doing. Line was given by her limbs, her arms and legs, the centering of her body, her plomb. To draw a dancer's body was to re-enact through her limbs the terms of figure drawing itself, both as description and as expression" (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Degas, London, 1988, p. 176).
As a young painter in Paris, he carefully observed the masters. Ingres was a firm believer in the importance of draftsmanship and advised Degas to "draw lines, lots of lines" (T. Reff, "Three Great Draftsmen: Ingres, Delacroix and Daumier", quoted in A. Dumas and D.A. Brenneman, Degas and America: The Early Collectors, exh. cat., High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2001, p. 200). Heeding Ingres' advice, Degas was a dedicated draftsman and constantly studied, sketched and copied. In a sketch of three ballet dancers in yellow skirts (fig. 1), possibly a study for Trois danseuses, one can see evidence of Ingres' influence. Degas emphasized the contours by the repetition of tracings, thus creating a sense of rhythmical gesture. He was determined to portray movement effectively in his use of line, color and various media.
Degas' working method was also informed by Ingres' use of repetition in his imagery. Ingres made numerous versions of many of his own paintings, including Le bain turc and L'odalisque. "For Degas the process of repetition became integral with the very making of art: the late pastels - based as they are on second and third tracings of first drawings, on counterproofs, and the like - reveal an absolute physical interdependence between objects. This remarkable fusion of the cerebral logic of art and its progress towards concrete manifestation is the hallmark of Degas's art" (G. Shackelford, The Dance Compositions of Edgar Degas, New Haven, 1986, p. 143). In the act of repetition, Degas maintained a kinship with the dancers who practiced poses and movements again and again until they appeared effortless in the final performance.
Degas never ceased experimenting and absorbing new stylistic techniques. Italian painting of the early quattrocento taught him simplicity of silhouette and purity of line; Impressionism wrenched him from what Cézanne called "the art of the museums", leading him to explore the effects of light; Japanese prints, especially the overlapping of forms and the diminished background, liberated his compositions; Delacroix, the arch-enemy of Ingres, who believed that color, not draftsmanship, was the basis of painting, liberated Degas' sense of color.
A major factor in the evolution Degas' subjects was the rapid transformation of life in Paris. Baudelaire, in his essay called "The Painter of Modern Life", first published in Le Figaro in 1863, called on artists to capture both the ephemeral, the fleeting, and the eternal, immutable nature of modern, metropolitan life. New subjects, which included those marginalized by the process of modernization, demanded new painting techniques. When Charles Garnier's new Opéra opened in Paris in 1875 it became Degas' second home. As an abonné (the equivalent to a season ticket holder), he had access to the foyer de danse backstage and to rehearsals and auditions, giving him an opportunity to observe the dancers when they were at rest. Degas was fascinated by the dual nature of their lives and was more interested in the natural, unguarded gestures of the dancers at rest, as opposed to the more restrained and artificial movements of classical ballet.
In Trois danseuses the emphasis is on the figures as opposed to the background. The dancers are pushed to the front of the composition and the exact nature of the locale remains ambiguous. With the compression of space, the fusion of forms and the repetition of line and color, Degas captures a moment between two worlds - the harsh realities of the dancer's existence and her ethereal presence in performance.
In the 1890s Degas began working in pastel to achieve a more vigorous and expressive pictorial effect. Degas' work became more bold and experimental from a technical and compositional point of view. Trois danseuses marks the culmination of years of experimenting with color, line and form. Some of Degas' greatest images of dancers were made after 1890 during the late period of his career. Renoir once remarked to Vollard, "If Degas had died at fifty, he would have been remembered as an excellent painter, no more. It is after his fiftieth year that his work broadens and that he really becomes Degas" (quoted in I. Dunlop, Degas, London, 1979, p. 188).
By 1895 Degas was working almost exclusively in pastel. This was a medium that Degas, more than any other artist, was to make his own. "What charcoal is to Degas' line and structure, so pastel is to his color. With pastel, Degas could work directly and sensuously at the surface of his designs, stroking ochres and violets into a bather's skin, smudging the cool tints of a dancer's tutu against the warmth of her surroundings or encrusting stage scenery with the most fanciful patterns. Pastel invites flamboyance where charcoal imposes restraint, tactility in place of flatness, the hues of sensation rather than the abstraction of form" (R. Kendall, "The Late Pastels and Oil Paintings", exh. cat. Degas Beyond Impressionism, National Gallery, London, 1996, p. 254).
It has also been suggested that the key to Degas' work from 1895 to 1900 was his newfound interest in photography. This can be seen in the photograph of a dancer formerly in Degas' collection (fig. 2). As with his use of sculpture to understand form, photography was a means of capturing dancers in certain poses and reworking these impressions into his drawings. Photography provided the most immediate method of capturing fleeting moments and, through the artist's hand and his pastel crayon, rendering them eternal.
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Trois danseuses, jupes jaunes, circa 1900.
Cincinatti Art Museum (Gift of Vladimir Horowitz).
