Edgar Degas was an Impressionist painter and sculptor famously known for painting ballet dancers, he was born in Paris on the 19 July 1834, and unlike Renoir and Monet, Degas came from a wealthy family; his privileged background allowed him to create artwork like "Gentleman Jockeys" as racehorse was a luxury in his time, he also loved attending the opera and the ballet.
A combination of his love for ballet and the study of human form gave him the inspiration of producing one of the greatest triumphs in his artistic career: The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer, this was the only showing of sculpture during his lifetime and the exhibition took place in 1881.
Although Degas's work did not look composed, everything that appears random in his art was in fact carefully studied and organised in the correct place to produce a symbolically true piece of information; the great deal of calculation reflected in his artwork was explained by the artist... "No art could be less spontaneous tan mine. Inspiration, spontaneity, temperament are unknown to me. One has to do the same subject ten times, even a hundred times over. In art, nothing should look like chance, note even movement" Edgar Degas.
The present article is neither a biography or Edgar Degas nor a study of his paintings. The main focus is in fact his fascination to copy artwork by famous and respectable artists, considered by him as "The Old Masters". Aged only 19 years, Degas was registered as a copyist at the Louvre Museum in Paris and by 1860; he had drawn over seven hundred copies of other works, especially early Italian Renaissance and French classical art.
Degas spent a great deal of time at the Louvre studying and copying the works of these artists, as well as that of their contemporaries and had claimed to have copied all the old masters in the Louvre.
He was actually an enthusiastic copyist well into middle age but his style reflected a deep respect for the old masters; his main motive was to supplement his art studies and uncover their techniques; learn from the best, for example when he copied Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Degas tried to copy Mantegna's method of building up the canvas with layers of cool and warm tones; however, when he copied Mantegna?s crucifixion, this was not an exact reproduction of the original, but an attempt to capture the atmosphere and strong colours, in a mood beyond the dry linearity of Mantegna.
This technique helped him to develop and improve his skills and to became one of the most famous and respectable painters of all times, a true old Master.
"It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory" Edgar Degas
On the 27 September 1917 Degas dies and is buried in the family grave in Montmartre Cemetery.
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