On July 19, 1834, the famous French painter, Edgar Degas was born in Paris. Edgar Degas is one of the most prominent French painters of the second half of the 19th century and maybe the brightest representative of impressionism. He managed to inscribe traditional academic techniques into the pressing topics of the 20th century.
Despite the fact that Degas is considered one of the founders of impressionism, he was not a typical representative of the trend. Where most artists strove to present a well-constructed composition, Degas wanted his work to look like an unassembled shot.
Most of his works are dedicated to dance, that is why, he became famous as an artist who could capture movement, like no other. He tried to avoid aesthetic, classical poses, preferring to show yawning, stretching, or performing worldly tasks of his models.
July 19 marked the 186th anniversary of the artist’s birth, in honor of which we remember ten of his masterpieces.
10 facts about Edgar Degas
- Edgar Degas was born into a wealthy family, so he could afford to paint, and not to be a lawyer, as his father wanted.
- He changed the aristocratic surname de Ga to the more “popular” Degas.
- Edgar Degas was a perfectionist and tried to bring every picture to perfection.
- He actually painted over 1,500 paintings of dancers, mainly ballerinas.
- The artist was a recognized master of pastels. He created new ways to work with it, for example, steaming paintings and diluting pastels.
- Gradually losing his eyesight at a later age, he became involved in sculpture. But he sculpted them mainly from wax. During his lifetime, only one ballerina figurine was shown. The rest of the figurines after the death of the master were made of bronze by his students, according to one version, and according to another, they were made by his relatives.
- He was reputed to be a grumpy man with a bad temper.
- He was not married.
- A crater on Mercury is named after the artist.
- He bequeathed not to make long speeches on the day of his funeral.