(fig. 2) Photograph of a dancer from the Corps de Ballet, circa 1896.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Degas Bequest).
As a young painter in Paris, he carefully observed the masters. Ingres was a firm believer in the importance of draftsmanship and advised Degas to "draw lines, lots of lines" (T. Reff, "Three Great Draftsmen: Ingres, Delacroix and Daumier", quoted in A. Dumas and D.A. Brenneman, Degas and America: The Early Collectors, exh. cat., High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2001, p. 200). Heeding Ingres' advice, Degas was a dedicated draftsman and constantly studied, sketched and copied. In a sketch of three ballet dancers in yellow skirts (fig. 1), possibly a study for Trois danseuses, one can see evidence of Ingres' influence. Degas emphasized the contours by the repetition of tracings, thus creating a sense of rhythmical gesture. He was determined to portray movement effectively in his use of line, color and various media.
Degas' working method was also informed by Ingres' use of repetition in his imagery. Ingres made numerous versions of many of his own paintings, including Le bain turc and L'odalisque. "For Degas the process of repetition became integral with the very making of art: the late pastels - based as they are on second and third tracings of first drawings, on counterproofs, and the like - reveal an absolute physical interdependence between objects. This remarkable fusion of the cerebral logic of art and its progress towards concrete manifestation is the hallmark of Degas's art" (G. Shackelford, The Dance Compositions of Edgar Degas, New Haven, 1986, p. 143). In the act of repetition, Degas maintained a kinship with the dancers who practiced poses and movements again and again until they appeared effortless in the final performance.
Degas never ceased experimenting and absorbing new stylistic techniques. Italian painting of the early quattrocento taught him simplicity of silhouette and purity of line; Impressionism wrenched him from what Cézanne called "the art of the museums", leading him to explore the effects of light; Japanese prints, especially the overlapping of forms and the diminished background, liberated his compositions; Delacroix, the arch-enemy of Ingres, who believed that color, not draftsmanship, was the basis of painting, liberated Degas' sense of color.
A major factor in the evolution Degas' subjects was the rapid transformation of life in Paris. Baudelaire, in his essay called "The Painter of Modern Life", first published in Le Figaro in 1863, called on artists to capture both the ephemeral, the fleeting, and the eternal, immutable nature of modern, metropolitan life. New subjects, which included those marginalized by the process of modernization, demanded new painting techniques. When Charles Garnier's new Opéra opened in Paris in 1875 it became Degas' second home. As an abonné (the equivalent to a season ticket holder), he had access to the foyer de danse backstage and to rehearsals and auditions, giving him an opportunity to observe the dancers when they were at rest. Degas was fascinated by the dual nature of their lives and was more interested in the natural, unguarded gestures of the dancers at rest, as opposed to the more restrained and artificial movements of classical ballet.
In Trois danseuses the emphasis is on the figures as opposed to the background. The dancers are pushed to the front of the composition and the exact nature of the locale remains ambiguous. With the compression of space, the fusion of forms and the repetition of line and color, Degas captures a moment between two worlds - the harsh realities of the dancer's existence and her ethereal presence in performance.
In the 1890s Degas began working in pastel to achieve a more vigorous and expressive pictorial effect. Degas' work became more bold and experimental from a technical and compositional point of view. Trois danseuses marks the culmination of years of experimenting with color, line and form. Some of Degas' greatest images of dancers were made after 1890 during the late period of his career. Renoir once remarked to Vollard, "If Degas had died at fifty, he would have been remembered as an excellent painter, no more. It is after his fiftieth year that his work broadens and that he really becomes Degas" (quoted in I. Dunlop, Degas, London, 1979, p. 188).
By 1895 Degas was working almost exclusively in pastel. This was a medium that Degas, more than any other artist, was to make his own. "What charcoal is to Degas' line and structure, so pastel is to his color. With pastel, Degas could work directly and sensuously at the surface of his designs, stroking ochres and violets into a bather's skin, smudging the cool tints of a dancer's tutu against the warmth of her surroundings or encrusting stage scenery with the most fanciful patterns. Pastel invites flamboyance where charcoal imposes restraint, tactility in place of flatness, the hues of sensation rather than the abstraction of form" (R. Kendall, "The Late Pastels and Oil Paintings", exh. cat. Degas Beyond Impressionism, National Gallery, London, 1996, p. 254).
It has also been suggested that the key to Degas' work from 1895 to 1900 was his newfound interest in photography. This can be seen in the photograph of a dancer formerly in Degas' collection (fig. 2). As with his use of sculpture to understand form, photography was a means of capturing dancers in certain poses and reworking these impressions into his drawings. Photography provided the most immediate method of capturing fleeting moments and, through the artist's hand and his pastel crayon, rendering them eternal.
(fig. 1) Edgar Degas, Trois danseuses, jupes jaunes, circa 1900.
Cincinatti Art Museum (Gift of Vladimir Horowitz).
(fig. 2) Photograph of a dancer from the Corps de Ballet, circa 1896.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Degas Bequest).