Artwork: Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). Three Ballet Dancers (Trois danseuses), c. 1878-80. Monotype on cream laid paper. Plate: 7 13/16 × 16 3/8″ (19.9 × 41.6 cm). Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1955.1386.
Famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings, Degas transcended the Impressionist movement, for he was not merely obsessed with light, but also with the very essence of movement itself, and the way in which the human body could become a lexicography of form. And in doing so, he kept innovating his approach to the medium, working in paint, drawing, pastels, and prints. For every tool he used, a new understanding was reached.
Exhibit | Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art
Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty, now on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, though July 24, 2016, is the first exhibition in the United States in fifty years to present the artist’s rarely- seen monotypes and examine their impact on his wider practice. The exhibition features approximately 130 monotypes along with some 50 related works. Here, we can observe Degas freedom on the printed page, as he mixes techniques with the freedom necessary to produce unconventional effects. The works reveal Degas’s mastery of depictions of modern life, with scenes of harshly illuminated café singers; ballet dancers onstage, backstage, or in rehearsal; life in the brothel; intimate moments at the bath; and landscapes for a broader context of the natural world.
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). Frieze of Dancers (Danseuses attachant leurs sandales), c. 1895. Oil on fabric. 27 9/16 × 78 15/16″ (70 × 200.5 cm). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1946.83. © The Cleveland Museum of Art.
In the 1870s, the artist Ludovic Lepic likely introduced Degas to the monotype process—drawing in black ink on a metal plate that was then run through a press, typically resulting in a single print. Degas was taken with the medium, making more than 300 monotypes during two discrete bursts of activity, from the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, and again during the early 1890s. Printmaking gave Degas the hand of the artist and the power of the machine, creating a vehicle for producing works in a way that allowed him greater creativity than he could find in any other medium in which he worked.
Taken in the long view, Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty explores the way in which Degas’s developments in printmaking helped advance the cause of modern art. It is also a lovely reminder that Degas was not a man of the leisure class; his work honors the workers who make leisure possible, though they themselves never rest.
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). The Singer (Chanteuse de café-concert), 1875-1880. Pastel over monotype on paper. Plate: 6 1/4 × 4 1/2″ (15.9 × 11.4 cm). Gift, Miss Martha Elizabeth Dick Estate. Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
