Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas- Little Darling
His eyes may be lost.
Denied the pretentiousness his family name afforded him, rejected labels, neglected studies, and followed passion. Considered a master of motion, he is isolated, intricate in form, Degas was a painter, sculptor, photographer, antagonist.
Degas himself explained, “In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement.”
Quoted; “Of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing.”
I am pulled to Degas, not just because he and my daughter share July 19 as their birthdays, but more because he was a captor of light and transfer. His ability to create a narrative with fluttering strokes of pigment, his preference for ballet, his detail, darkness, and his refusal to be labeled, are just some of the reasons I appreciate his efforts.
Degas spent a little over a year here in New Orleans among friends and relatives. When one visits New Orleans these days, there are ample “X slept here” type of establishments, reminders of lost time, and lost dreams. Degas had plenty of those. Apparently he made a point of living an artist’s life; that is one of heart-ache, rejection, isolation, ridicule, eccentricity, and eventual death. Thought fortunately for Degas, the last came later than most of his kind.
Politically, I cannot sit with Degas. He seemed warp into that crusty, rigid, and intolerant type of individual that tends to run in complete opposition to the artistic type. Nobody is perfect.
Draw lines, young man.
one of my favorites