Behind every Edgar Degas (1834-1917) painting lies a contradiction. The artist who captured ballet dancers with unmatched precision refused to call himself an “Impressionist.”
Born into a wealthy banking family in Paris, Degas created works that now hang in the Musée d’Orsay and Metropolitan Museum of Art, yet he exhibited primarily with artistic rebels.
His pastels of ballerinas at the Paris Opera House reveal both technical mastery and psychological insight rarely combined before.
This article explores the life and work of the French artist who:
- Transformed drawing technique while maintaining classical draftsmanship
- Documented Bohemian Paris through theater scenes and café interiors
- Pioneered bronze sculptures and printmaking techniques that influenced generations
- Created stunning portraits spanning from aristocrats to laundresses
Through exploring Degas’s artistic evolution from academic training to experimental innovator, we discover an artist who bridged tradition and modernism through uncompromising observation of the world around him.
Early Life and Artistic Development
Family Background and Upbringing
Edgar Degas (1834-1917) entered the world in Paris to a wealthy banking family. His father, a cultured banker and art collector, sparked young Edgar’s early interest in visual expression.
The Degas household buzzed with artistic appreciation—walls adorned with small but significant collection pieces that later shaped the boy’s aesthetic sensibilities.
Born into privilege, Degas received education fitting his social station. His early notebooks reveal a child already obsessed with line and form.
At the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, teachers noted his drawing skills. While his family expected a law career, his sketches told different stories.
The family’s financial stability allowed young Edgar to pursue artistic training without the pressure many contemporaries faced.
This foundation would later enable his private art collector habits and independence from commercial pressures.
His father’s enthusiasm for the Louvre Museum created formative experiences. Together they wandered through galleries, where Edgar copied Renaissance masters with remarkable precision.
These early influences remained visible throughout his career, even as his style evolved toward Impressionism and beyond.
Formal Training
Degas’s academic journey began at the École des Beaux-Arts, where rigid classical methods shaped his foundational techniques.
Under Louis Lamothe, a disciple of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, he developed exceptional draftsmanship that distinguished his work throughout his career.
His training emphasized:
- Precise anatomical understanding
- Meticulous drawing technique
- Classical composition principles
- Historical subject hierarchy
Unlike some contemporaries who rebelled against academic traditions, Degas absorbed them fully before transforming them.
His sketchbooks from this period reveal a disciplined student mastering human anatomy with obsessive detail.
The young artist traveled to Italy, spending three years studying classical and Renaissance works.
There, he filled notebooks with studies of Botticelli, Raphael, and other Italian Renaissance artists who influenced his approach to composition and form.
Early Works and Influences
His earliest paintings reveal both academic training and emerging personal vision. Historical paintings like “The Bellelli Family portrait” demonstrated technical mastery while hinting at psychological complexity that would later define his work.
Meeting Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres proved pivotal. The aging master advised: “Draw lines, young man, many lines.”
This counsel reinforced Degas’s belief in drawing as the foundation of artistic expression—a principle he maintained even when his Impressionist colleagues emphasized color over line.
Early history paintings showed remarkable technical skill but didn’t ignite his passion.
After copying masterworks at the Louvre Museum, Degas gradually shifted toward contemporary subjects that would become his signature focus.
Degas and Impressionism
Connection to the Impressionist Circle
Despite his association with the Impressionist movement, Degas maintained a complex relationship with the group.
His connections to key Impressionist figures like Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt placed him at the movement’s center, yet his artistic approach often diverged from theirs.
Degas participated in seven of eight Impressionist exhibitions between 1874-1886, showing works alongside peers while maintaining artistic independence.
The first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874 included his “Ballet Rehearsal,” marking his public association with the revolutionary group.
His relationship with fellow artists mixed collaboration and criticism. While respecting Monet’s atmospheric effects, Degas prioritized structure over sensation.
With Mary Cassatt, he shared techniques and subjects, developing a productive artistic dialogue marked by mutual influence.
Degas’s Distinct Approach to Impressionism
While Impressionists captured outdoor landscapes, Degas preferred Parisian cafes, ballet rehearsal scenes, and interior settings.
