Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
French Painter, Sculptor and Printmaker
“He was intrigued by the human figure and his many images of women – dancers, singers and laundresses – he strove to capture the body in unusual potions” – as it is mentioned in the article about this artist on the artstory.com
Degas rejected being an “impressionist” and set himself as an “independent” what happened because he was very much inclined to realism in his art style more than impressionists did. Degas is known by his innovative approach to human figure drawing: he wanted to capture new and strange postures and looked for unusual angles. He draw his models in modern situations such as ballet, what also put him aside from classical figure drawing what usually picked a mythical or historical subject. It was interesting for me to discover that Degas was very much “influenced by Japanese prints with their bold linear designs and a sense of flatness”. I was very much surprised to know that Degas considered his work as an copyist at the Louvre: “…he claimed later in his life is the foundation for any true artists”. Indeed studying and copying artworks represented at the Louvre can be considered as quite elite education. Degas was very versatile with his techniques, he worked with hatching, dry and wet pastel, gouache and watercolours, he created a number of wax sculptures and used photography. Degas was obsessed with a ballet in a sense of capacity of a human body and left around 1500n artworks dedicated to ballet. His most appreciated technique skill was a line. He was also very much influenced by photography and he cropped his paintings as it would appear on a photograph painting just a half of figure for example. He worked mostly with pastels, what allowed him to be speedy in his sketches. I have got very interested with John Berger’s observation about Degas’s pastel drawings of ballet dancers: “ …. the contours of Degas’s dancing figures become, at a certain point, darkly insisted, tangled and dusky”. Berger’s idea about this is not only because of necessity of adjustments the artist had to do while he was drawing, but also because, as he ( Berger) says: “…the dark folds or fissures in these images express the solitude being felt by a part of a limb or torso …. but which when dancing has to go alone”. I found this obesavtion as very original and clever, and I wanted to find those “dark spots” of Degas’s artworks in order to come with my own opinion and think more about Berger’s idea. “Dance rehearsal” (below) is a painting which is a good example of Berger’s observation. Indeed there is a dark area which surrounds ballerina’s hands. It does create a very special effect about hands’ movement. On the drawing “L’Etoile” we also can see darker area around ballerina’s hands and leg.
Dance rehearsal, (1874); edgar-degas.org
L`Etoile ; edgar-degas.org
Dance class II; edgar-degas.org
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918)
Austrian Painter
I couldn’t pass by this artist and not to include him into my research because I am a big fun of his artworks which can be easily explained with my strong inclination towards decorative style of painting. As it is stated in the article about him on theartstory.com “Hi is still remembered as one of the greatest decorative painters of the twentieth century, while also producing one of the century’s most significant bodies of erotic art”. It is notable that he was very experienced and successful with painting of large scale architectural artworks designed for interiors of public buildings, like ceiling paintings, designs for theatre. This makes his artworks similar to Japanese paintings of Kano school. Both Klimt and Kano painters used lot of gold shimmering for embellishment and I am very pleased to find this similarity. Klimt’s drawings have been considered as too erotic and even though he did not have any intentions for public epatage neither he was looking a scandal, nevertheless he had to withdraw from government commissions job. He was trained at Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna where he was among best students, his painting technique was very much influenced by Velasquez and Hans Makart. It is recognised that Klimt didn’t have any followers in terms of his painting style and most critics consider him as an artist of his own genre.
Emily Floge,1902; klimtgallery.org
Mother and child klimtgallery.org
The Dancer klimtgallery.org
Mary Cassatt ( 1844-1926)
American painter
Mary Cassatt is a well known American painter who was born in Pennsylvania, USA but lived and created her art in France. She started her formal training in art joining a Pennsilvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was 16 years old, leaving it early before she could get her diploma because she was not satisfied with an overall pace of education, curriculum, resentful and patronising attitude of her male peers. Deciding to pursue a career in art made naturally destined her to become a femininst: she was a rare female art student, her objects of drawing and painting were women in their daily life and she was an only woman recognised by her peers Impressionits. She travelled to France to study art even though her family was quite against her making a career in art. She did her studies in Paris taking private lessons in Louvre copying Old masters. Her life path as an Artist was not easy neither straight forward to world wide recognition. After her first participation at prestigious Paris Salon with one of her portraits, she had to come back to the US because of Franco-Prussian war in 1870. In her country she was struggling with funding her art supplies, trying to sell her paintings, overcoming the resistance in the family. She managed to return to Europe in 1872 participating in exhibition in Parma, Italy. It took her almost 10 years to be recognised as an established artist.In Paris she had been continuously rejected by the Salon, which was a main very much wanted place for any artist to exhibit the artworks. She was demoralised and frustrated with her observation that works done by female artists were often dismissed unless the artist had a friend or some sort of protector. Her paintings were somewhat “not good enough”, critics used to find her as “too outspoken and self centered” or “the colours were too bright and her portraits were too accurate”. At very low point in 1877 of her career she met Degas who invited her to show her works with Impressionists. She and Degas had mutual adoration of their works. She adored his pastels and he appreciated her paintings. He found one of her paintings “Mother and her child” (1899) as a “greatest painting ever”. Her painting style was very much influenced by him, other impressionists and, at some point, with Japanese prints and paintings. Today she is considered as one of the most gifted artists, a remarkable colourist and unique female Impressionist.
Portrait of Alexander J.Cassatt and his son Robert Kelso Cassatt (1884) www.marycassatt.org
Young women picking fruits (1891) www.marycassatt.org
Mother and her child (1899) http://www.marycassatt.org
Reference list
1) “Edgar Degas Artist Overview and Analysis”, (Internet) 2018 TheArtStory.org Content compiled by the Art Story Contributors, published and edited by The Art Story Contributors. http/www.theartstory.org/artist-degas-edgar.htm;
2) Schenkel, Ruth. “Edgar Degas (1834-1917): Painting and Drwaing” In Heilbronn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-
3 John Berger, “The Dark side of Degas’s ballet dancers”, theguardian.com 15.11.2011
4) Adrian Searle, “Edgar Degas: forever en pointe”, theguardian.com, 12.09.2011
5) Neill Collins, “How to appreciate Paintings. How to Analyze, interpret and Read a Fine Art Painting ”Encyclopaedia of Art Education, visual-arts-cork.com
6) “Gustav Klimt Artist Overview and Analysis” (Internet) 2018, TheArtStory.org Content compiled by the Art Story Contributors, published and edited by The Art Story Contributors. http/www.theartstory.org/artist-klimt-gustav.htm
7) http://www.klimtgallery.org
8) www.biography.com.cassattmary
JeanArt 