Edgar degas Casey Clark

Biography: Early life A remarkable printmaker, sculptor and painter. He was born into a fortunate family in France in 1834. His father was a and his mother was an American opera singer from (The opera became an influence to his later works) French banker New Orleans. Degas began to paint as a small child and after the death of his mother at the age 13, his passion grew. He graduated from teh Lycee' school at age 18. He attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts School after abandoning law school. After school he spent time studying and traveling Italy. In 1856 Degas returned to Paris and began his artistic career.

Early Art Career At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his intensive formal academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.

Early Art Career Continued: Degas enlisted in the National Guard, where his defense of Paris left him little time for painting. During rifle training his eyesight was found to be defective, and for the rest of his life his eye problems were a constant worry to him. This degradation of his eyesight later greatly affected his artwork. After the war, Degas was one of the few Impressionists to travel to the Americas. in 1872 an extended stay in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his brother René and a number of other relatives lived. During this time Degas captured the essence of New Orleans.

Biography: Later Life In 1871, Degas fled the tumultuous political upheaval in France and retreated to New Orleans. His favorite subjects were dancers, bathers, and horse races. From the mid 1870's he began to suffer from deterioration in his eyesight, and by the time of his death in 1917 he was almost blind. This was also the reason why he began to use pastels more and more and eventually abandoned oils. His art was an attempt to approach of classical the impressionists.He combine the disciplined art with the direct approach of died at age 83, in 1917.

Degas Style and Achievement Degas paints with the background of a traditional approach fused with Impressionistic sensibilities. The most prominent element in his works is prints movement. He was influenced in the way by Chinese which can be seen he crops his images and the angles at which he arranges his compositions. His works are characterized by the Unlike use of vivid colors and bold brushstrokes. most impressionists, Degas focused on composition rather than light and color.

Time Period He lived and worked and was a resistant during the 19th century member of the Impressionist movement but identified with the Realist movement.

Impressionism: Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

Where Degas fits: Technically, Degas differs from the Impressionists in that he continually belittled their practice of painting en plein air. His scenes of Parisian life, his off-center compositions, his experiments with color and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist artists—most notably Mary Cassatt and Édouard Manet—all relate him intimately to the Impressionist movement.[26]

La Familleare Bellini Artist : Edgar Degas (1834–1917 Date:1860-1862 Medium : oil on canvas

Sources: Edgar Degas. (2013). Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition 1. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost (accessed November 6, 2014). Trachtman, P. (2003). DEGAS AND HIS DANCERS. Smithsonian, 34 (1),89. Keyes, N. (2003). Degas and the Art of Dance. (Cover Story). USA Today Magazine, 131(2694), 36.