Studio: international art (73.1918)

Edgar Degas

one fancies none of the subjects familiar to fascinated by the study of the life, the art, of the
Degas, the subjects in which he specialized, had Dancer, which is all movement and nothing
been properly handled by any painter until he else, which is, indeed, the whole science of
handled them, notably as regards his racing movement itself ? To an observer such as this,
scenes. The fact is, this artist's eye was not with eyes capable of perceiving every part of
troubled by any formula or convention. Horace a gesture however fugitive, to a painter with
Vernet, Delacroix, Gericault had all painted the capacity to reproduce without immobilizing
horses, and many them on the canvas,

other artists before ^i^^manmBa»«BBHEmisK«iMRmH«BMH what other subject
them, but no one HH could have offered

painted them like more variety, greater ■

Degas, no one abundance, or a

showed such sense ^WBmBBt^mSII^^^^ choice of motifs

of movement, such Fi^sP^LfiF «HBf" * „' i better adapted to

veracity combined \M js9|H %:^BtW^''- ' *"s temperament

with such masterv W /^'^Pl I andms aesthetic con-

and such freedom. • fen^jjBBi \ . ^sjit to ception, or given

The sense of move- ^ \t /* %^Bk JiRk • freer, fuller scope

ment ! In one oi V.-sjB Bftk. jfl? iA'> ' m to his incomparable

the best and most B; ''' «Bh V virtuosity — using

penetrating of mono- JglM R^**1' JIB' •'/ !|/ the word in its lofti-

graphs on the art jB9V jfl ■ . /if j est sense ?

of Degas, M. Georges Nor should it be

Grappe very truly r| i jjH forgotten that Degas

says this was the was always and

essential character- above everything

istic of his artistic H^^R ' 'JMm pP^ 'iRH else a realist, and

temperament. He BWp:'..';; ; In ' t1 a reanst more cruel

was right also in W- •',?WMl&r „ " / * . than indulgent,

insisting on the fact rather pessimist than

that " his life was optimist. His whole

one long fever to ■ •: ••ffBw^BP^ " ife? output and what we

catch the human ■ :-m$BJfl||^BMBP' '•• >a know of the man

gesture, to convey |>ijB4r gEBHR 5«B* IbSkII^HH ■ himsel1—it is little

the mobility of the m^mmW-WKK;' jf^H enough, for he lived

living being amid JF1 " B^l ■ dHS '! like a hermit, not to

the evolutions and V^'IfJBBB sa-' :l misanthropist

caprices of light," UK' ■W^mii'WP' i9 —serve to prove it.

and that the truly ex- . ; * Let us not forget,
traordinary faculty

he had of surprising ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m from the start Degas

and fixing move- ,„,„„.,,,... TI „ „ proclaimed himself a

° DANSEUSES VERTES BY H. G. E. DEGAS r

ment " would sufhee {By cmrtesy of MM_ Durand-Ruet) " modern," with no
to reveal his work to interest whatsoever
posterity as a marvellous assortment of human in any sort of investigation save the world
documents, and as the most prodigious collection in the midst of which he lived, and whose
of gestures that genius has ever assembled witness he is ; for thus we shall the better under-
together." stand the reasons which led him to devote
Is it surprising then that, having fashioned himself almost exclusively to painting these
for himself, after patient methodical labour, an particular subjects, and, as one may say, to
instrument so supple and so sure as that with make a speciality of them.

which we perceive Degas to have been provided And it is not only the Dancer en scene, on the

throughout his career, he should have been boards, behind the footlights and the candles,
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