His urban scenes focused on human activity within modern spaces rather than rural tranquility.
Light fascinated him, but not natural sunlight. Instead, he explored:
- Theatrical lighting effects in ballet performances
- Gaslit interiors of Parisian nightlife
- Artificial illumination in millinery shops
- Manipulated studio light for figure studies
His palette differed from typical Impressionist color schemes. Where Monet used vibrant, broken color, Degas employed more controlled tonal values.
His compositions showed careful arrangement rather than spontaneous captures of fleeting moments.
Technical innovations set him apart. While others worked rapidly outdoors, Degas meticulously constructed studio pieces, often using photography influence to inform unusual perspectives and framing techniques.
The “Reluctant Impressionist” Label
Degas resisted the “Impressionist” label, preferring “realist” instead. He once stated: “No art was ever less spontaneous than mine.”
This resistance to plein-air painting and emphasis on studio work marked his independence from core Impressionist principles.
His artistic evolution followed a different path than peers. While maintaining connections to the Bohemian Paris art scene, he worked methodically, revising pieces repeatedly rather than capturing immediate impressions.
The ballet dancers and racetrack art that defined his public image reflected his interest in modern life, but his approach remained rooted in academic training.
His modern art influence stemmed not from rejecting tradition but from transforming it.
Critics noted his distinctive position. One contemporary review observed: “Monsieur Degas’s ballet scenes reveal more about movement than any plein-air landscape.”
This captured his unique contribution—bringing academic precision to contemporary subjects while maintaining aesthetic independence that transcended any single movement.
Ballet and Theater Subjects
Fascination with the Ballet World
Edgar Degas developed an unparalleled obsession with the Paris Opera House and its dancers.
His first encounters with ballet came through family connections that granted him rare backstage access. This privileged position transformed his art.
Unlike casual theatergoers who saw only polished performances, Degas observed rehearsals, practice sessions, and the exhausted moments between. He sketched constantly. His notebooks filled with quick studies of movement.
Relationships with dancers ranged from professional to personal. Some merely posed.
Others became confidantes who shared insights into their difficult profession. This intimate knowledge gave his ballet works authenticity that casual observers couldn’t achieve.
The Paris Opera became his second studio. He wandered freely through rehearsal rooms, capturing moments others never witnessed:
- Dancers stretching at the barre
- Exhausted performers resting between practices
- Instructors making corrections
- The contrast between public glamour and private strain
Major Ballet Works
“The Dance Class” series represents some of his most recognized work. These compositions reveal the rigorous training behind effortless-seeming performances.
In these scenes, young women strain under the watchful eye of ballet master Jules Perrot, their bodies contorted in disciplined poses.
Ballet Rehearsal paintings capture different moments in dancers’ working lives. “The Rehearsal” (1873) shows dancers practicing while a musician plays.
The unusual perspective – viewed from above – creates a flattened composition that emphasizes pattern over depth.
“The Star” depicts a soloist taking her bow while other dancers wait in the wings.
The contrast between bright stage lighting effects and shadowy backstage creates dramatic tension. This juxtaposition revealed Degas’ interest in the boundary between performance and reality.
Technical and Artistic Innovations in Ballet Works
Degas revolutionized composition through unexpected viewpoints. He cropped figures at canvas edges. He positioned spectators in foreground shadows.
These techniques, influenced by Japanese prints and photography influence, created dynamic, asymmetrical arrangements that felt modern and spontaneous despite careful planning.
His mastery in capturing movement set him apart from contemporaries. Dancers appear mid-gesture, their positions anatomically precise yet flowing.
This reflected his extensive drawing technique and endless observation of rehearsal scenes.
The artist’s use of pastels brought vibrancy to ballet works. Layered colors created luminous effects perfect for capturing tulle costumes under stage lights.
His color palette evolved from earlier muted tones to brighter hues that conveyed theatrical atmosphere.
Beyond technical brilliance, these works revealed the reality behind the glamour. Dancers appear tired, adjusting costumes, or receiving criticism.
