Edgar Degas - Biography Of The French Artist Renowned For His Figure Painting

The career of Edgar Degas was a long one - abouthowever the extreme cold during the siege of Paris
60 years out of his total 83. And his style, unlike that ofaffected his health badly and at the start of the Paris
most famous artists who worked into their old age,Commune he went to rest in the Orne with his friends
never ceased developing, always seeking out newthe Valpincon family.It was during the 1870's that
means of expression and technique.The art dealerDegas acquired his reputation as a painter of dancers.
Ambroise Vollard one day asked him why he hadThe reasons for his interest in dance were numerous
never married, to which he replied that he would live inand diverse but certainly stem from his life-long
constant fear that, whenever he completed a newenthusiasm for music and the opera. The interior of the
painting, he would hear my wife say 'That's so prettyopera house also had many visual attractions - the
what you've done there!'. In fact, despite today's almostpossibility of unusual views onto the stage from
universal appreciation and popularity of his images, itbalconies or the orchestral pit, contrasts between light
was never a conventional sense of beauty thatand darkness, illusion and reality, beauty and
attracted his talents.Hilaire Germain Edgar de Gas (itbanality.After the theme of dance it was the
was only later that he started to sign his worksracecourse that drew most of his attention.
'Degas') was born in Paris, the eldest of three boysRacecourses were a new phenomenon in France,
and two girls born to a prosperous banker from abeing introduced there from England in the 19th century.
Neapolitan family and his Creole wife from NewThe Longchamp stadium opened in 1857 and it was
Orleans. He was actually named after his grandfathersthis course which inspired Degas, Manet and, later,
- Hilaire Degas, a banker from Naples, and GermainToulouse-Lautrec. The exclusive Jockey Club was
Musson, a New Orleans merchant. However hisinaugurated in 1833 and it naturally attracted the same
mother was to die when he was only 13 years old.Heupper classes who attended the Paris Opera.His first
was educated at the lycee Louis-le-Grand, a famouspersonal exhibition, which was held at the Durand-Ruel
school for the elite, where he received a classicalgallery in 1892, consisted of an extraordinary series of
education and also met his long-time friends Henrisemi-abstract monotypes with enhanced colours
Rouart, Paul Valpincon and Ludovic Halevy. Havingrepresenting mysterious landscapes. Besides such
received his baccalaureat in 1853, he enrolled at thelandscapes his style wasn't to change dramatically
Faculty of Law, although he preferred to spend hisfrom then on, although his subjects tended to grow in
time in the print room of the Louvre where he haddimension - whereas previously, for example, he would
already made some copies from engravings, and alsohave depicted a whole dance troupe, he now
visiting the painting studios of Felix Barrias and Louisconcentrated on perhaps just two or three figures in
Lamothe. In 1855 he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Artsthe foreground. This was undoubtedly to some extend
and began to study officially with Lamothe, a pupil ofdue to his failing eyesight.Degas himself gave another
Ingres.Not needing to study and compete for the Prixexplanation for the mysterious power of his later
de Rome, in 1856 he set out for Italy, first visiting hisworks: "It's one thing to copy what one sees, but it's
family in Naples. In October 1857 he visited Romemuch better to draw what can only be seen in one's
where he met Gustave Moreau, already an influentialmemory. It's a transformation during which the
figure eight years his elder. They became close friendsimagination collaborates with the memory ... there your
and visited Florence together between June andrecollections and fantasies are freed from the tyranny
August 1858.From 1865 to1870 Degas exhibited eachexerted by nature."Degas continued to struggle against
year at the Paris Salon. He also became friendly withhis blindness and worked up to about 1912 when he
Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet and, in the summerwas forced to leave his apartment where he had lived
of 1869, joined Manet in Boulogne andfor the past quarter century and move to a more
Saint-Valery-en-Caux where he painted someconvenient address in the Boulevard de Clichy. But it
landscapes. Of all the artists of the time, it isproved to be an ordeal from which he never fully
doubtlessly Manet with whom he had the greatestrecovered and, despite the huge international success
affinity. They were both older than most of theand high prices commanded by his works from 1900
Impressionist circle and both came from prosperousonwards, he became sad and indifferent to the glory.
families so they could also meet socially within theirHe died on 27th September 1917 during the wartime,
family circles.The tragic events of the Franco-Prussianmaking his death go almost unnoticed by the world -
war and the Paris Commune of the years 1870-71,although perhaps a fitting end for the man who had
together with a lengthy stay in Louisiana visiting hisonce said "I would like to be famous but unknown"! He
family from October 1872 to March 1873, marked bothwas buried in the cemetery of Montmartre.Learn more
an interruption and a turning point in his career. At theabout Edgar Degas and find other biographical writing
outbreak of the war he joined the national guardby Bianca Tavares at Vintage Art.
together with his friend Manet and many other artists,