Dancers by Edgar Degas Postcard

Dancers by Edgar Degas, pastel and charcoal on tracing paper mounted on wove paper 1894-1904, is a drawing of the half-length figures of ballet dancers in brilliantly coloured costumes against a lushly coloured, lively textured background. A young female ballerina fills the foreground, in a dance pose with one arm locked behind her back and her hand on her head, and behind her are glimpsed two other ballerinas in counterpointed poses. Degas builds elaborate layers, strokes and hatchings of brilliant colour atop an expressive charcoal drawing, with layers of textures building to red and blue accents of brilliant colour. In this late work, the artist boldly experiments with colour and delves deeply into the Impressionist sensibility of light and colour while capturing the classical, sculptural solidity of the subjects and their expressive dance movements. Edgar Degas (Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, 1834 - 1917) was a French painter, draftsman, sculptor, printmaker, a founder of the school of Impressionism, and a classical painter of dancers and scenes from modern life. Degas began to paint early in life, and after meeting the French classicist J.A.D. Ingres, Degas studied drawing in the manner of Ingres at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Louis Lamothe. Degas lived for 3 years in Italy, where he made many copies after Michelangelo and the masters of the Italian Renaissance. Establishing his Paris studio, the artist exhibited as a history painter but began to turn to subject matter from contemporary life, under the influence of his friend Edouard Manet. Disenfranchised from the official Paris Salon, Degas joined ranks with the independant Impressionist group and exhibited at their first show in 1874, though his classical approach, lack of spontaneity, and disdain of plein-air easel painting left him little in common with much of the group. Degas painted many portraits with profound psychological insight, many scenes from contemporary life and genre paintings, and devoted half of his life's work to colourful pictures of ballet dancers and classical female figures. Degas' bold experiments in colour which crossed boundaries between Realism, Impressionism, and Modern painting, his original compositional methods, and his painstaking, calculated classical drawing combined with the artist's cantankerous rejection of rigid rules, combined to create one of the most original and beloved body of works in the history of art.