This unromanticized view distinguished his ballet paintings from more sentimental contemporary portrayals.
Cultural Context of Ballet in 19th Century Paris
The social status of ballet dancers during the Belle Époque was complex. While publicly celebrated, many came from working-class backgrounds and survived on meager wages. Some relied on wealthy male patrons.
Degas neither romanticized nor condemned this system. He observed. His backstage scenes acknowledge both the artistic dedication and economic realities these women faced.
The Paris Opéra represented the cultural heart of French society. Performances attracted aristocrats, artists, and the rising bourgeoisie.
By focusing on this world, Degas documented a pivotal cultural institution during a transformative period in French history.
Ballet became a metaphor in Degas’s work – for discipline, artifice, and the contrast between public presentation and private reality.
These themes extended beyond dance subjects into his broader artistic concerns with modern Parisian life.
Portraits and Figure Studies
Approach to Portraiture
Degas’s earliest portraits showed his academic training while hinting at psychological depth absent in conventional portraiture.
“The Bellelli Family” (1858-1867) demonstrates his ability to capture family relationships through subtle postures and expressions.
His portraits of friends and fellow artists reveal intimate knowledge of subjects.
The portrait of Mary Cassatt at the Louvre shows her thoughtfully examining artwork – capturing both her physical presence and intellectual engagement.
Unlike many portraitists, Degas rarely flattered sitters. He sought character over beauty. This honesty sometimes strained relationships with subjects who expected more conventional treatment.
As his style evolved, portraiture became increasingly experimental in composition and technique.
Women in Everyday Life
Working women fascinated Degas. His laundresses bend over steaming basins, their bodies shaped by repetitive labor.
These compositions honor female physical strength while acknowledging harsh working conditions.
Millinery shops appear frequently in his middle period. These scenes of women creating and selling fashionable hats capture another dimension of female labor.
The contrast between wealthy customers and shop workers reveals Parisian social hierarchies.
The “Women at their toilette” series depicts intimate moments of bathing and grooming.
These works caused controversy through their unidealized female nudes and voyeuristic perspectives.
Yet they remain among his most technically innovative pastels and demonstrate his color palette’s evolution toward richer, more expressive tones.
His representation of women’s labor shows remarkable range – from theatrical performers to textile workers, milliners to bathing women.
Each subject receives equally careful observation, regardless of social class.
The “Bathers” Series
The “After the Bath” series emerged in Degas’s later career. These pastel drawings show women drying after bathing, combing hair, or examining themselves in mirrors. Private, vulnerable moments frozen in rich color.
Technical aspects reveal his late-career mastery:
- Layered pastel application creating luminous skin tones
- Bold compositional cropping that fragments figures
- Unusual viewpoints suggesting voyeuristic observation
- Increasingly abstract handling of background elements
The origins of this series likely stemmed from his interest in capturing unguarded human movement.
Models posed in his studio, where he could control lighting and perspective to create his distinctive compositions.
Critical reception proved mixed. Some recognized their artistic innovation; others found them disturbing in their frank depiction of female bodies.
The National Gallery of Art and other major museums now celebrate these works as pivotal in bridging Impressionism and modern art’s development.
These bathers embody Degas’s late-career concerns: the human figure captured through increasingly experimental techniques.
The series shows how far his art had evolved from academic beginnings while maintaining his core interest in drawing technique and figure studies.
Technical Innovations and Methods
Drawing and Draftsmanship
Edgar Degas built his artistic foundation on exceptional draftsmanship. His emphasis on line and form distinguished him from other Impressionists who prioritized color effects over structural precision.
“Draw lines, young man, many lines,” advised his mentor Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres—advice Degas followed throughout his career.
His sketching techniques evolved constantly. Early studies show precise academic rendering.
Later works reveal looser, more expressive lines capturing essential movement with minimal marks. This evolution demonstrates his growing confidence and changing artistic priorities.
