1. Edgar degas
Casey Clark

2. Biography:
Early
life
A remarkable printmaker, sculptor and painter. He was born into a
fortunate family in France in 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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]

10. La Familleare Bellini
Artist : Edgar Degas (1834–1917
Date:
Medium : oil on canvas

11. 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.