Degas

Degas: Odd Man Out

Degas in usually classed with the Impressionists, and he exhibited with them in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibitions. However, his training in Classical drawing and his dislike of painting directly from nature produced a style that represented a related alternative to Impressionism.

Degas's early approach is contrasted to the Impressionist, as he worked from memory for the essential and distilled the unnecessary detail; also, he set up tension within composition. The "Young Spartans" (1860) presented two groups of youths, they are positioned in frieze-like arrangement. Degas's composition revealed the real life in Ancient world. Degas evidently created the composition from a series of multi-figural drawings. He then worked not from models but directly from the preparatory drawings. This working approach is based on the Academic style.

By comparison with the other Impressionist paintings, "The Belleli Family" (1858-60) has almost a cold academic air. The picture is a portrait of a marriage, in which the strains between husband and wife have been given a visual definition. Degas managed to capture the psychology of his sitters and their feelings towards each other.
The wife stares into space, her expression is impenetrable, her hand rests gently on the table to her side and her right arm is placed protectively round the shoulder of her daughter Giovanna. The husband is isolated from his family, and the tensions and frustrations from which he suffered are captured in his awkward and unheroic pose as he sits hunched in his chair with his back to the viewer.

After 1865, under the influence of the budding Impressionist movement, he gave up Academic subjects and turned to contemporary themes. But, unlike the Impressionists he preferred to work in the studio and was uninterested in the study of natural light that fascinated them. The "L'Absinthe" (1876) depicted the actual low life of urban city. The composition of the figures is placed off-centre and the zigzagging lines of the cafe tables convey their situation in space. Degas's work is bitter and penetrating, the colouring is subdued and there is a feeling of hopelessness about the situation of the woman. It was this, which seems to have upset and strike the English public. X-radiography suggests that Degas made surprisingly few alterations to the composition. This indicated that the work was painted directly, without the benefit of preparatory drawings, and this may caccount for the great sense of spontaneity it conveys.

"Miss LaLa at the circus Fernando" (1879) portrayed an odd viewpoint, cropped forms, and tilting floors. His truncated of forms and exaggerated perspectives in this painting evoked the fragmentation and distortions occasionally found in contemporary photographs. Indeed, Degas's compositions-like the Impressionist's brushwork-conveyed a sense of spontaneity that relied on thoughtful preparation.

The ballet scenes from the 1870s and 80s are based on numerous studies, and they featured snapshot-like immediacy. Degas's primary aim was to achieve by practice the rendition of body torsion, to catch his subjects in poses as natural and spontaneous as those recorded in action photographs. "The Dance School's" (1873) emphasis is not on performance but on a moment of respite in the midst of a rehearsal. There is more movement here than in any of Degas's previous dance compositions. His study of Japanese prints led him to experiment with unusual visual angles and asymmetrical compositions. His subjects often cropped at edges, as in "The Dance Examination" (1880), the motif was developed into an extremely refined composition dominated by a strong diagonals that underline the peculiarly high angle of vision.

above: Degas, The Dance School, 1873

Among Degas's greatest portraits, the "Diego Martelli" is a striking example of his interest in unconventional angles of sight. Martelli is visualized as unaware of being seen, this revealed a sense of immediacy. He was depicted from a high viewpoint, which broke the rules of traditional portraiture. The portrait conveyed the casual and relaxing quality of the sitter's personality, which is important in this work.

Degas used photographic effect in his pictures, like "Carriage at the Races" (1872), people and objects were cut or 'cropped' by the edge of the image. The horses galloped in the background revealed the sense of contemporary movement. The "Cabaret" used again the natural cut-off device, and the closeness of the space made the viewer feel as though they were in the picture with the figures. In the dynamic composition of "Cafe Singer" (1878), the abrupt movement of her right arm is reinforced by the tilt of her head. It was not intended as finished oil, Degas allowed certain corrections he made to remain visible.

Some of Degas's image exemplified the complexity and difficulty of categorize painting. Paintings that are conceptually and visually puzzled raised questions like 'how do we see?' and 'why?'
"The Interior" or "The Rape" (1869) is an illusionistic nighttime scene, the fascinating thing is that it did not show the source of light instead showed its effects. Since its appearance, this painting has given rise to many interpretations, largely because of the recurrence of the title "The Rape". It is a deliberately ambiguous canvas, loaded with meaning.
"Woman with Lorgnette" (1870) presented a figure that is unquestionably powerful, so powerful as to become emblematic of the very act of looking. Isolated, standing by herself, the woman remains mysterious and not a little perverse as she reverses the common relationship between viewer and viewed.

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