Born into a Parisian banking family, Edgar Degas developed a rigorous grounding in drawing. He copied Old Master paintings at the Louvre and spent three years in Italy studying art. His early portraits and historical subjects gave way to contemporary life: racecourses, theatres and ballet studios became places to investigate how bodies move through space.
Born into a Parisian banking family, Degas trained with Louis Lamothe and studied the example of Ingres. Time in Italy brought sustained encounters with Renaissance painting. His early ambitions included history pictures, but portraiture and the modern city gradually offered more compelling material. Careful drawing remained the foundation beneath his increasingly unusual compositions.
An independent kind of Impressionist
Degas helped organise the independent exhibitions that established Impressionism, although he preferred to describe himself as a realist. Unlike painters chiefly concerned with outdoor light, he explored artificial illumination and carefully studied poses. Unusual viewpoints and unexpected framing make his scenes feel glimpsed in passing. Behind that apparent immediacy lies an exacting process of observation, drawing and revision.
A visit to relatives in New Orleans in 1872–73 produced paintings of family members and the cotton business. In Paris, ballet rehearsals, racecourses and working women became recurring subjects. He exhibited with the Impressionists while favouring the studio over outdoor painting, developing images through studies, memory and repeated adjustments rather than a single rapid observation.
Experiment without rest
As his eyesight deteriorated, pastel and sculpture became increasingly important. Working in wax allowed him to investigate bodies through touch as well as sight, while the layered colour of pastel extended his pictorial range. His later years were more withdrawn, but his experiments left a powerful example for artists exploring movement, cropping and the tension between observation and invention.
Degas worked across oil painting, pastel, printmaking and sculpture, testing combinations of materials and ways to record movement. His sculpture was often a private means of research. Failing eyesight limited his later work, but his influence endured. Notice the spaces around a dancer as much as the dancer: an angle, a pause and an empty floor can carry the whole composition.
Art to live with.
Fine-art prints on 200 gsm paper. Choose unframed or explore the available frame finishes, in a size that suits your space.
