Feature Article January 15, 2004
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Degas Sculptures
Edgar Degas is best known for his Impressionistic-like paintings and sketches depicting life-in-movement, in their setting of 19th century Paris.
The Art Gallery of Ontario recently exhibited a rare collection from Copenhagen of over 50 of this artists bronze-cast sculptures.
I visited the 3-month long exhibit on January 3, its second last day. As one enters the exhibit, off to ones right one first encounters the piercing gaze of a womans portrait in coloured pastels. Since artwork cant help but be a blend of both the observed and the observer, it is easy to imagine Degas himself looking at one through her eyes in his normally sardonic manner.
Several roomfuls of study-size sculptures follow. Numerous sketches and studies of ballerinas in particular, all caught in the midst of their movements; express Degas painstaking, even obsessive observations of anatomical accuracy and perfection of form. Another room holds only models of horses thoroughbreds before and after races, caught in the midst of a trot or stretched out fully in a gallop, jockey astride. Even a draught horse is there, straining against an invisible load, reins omitted, yet one feels the strain. Degas sculptures are alive!
14-year-old
Ballet Dancer is a life-size sculpture, originally modeled in wax,
which appeared in the Paris Impressionist Exhibition of 1881. Standing
in a dusty old tulle skirt (reminiscent of a museum piece) she yet
holds her own life in a fourth ballet position. She epitomizes
countless studies done from various angles of countless dancers.
The bold realism of this piece and some of the artists other
works disturbed viewers of the time.
Along with their intense physical accuracy, there is a gesture,
even painterly quality to Degas sculptures that leave them, in
effect, unfinished and this contributes to the feeling of
movement. Degas was an Impressionist despite himself. He has been
described as misanthropic, but he gives us life - we feel the
sculptures move!
14-Year-Old Ballet Dancer by Degas. Sketch by Lesley McBride
