拍品專文
In the final two decades of his career, Degas's depiction of bathers occurs second in frequency only to his dance subjects. By the mid- 1880s Degas had divested this theme of the aggressive, naturalistic sexuality that had been so controversial in earlier pictures, in which his models were widely perceived to have been prostitutes or other denizens of the demi-monde, and his nudes met with a more favorable response. As Richard Kendall has noted, "Such figures might well suggest 'loveliness' and recall classical statuary; and rather than being clandestine objects, like semi-pornographic monotypes, these pastels might reasonably take their place on the walls of respectable homes" (R. Kendall, Degas: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, 1996, p. 142). Kendall recounts that many of the nude bathers entered renowned collections, and indeed, many such works were selected by female important collectors, most notably Louisine Havemeyer and Mrs. Potter Palmr.
The present pastel utilizes a pose frequently seen in Degas's late bather series, in which the figure bends forward while drying her feet (cf. Lemoisne, nos. 917, 1137, 1150, 1384 and 421). The sequential treatment of a pose is an essential characteristic of Degas's methods in his late works, and may be understood as a parallel to the series paintings of Monet or the repeated depiction of motifs in the late work of Czanne.
This version is remarkable for its blue, half-lit tonality, and exotic cascade of colored fabrics that practically envelop the figure. By this time Degas's pastel technique drew upon an endlessly varied and subtle spectrum of hues, which was as luminous in its cool shades as it was in its warmer, more strident tones. The artist evolved an idiosyncratic array of marks by which he applies his pastels, using hatching, striations and squiggles. While he may compose the scene in a carefully thought-out manner, the actual execution stems very much from the immediate, gestural response of the artist's hand to his media and the paper he is drawing on. It is in these small marks that we sense, in microcosm, the complexity of the artist's temperament.
Perhaps we can never fully come to terms with the sixty or
seventy-year-old artist, living in celibacy and immured under
his Montmartre roof, occupying his final days in drawing, painting and modelling a solitary member of the opposite sex. Determined
to represent his subject in every state of repose and prostration, from every angle and in every predicament, Degas carried his
curiosity and his inventiveness into all but the most private
recesses of the woman's world. His pictures are acts of homage
and sites of defiance, attempts to know the unknowable, a near-
desperate circumvention of centuries of ritual that never entirely breaks with the past. (Ibid, p. 157)
The present pastel utilizes a pose frequently seen in Degas's late bather series, in which the figure bends forward while drying her feet (cf. Lemoisne, nos. 917, 1137, 1150, 1384 and 421). The sequential treatment of a pose is an essential characteristic of Degas's methods in his late works, and may be understood as a parallel to the series paintings of Monet or the repeated depiction of motifs in the late work of Czanne.
This version is remarkable for its blue, half-lit tonality, and exotic cascade of colored fabrics that practically envelop the figure. By this time Degas's pastel technique drew upon an endlessly varied and subtle spectrum of hues, which was as luminous in its cool shades as it was in its warmer, more strident tones. The artist evolved an idiosyncratic array of marks by which he applies his pastels, using hatching, striations and squiggles. While he may compose the scene in a carefully thought-out manner, the actual execution stems very much from the immediate, gestural response of the artist's hand to his media and the paper he is drawing on. It is in these small marks that we sense, in microcosm, the complexity of the artist's temperament.
Perhaps we can never fully come to terms with the sixty or
seventy-year-old artist, living in celibacy and immured under
his Montmartre roof, occupying his final days in drawing, painting and modelling a solitary member of the opposite sex. Determined
to represent his subject in every state of repose and prostration, from every angle and in every predicament, Degas carried his
curiosity and his inventiveness into all but the most private
recesses of the woman's world. His pictures are acts of homage
and sites of defiance, attempts to know the unknowable, a near-
desperate circumvention of centuries of ritual that never entirely breaks with the past. (Ibid, p. 157)