Daily practice sharpened his skills. Sketchbooks filled with rapid figure studies show his process:
- Quick gestural captures of moving subjects
- Repeated studies of specific poses from multiple angles
- Anatomical details examined through sequential drawings
- Notes about color and light for later studio development
For Degas, drawing formed the foundation for all other media. Even his oil paintings began as carefully plotted compositions, unlike the spontaneous approach of Claude Monet and other plein-air painters.
This methodical process linked him more to Renaissance masters than to contemporary Impressionists.
Experiments with Pastels
Degas revolutionized pastel techniques, transforming what had been considered a minor medium into a powerful tool for color expression.
His revival of pastels coincided with his increasing focus on ballet dancers and female bathers, subjects that benefited from the medium’s luminous quality.
Technical innovation marked his pastel approach. He layered colors, creating rich depth impossible in traditional applications.
He fixed intermediate layers with casein or other fixatives, then added more pigment—building surfaces with remarkable textural qualities that captured both the gauzy tutus of dancers and the soft flesh of his bathers.
Renowned works like “After the Bath” series showcase his pastel mastery. These pieces demonstrate how he achieved oil painting’s richness with the directness of drawing.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection includes numerous examples showing his pastel evolution from early, more traditional applications to later experimental techniques.
Degas pushed pastels beyond conventional boundaries, adding gouache, tempera, and even steam to manipulate the medium.
These experimental processes allowed him to achieve his distinctive atmospheric effects while maintaining structural integrity.
Printmaking Techniques
Monotypes became central to Degas’s artistic practice during the 1870s.
This printmaking technique—creating unique impressions by drawing on inked plates—suited his interest in capturing transient effects. His monotype process often involved:
- Covering a metal plate with ink
- Removing ink with brushes, rags, and fingers to create images
- Running the plate through a press
- Sometimes adding pastel to the resulting print
The Ballet Rehearsal monotypes demonstrate how this process allowed him to experiment with stage lighting effects more freely than in painting.
Dark backgrounds with figures emerging from shadows created dramatic theatrical atmospheres impossible to achieve in other media.
His etchings and lithographs display similar experimentation. He manipulated traditional printmaking processes, deliberately exploiting “accidental” effects and incorporating them into finished works.
This approach underscored his belief that artistic discovery often emerged through material engagement rather than preconceived ideas.
Late Career Sculpture
“Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” stands as Degas’s most famous sculptural work. Exhibited in 1881, this wax figure dressed in real fabric shocked viewers with its unidealized realism.
The sculpture captured a young Paris Opera dancer in a casual pose, challenging conventional expectations of classical sculpture.
Other wax and bronze sculptures focused primarily on dancers and horses—subjects that allowed Degas to explore his fascination with movement.
These small-scale works rarely exceeded thirty inches, maintaining an intimate quality different from monumental public sculpture of the period.
Innovation in sculptural materials set Degas apart from contemporaries. He incorporated real hair, fabric ribbons, and actual ballet slippers into wax figures—creating unsettling hybrids of representation and reality.
This mixed-media approach anticipated later 20th-century sculptural practices by decades.
Degas never intended many of these sculptures for public display. After his death, the Degas Estate authorized bronze castings from fragile wax originals, preserving works that might otherwise have deteriorated.
These posthumous bronzes now appear in major museums worldwide, including the Musée d’Orsay and the National Gallery of Art.
Artistic Process and Working Methods
Studio Practice
Degas maintained rigorous studio discipline throughout his career. Unlike peers who embraced outdoor painting, he preferred controlled indoor environments where he could perfect compositions without natural light’s variability.
His daily routines centered on morning drawing sessions followed by afternoon painting—a schedule he maintained with remarkable consistency.
Organization bordered on obsession. His studio contained:
- Carefully arranged reference drawings sorted by subject
- Boxes of pastels organized by color family
- Sculptures positioned for consistent lighting
- Models’ accessories and costumes for ballet scenes
Reference materials surrounded him. Dance manuals, photographs, and sketches from rehearsals informed his ballet paintings.
For racetrack art, he compiled studies of horses in motion alongside jockey silks and racing programs—building comprehensive visual libraries for each subject area.
