Racehorses are a popular subject in Edgar Degas' artwork.
Edgar Degas was a 19th-century French artist whose desire to work outside the mainstream of accepted painting styles and subject matters led him to participate in founding the Impressionist art movement. He, along with his fellow Impressionists, was determined to use innovative techniques and everyday subject matters in his paintings and drawings. He is particularly noted for innovations in his work in mixing and combining his artistic media, notably oil and pastels.
Early Use of Oil Paint
In Degas' early career, he followed in the footsteps of established masters such as Ingres and Delacroix, copying their famous paintings as well as classic Italian works by such luminaries as Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian. These early works were all executed following the strict classical tradition of working with oil paintings to create as nuanced and traditionally "realistic" an image as possible. Techniques such as line, shape and perspective were emphasized, as was replicating the effect of light on a subject within the protected environment of an artistic studio. Until his early 30s, Degas worked within the boundaries of traditional, classic subject matter and oil paint techniques, producing work such as his "Scene of War in the Middle Ages" done in 1865.
Combining Oil and Pastels
By Degas' 40th year, he had teamed up with other disenfranchised artists of the day, and the group offered an exhibit of work. These innovative artists were dubbed Impressionists for their unorthodox painting techniques and choice of subject matter. For Degas, experimenting the approach involved mixing his media, and he began with using pastels on top of oil paintings. In his paintings of ballet dancers, such as "Dancer with a Bouquet Bowing," he created a base image with oil paint. He then applied pastels over the top of the image, rendering a bright pop of color that imitated the stage lighting and the vividness of the dancer's costumes.
Combining Pastels with other Mediums
Degas' innovative inclinations soon led him to expand his experiments. The media he used, according to the Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias website (universalium.academic.ru), included combinations of "pen, ink, pencil, chalk, pastel, charcoal ... gouache, distemper, metallic pigments and oils." The website also notes that the unusual effects of these combined media were enhanced by his parallel experiments with surfaces, making use of "card, silk, ceramic, tile and wood panel, as well as widely varied textures of canvas." These combined media, applied in layers one over the other are exhibited in his landscape "Wheatfield and Green Hill."
Later Work with Pastels
Degas' eyesight began to fail as he aged. Determined to continue working, he entered a phase in his two-dimensional artwork of nearly exclusive work with pastels. Abandoning the detailed precision work required for creating oil paintings, he began to create works with pastels that have the informal feel of drawings. During this phase of pastel work, his subject matter became more and more risky as he created images of women bathing and dressing, a scandalous subject matter for the day. His famous pastel images of this period also included dancers, but now, rather than performing onstage, the subjects were caught in a moment just before their entrance or simply waiting backstage. Some examples of his late-period work in mixed media and his pastels include "Woman Combing Her Hair" and "Seated Dancer."
