Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas (19^th July, 1834-Sep 27, 1917) is a French painter and sculptor. Degas was known for his canvases depicting ballerinas, theatre patrons, and Parisian labourers. Intellectual creativity led Degas to work with many unusual techniques. Degas is also often identified as an Impressionist. Impressionism originated in the 1860s and 1870s and grew. The Impressionists painted the realities of the world around them using bright, "dazzling" colours, concentrating primarily on the effects of light, and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy.

Ballet dancers

One of Degas' favourite subjects was the ballet dancer. He loved to paint the dancers practicing in rehearsals or backstage before a show. He wanted to capture their energy and grace, but also their hard work and effort. During his career he created more than a thousand pictures of dancers. 

His Techniques:

Edgar Degas preferred various media (mixed media) throughout his artistic life, yet he often combined several different media on one canvas to give the work dimension and depth. Pastels, oil paints, gouache, and other materials can be found mingling together on the canvas in several of Degas' paintings, including "Dancers Practicing at the Barre" (1877) and "The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage" (1874). Each medium had a very particular application. Thinner, lighter media like watercolour would blur the lines of different objects while bold materials like charcoal would create the original sketch of the eventual painting.

Hatching was the next  technique degas used in his art works, By placing a series of long, undulating lines in alternating colours next to each other, Degas managed to give vibrancy and energy to even the most commonplace subject matter. Hatching and cross-hatching are most often found in Degas' pastel works, both wet painted pastels and dry chalked pastels.

When creating monotypes, an artist smears paint on a flat surface, etches an image into the paint and presses the flat surface on to a canvas, imprinting the canvas with the etched image. Degas tweaked the monotype process by painting the surface, then using brushes to create the imagery he sought, forgoing the typical etching process.

Impasto was another technique degas used in his work. Impasto is the technique of applying paint in thick, striking layers. Brushstrokes are clearly visible, and the image is slightly raised from the canvas. Often Degas would combine pastels or oil paints with binding agents that would create a thick, paste-like paint that Degas would spread around the canvas. Impasto can clearly be seen in Degas' 1857 "Self Portrait," especially around the edges of Degas' smock and kerchief.