Revisions defined his process. Degas rarely considered works finished, often reworking pieces over years or even decades.
X-ray analysis of paintings like “The Dance Class” reveals multiple compositional changes beneath final surfaces. This perfectionism sometimes frustrated dealers and collectors but produced works of extraordinary refinement.
Use of Photography
Photography’s influence appears throughout Degas’s mature work. Though photography remained technically primitive during his early career, he recognized its potential for capturing fleeting moments and unusual perspectives.
He collected photographs, used them as reference materials, and even experimented with camera work himself.
His interest in photographic techniques transformed his compositional approach. Works featuring:
- Sharply cropped figures extending beyond frame edges
- Subjects viewed from above or unusual angles
- Flattened spatial relationships
- Figures frozen mid-movement
All show photography’s impact on his visual thinking. These photo-like effects in paintings anticipated cinematic framing decades before film emerged as an artistic medium.
Unlike academic artists who concealed photographic reference use, Degas openly acknowledged photography’s value.
His friendship with photographer Nadar connected him to Paris’s photographic pioneers. This artistic cross-pollination produced compositions that seem strikingly modern even today.
Evolution of Style Over Time
Degas’s early academic style reflected his École des Beaux-Arts training.
Historical paintings like “The Bellelli Family portrait” demonstrated technical precision and classical composition, though already showing psychological insight beyond conventional academic work.
His middle period brought his most significant innovations. Between the 1870s-1890s, he developed his signature subjects: ballet rehearsal scenes, cafe interiors, horse racing, and intimate female portraits.
This period saw him participate in Impressionist exhibitions while maintaining his distinct approach focused on line, composition, and indoor subjects.
Late career stylistic changes revealed increasing abstraction. As his eyesight problems worsened, his work became bolder, with stronger color contrasts and simplified forms.
Pastels from this period show less detail but greater emotional intensity—suggesting artistic growth continued even as physical capabilities diminished.
Throughout these transitions, certain constants remained: his commitment to drawing technique, interest in capturing movement, and focus on modern urban life.
This consistency amid stylistic evolution reveals an artist methodically exploring visual possibilities while remaining true to core artistic concerns.
Themes and Subject Matter
Modern Urban Life
Edgar Degas captured the pulse of 19th-century Paris with uncommon perception. His urban scenes documented a city transformed by industrialization and social change. Unlike contemporaries who fled to rural settings, Degas embraced modern metropolitan existence.
Parisian cafes feature prominently in his work. “L’Absinthe” depicts a couple sitting in isolated silence despite their public setting.
The woman stares vacantly at her glass of absinthe, revealing urban alienation beneath social pleasantries.
These cafe scenes expose psychological realities of modern life rather than just recording locations.
Horse racing fascinated Degas throughout his career. At the tracks, he observed:
- Jockeys preparing before races
- Horses in dynamic motion
- Spectators from various social classes
- The modern spectacle of organized leisure
These racetrack art pieces captured both sporting excitement and newly emerging forms of public entertainment.
The Jockey Club scenes documented both athletic movement and social rituals of the French upper classes.
Public and private spaces blur in Degas’s work. Shop interiors, theater backstages, and domestic settings reveal boundaries between social spheres.
This interest in threshold spaces—neither fully public nor private—distinguishes his urban vision from other Impressionists who focused primarily on public parks or boulevards.
Social Class and its Representation
The bourgeoisie and upper classes appear throughout Degas’s oeuvre. The artist himself came from this milieu, giving him insider perspective on their habits and environments.
His portraits capture the self-assurance of the newly powerful commercial class without flattery or sentimentality.
Working-class subjects received equally careful observation. Laundresses bend under heavy irons, millinery shop workers craft fashionable hats, and ballet dancers strain through endless rehearsals.
His textile workers series documents female labor with unusual attention to physical effort and workplace conditions.
Contrasts between social spheres emerge organically in his compositions. At the races, elegantly dressed spectators stand near working grooms. In ballet scenes, wealthy male patrons observe working-class dancers.
