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拍品專文
After 1890 Degas rarely attended the spectacular ballet productions at the Opéra de Paris, and he let lapse the backstage pass that had allowed him access to the rehearsal rooms which for years he made his favorite haunt. The subject of the dance, nonetheless, still reigned supreme in his work, accounting for about three-quarters of his production during this late period. Degas drew his dancers from models in his studio, inventing details of staging as needed; as Gustave Geffroy observed, the artist relied increasingly on “memory, perspicacity and reverie” (quoted in R. Kendall, Degas, Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., The National Gallery, London, 1996, p. 133).
Degas configured this study of a dancer at rest on a bench, massaging her weary foot, in a pose with legs spread, like an open pair of scissors, which generates an emphatic, arching arabesque, as if he conceived the figure to fit an abstract idea of extreme contrapposto form. The dramatic swerve in this composition was interesting enough in itself to inspire Degas to execute a single-figure pastel drawing (Lemoisne, no. 1243). This pose proved even more striking in conjunction with the placement of a second dancer along the left edge, to counter-balance the primary figure, resulting in a series of four pastels, each in a distinctive tonal scheme (Lemoisne, nos. 1241-1244; no. 1242 sold, Christie’s, New York, 1 November 2003, lot 22). The pairing of dancers reappeared around 1898 in a further series of pastels and related drawings (Lemoisne, nos. 1323-1332bis). Degas added a third dancer to the pair, also circa 1898 (Lemoisne, no. 1328). He returned to this theme again in 1899-1900 (Lemoisne, no. 1367), then again a year later (Lemoisne, nos. 1397 and 1408). The dating for some of these works has been recently revised to as late as 1905-1910.
“The dancer is only a pretext for drawing,” Degas declared to George Moore (quoted in ibid., p. 134). The artist’s obsession with drawing had become all-consuming. "The sheer labor of drawing had become a passion and a discipline for him,” Paul Valéry wrote, “the object of a mystique and an ethic all-sufficient in themselves, a supreme preoccupation which abolished all other matters, a source of endless problems in precision which released him from any other form of inquiry" (Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, 1960, p. 64). Charcoal became his sole medium for making drawings, enhanced here with sienna and pale blue pastel tints. Degas’s extensive use of pastel during the late period, amounting to more than 90 percent of his works in color, is essentially a means of drawing in color–the artist proclaimed, “I am a colorist with line” (quoted in Degas and the Dance, exh. cat., American Federation of Arts, New York, 2002, p. 257). Degas’s draughtsmanship had never been previously so strongly expressive, nor his flair for color as vital and transcendently brilliant, as it was during the final dozen years of his career, in which his art became presciently, consummately modern.
Degas configured this study of a dancer at rest on a bench, massaging her weary foot, in a pose with legs spread, like an open pair of scissors, which generates an emphatic, arching arabesque, as if he conceived the figure to fit an abstract idea of extreme contrapposto form. The dramatic swerve in this composition was interesting enough in itself to inspire Degas to execute a single-figure pastel drawing (Lemoisne, no. 1243). This pose proved even more striking in conjunction with the placement of a second dancer along the left edge, to counter-balance the primary figure, resulting in a series of four pastels, each in a distinctive tonal scheme (Lemoisne, nos. 1241-1244; no. 1242 sold, Christie’s, New York, 1 November 2003, lot 22). The pairing of dancers reappeared around 1898 in a further series of pastels and related drawings (Lemoisne, nos. 1323-1332bis). Degas added a third dancer to the pair, also circa 1898 (Lemoisne, no. 1328). He returned to this theme again in 1899-1900 (Lemoisne, no. 1367), then again a year later (Lemoisne, nos. 1397 and 1408). The dating for some of these works has been recently revised to as late as 1905-1910.
“The dancer is only a pretext for drawing,” Degas declared to George Moore (quoted in ibid., p. 134). The artist’s obsession with drawing had become all-consuming. "The sheer labor of drawing had become a passion and a discipline for him,” Paul Valéry wrote, “the object of a mystique and an ethic all-sufficient in themselves, a supreme preoccupation which abolished all other matters, a source of endless problems in precision which released him from any other form of inquiry" (Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, 1960, p. 64). Charcoal became his sole medium for making drawings, enhanced here with sienna and pale blue pastel tints. Degas’s extensive use of pastel during the late period, amounting to more than 90 percent of his works in color, is essentially a means of drawing in color–the artist proclaimed, “I am a colorist with line” (quoted in Degas and the Dance, exh. cat., American Federation of Arts, New York, 2002, p. 257). Degas’s draughtsmanship had never been previously so strongly expressive, nor his flair for color as vital and transcendently brilliant, as it was during the final dozen years of his career, in which his art became presciently, consummately modern.