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Edgar Degas Impressionist French painter and sculptor, whose innovative composition, skilful drawing, and
perceptive art of movement, born on the 19th July, 1834, in Paris
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and information
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Degas was born into a well-to-do banking family on July 19, 1834, in Paris. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts
under a disciple of the famous French classicist J. A. D. Ingres, where Degas developed the great drawing ability that was to
be a salient characteristic of his art. After 1865, under the influence of the budding impressionist movement, he gave up
academic subjects to turn to contemporary themes. But, unlike the impressionists, he preferred to work in the studio and was
uninterested in the study of natural light that fascinated them. He was attracted by theatrical subjects, and most of his
works depict racecourses, theatres, cafés, music halls, or boudoirs. Degas was a keen observer of humanity—particularly of
women, with whom his work is preoccupied—and in his portraits as well as in his studies of dancers, milliners, and
laundresses, he cultivated a complete objectivity, attempting to catch his subjects in poses as natural and spontaneous as
those recorded in action photographs.
Degas was not well known to the public, and his true artistic stature did not become evident until after his
death. He died in Paris on September 27, 1917.
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