These juxtapositions never become heavy-handed social commentary—Degas observes rather than judges these class interactions.
The Paris Opera House itself functioned as a microcosm of French society, where wealthy patrons, middle-class audiences, and working performers coexisted in structured hierarchy.
Degas’s comprehensive documentation of this world reveals his fascination with social stratification in modern urban settings.
Psychological Aspects
Isolation emerges as a recurring theme across Degas’s diverse subjects. Figures often appear psychologically disconnected despite physical proximity.
This emotional distance reflects the artist’s perception of modern urban experience—people together yet apart in crowded urban spaces.
The voyeuristic qualities in his work create unsettling viewer experiences. We observe private moments not meant for public view: women bathing, dancers adjusting costumes, people lost in thought.
This perspective places viewers in ambiguous ethical positions—making us complicit in these intimate observations.
Emotional undertones infuse seemingly ordinary scenes. A milliner examining a hat displays subtle frustration; a café patron stares into empty space; a dancer slumps in exhaustion.
These psychological nuances transform genre scenes into complex human documents beyond mere documentation of daily life.
The combination of psychological insight with technical mastery distinguishes Degas from contemporaries more concerned with optical effects than emotional states.
His private art collector habits also reflected this interest—acquiring works that explored psychological complexity rather than merely pleasing effects.
Critical Reception and Legacy
Contemporary Reception
Critical responses during Degas’s lifetime varied dramatically. Early reviews praised his technical skill while questioning his subject choices and unconventional compositions. As his style evolved, critical confusion increased.
One Salon critic wrote: “Monsieur Degas possesses undeniable talent, but why waste it on laundresses and dancers?”
The Impressionist Exhibition of 1874 marked a turning point in his public reception.
Showing “Ballet Rehearsal” alongside works by Claude Monet and other Impressionists positioned him within the avant-garde, though his work differed significantly from the group’s landscape focus.
Public reception remained mixed throughout his career. Upper-class viewers often found his unflattering social portrayals disturbing, while artistic circles increasingly recognized his innovations.
By the 1890s, younger artists like Mary Cassatt openly acknowledged his influence on their work.
Financial matters proved less problematic for Degas than for many contemporaries. His banking family background provided independence from commercial pressures, allowing artistic experimentation without concern for sales.
Nevertheless, dealer Paul Durand-Ruel successfully marketed his work to collectors interested in modern French painting.
Influence on Other Artists
Impact on contemporaries proved significant though often subtle. Mary Cassatt’s compositions showing women in domestic settings clearly reflect his influence.
Their artistic dialogue produced mutual benefits—she gained compositional strategies while introducing him to Japanese printmaking techniques.
Post-Impressionists acknowledged Degas’s importance to their development. His willingness to distort natural appearances for expressive purposes opened possibilities that artists like Toulouse-Lautrec expanded further.
The psychological undertones in his work similarly influenced developing Expressionist tendencies.
His legacy in 20th century art extends beyond obvious stylistic connections. His compositional innovations—cropping, unusual viewpoints, flattened space—anticipated both photography’s impact on painting and abstracting tendencies in modern art.
Artists as diverse as Picasso and Sargent studied his techniques.
Feminist art history has reassessed Degas’s portrayal of women with complex results.
His unflinching observation of female labor and private moments provides valuable historical documentation, yet his voyeuristic perspective raises ongoing questions about gaze and representation that continue to influence contemporary artistic discourse.
Place in Art History
Reassessment of Degas over time reveals his pivotal position between academic tradition and modernist innovation.
Initially considered primarily a painter of dancers and racehorses, scholarly perspectives now recognize his crucial role in transforming 19th-century artistic practice across multiple media.
Current scholarly views emphasize several key contributions:
- Technical innovations in pastel and monotype techniques
- Revolutionary approach to composition and spatial organization
- Documentation of modern urban experience across class boundaries
- Exploration of movement and temporality that anticipated cinema
- Unprecedented focus on female labor and daily experience
Museum representation reflects his secure position in art history. Major institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée d’Orsay, and National Gallery of Art maintain significant Degas collections.
The Louvre Museum acquisition of key works confirms his place in the artistic canon.
Market value continues to rise. At recent auctions, major pastels have exceeded $20 million, placing him among the most valuable 19th-century artists.
This commercial validation parallels scholarly recognition of his unique position bridging traditional techniques and modern sensibilities.
His legacy transcends easy categorization. Neither fully academic nor completely avant-garde, Degas created his own artistic path.
The term “reluctant Impressionist” captures this independence—participating in revolutionary movements while maintaining critical distance.
This complex position makes him particularly relevant to contemporary artists navigating traditional skills and conceptual innovation.
Personal Life and Character
Personality and Relationships
Edgar Degas cultivated a reputation for difficulty. Sharp-tongued and opinionated, he kept even friends at careful distance.
Fellow artists respected his talent but approached with caution. Renoir reportedly quipped, “What a creature he is, that Degas! All his friends have to leave him.”
His friendships with other artists revealed complex dynamics. Claude Monet maintained a cautious respect despite disagreements about outdoor painting.
Mary Cassatt developed the closest artistic dialogue with him, though even this relationship weathered storms of his critical temperament.
Family relationships centered on his brothers and nieces after his parents’ deaths. He never married. His correspondence reveals deep family loyalty despite his growing reclusiveness.
The Cotton Office in New Orleans painting documented his extended American family during his 1872 visit—a rare personal glimpse into his private connections.
Three qualities defined his social interactions:
- Unflinching honesty regardless of social consequences
- Intellectual rigor that demanded excellence
- Sardonic humor that both charmed and wounded
As private art collector, he acquired works by contemporaries he respected—Manet, Cézanne, Gauguin—often supporting them financially through purchases while publicly criticizing their techniques.
Political and Social Views
Conservative political leanings set Degas apart from many artistic contemporaries. While Impressionists generally aligned with Republican politics, Degas maintained monarchist sympathies throughout his life. This political divergence created tension within his artistic circle.
The anti-Semitism controversy marks the most troubling aspect of his biography.
During the Dreyfus Affair that divided French society, Degas took strongly anti-Dreyfusard positions. His prejudice cost him friendships, including with the Jewish artist Camille Pissarro.
His views on art and society reflected similar conservatism. Despite painting modern subjects, he idealized earlier artistic traditions.
“There is a little too much liberty in the modern world,” he once remarked.
This tension between forward-looking artistic technique and backward-looking social views characterizes his complex historical position.
The Salon de Paris represented established artistic authority that most Impressionists rejected.
Degas maintained ambivalence—participating in independent exhibitions while respecting traditional institutions.
This reflected his broader social outlook: critical of present conditions while skeptical of progressive solutions.
Later Years
Declining eyesight profoundly affected his late career. Beginning in his fifties, progressive vision problems eventually prevented detailed work. Rather than abandon art, he adapted:
- Shifting from oils to pastels with bolder colors
- Creating larger, more simplified forms
- Focusing on sculpture that relied on touch
- Exploring monotypes that embraced accidental effects
His increasing reclusiveness paralleled these physical challenges. By the 1890s, he rarely attended social functions, receiving only select visitors to his studio.
The vibrant social observer gradually withdrew from the Parisian scenes he once documented.
Final works show remarkable evolution despite physical limitations. The late bathers series displays growing abstraction and emotional intensity.
Colors become more vivid, forms more expressive. Physical constraint paradoxically liberated his artistic approach, pointing toward 20th-century developments.
Artistic concerns remained consistent despite evolving techniques. Movement, composition, and the human figure—especially female forms—dominated his work from beginning to end.
The late pastel drawings maintain his lifelong interest in capturing fleeting moments, though executed with broader strokes necessitated by failing vision.
He died in 1917, largely withdrawn from public life but actively working until near the end. The Degas Estate revealed numerous previously unknown sculptures and pastels created during his isolated final years.
These posthumous discoveries have enriched understanding of his artistic journey and expanded his already significant influence on subsequent generations of artists.
FAQ on Edgar Degas
What is Edgar Degas most famous for?
Edgar Degas is most renowned for his ballet dancers paintings and pastel drawings. His “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” sculpture also stands as a groundbreaking work.
Beyond ballet, his racetrack art, intimate female bathers, and Parisian café scenes established him as a master of capturing modern urban life and movement.
When did Edgar Degas live?
Degas lived from 1834 to 1917, spanning France’s Belle Époque era. Born into a wealthy banking family in Paris, he witnessed dramatic social and artistic changes throughout his 83 years, from Napoleon III’s Second Empire through the Third Republic and World War I’s beginning.
Was Edgar Degas an Impressionist?
Though he exhibited with the Impressionist Exhibition group from 1874-1886, Degas rejected the label.
His emphasis on drawing technique, indoor settings, and structured compositions differed from typical Impressionism. He preferred being called a “realist” despite clear connections to the movement through his modern subject matter.
What techniques did Degas use?
Degas mastered multiple techniques:
- Pastels with revolutionary layering methods
- Oil paintings with meticulous composition
- Monotypes and experimental printmaking processes
- Bronze sculptures created initially in wax
- Photography influence in framing and perspective
His draftsmanship remained foundational across all media.
Why did Degas paint ballet dancers?
Degas’s fascination with the Paris Opera House provided access to backstage rehearsal scenes where he could study movement, artificial lighting, and the contrast between public performance and private reality.
Ballet subjects allowed him to combine his interests in theatrical settings, female figures, and capturing moments of physical strain behind apparent grace.
What influenced Edgar Degas’s art?
His art reflects diverse influences:
- Academic training at École des Beaux-Arts
- Italian Renaissance masters viewed at the Louvre Museum
- Japanese printmaking techniques
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s emphasis on line
- Modern photography’s compositional approach
- Parisian theater and urban nightlife
This synthesis of classical and modern created his unique style.
Did Edgar Degas have a family?
Degas never married or had children. His family relationships centered on his father (a banker and art enthusiast), his brothers, and extended relatives.
The Bellelli Family portrait depicts his Italian aunt’s household. He maintained connections with his American relatives in New Orleans, visiting them in 1872.
How valuable are Degas artworks today?
Original Degas works command exceptional prices. Major pastels have sold for over $20 million at auction.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée d’Orsay, and National Gallery of Art hold significant collections.
His market value continues rising as museums and private art collectors recognize his pivotal position between academic tradition and modernism.
What health problems affected Degas’s work?
Degas suffered progressive eyesight problems beginning in his fifties. This visual deterioration profoundly shaped his late career, forcing adaptations including:
- Bolder, more vibrant color palettes
- Larger, less detailed forms
- Greater reliance on sculptural work using touch
- Simplified compositions with stronger contrasts
These limitations paradoxically contributed to his stylistic development.
Was Degas controversial in his lifetime?
Degas generated controversy through both art and personality. His unidealized female bathers shocked contemporaries, while his anti-Semitism during the Dreyfus Affair damaged relationships with fellow artists.
Known for irascibility and cutting remarks, he maintained few close friendships despite his place in Bohemian Paris artistic circles.
Conclusion
Edgar Degas remains a pivotal figure in art history precisely because he defied categorization. Through ballet rehearsal scenes and private bathers, he captured human movement with unprecedented authenticity. His legacy bridges academic training and modernist experimentation, reshaping how later generations approached figure studies and composition techniques.
The French artist’s contribution extends beyond his signature subjects:
- His monotypes revitalized a nearly forgotten printmaking process
- His bronze sculptures challenged traditional sculptural approaches
- His mastery of drawing technique influenced countless artists
- His exploration of color and form anticipated 20th-century developments
From the National Gallery of Art to private collections worldwide, Degas’s work continues revealing new dimensions.
A reluctant Impressionist who became an essential modernist, he demonstrates how artistic innovation often emerges from tensions between tradition and experimentation.
His complex legacy – both technically brilliant and psychologically perceptive – ensures his continued relevance in contemporary artistic discourse.
