arte das terças - edgard degas

já que eu sou uma blogueira relativamente consistente (rs!) vou começar a fazer uma série aqui no blog relativa à arte.

a cada terça-feira, vou postar obras de algum pintor que gosto. nem sempre serão telas, mas a princípio, sim...

hoje, começaremos com edgar degas, que foi um artista que me impressionou muitíssimo quando visitei o musée d'orsay. tem bastante coisa dele lá, e de verdade, é emocionante.

aqui, um site bem legal sobre arte, com as obras catalogadas por artista.

vou colocar explicações em inglês sobre algumas obras, não todas. como a obra de degas é vasta, hoje escolhi a temática de dançarinas (ele pintou muito sobre isso)... quem sabe no futuro, coloque mais coisas relativas a outros temas.

abaixo, um pequena descrição do trabalho de degas (que se encontra no site do musée d'orsay) e algumas obras que estão nesse mesmo museu:

Degas regularly went to the Paris opera house, not only as a member of the audience, but as a visitor backstage and in the dance studio, where he introduced by a friend who played in the orchestra. At that time, the opera was still housed in the rue Le Peletier and had not yet moved to the building designed by Garnier which was soon to replace it. From the 1870s until his death, Degas's favourite subjects were ballerinas at work, in rehearsal or at rest, and he tirelessly explored the theme with many variations in posture and gesture.

More than the stage performance and the limelight, it was the training and rehearsals that interested himDegas closely observed the most spontaneous, natural, ordinary gestures, the pauses when concentration is relaxed and the body slumps after the exhausting effort of practising and the implacable rigour of the class.

blue dancers (quando vi esse quadro pela primeira vez, olhei bastante, continuei andando, e não aguentei: voltei, e olhei mais....)

the ballet class

Here the class is coming to an end – the pupils are exhausted, they are stretching, twisting to scratch their backs, adjusting their hair or clothes, an earring, or a ribbon, paying little heed to the inflexible teacher, a portrait of Jules Perrot, a real-life ballet master.The slightly raised viewpoint looking diagonally across the studio accentuates the vanishing perspective of floor boards. Paul Valéry wrote: "Degas is one of the very few painters who gave the ground its true importance. He has some admirable floors". This is all the more appropriate for dancers in that the parquet, which was moistened to prevent slipping, is their main work tool. And the ballet master beats time on the floor with his baton.

dancer adjusting her slipper

ballet rehearsal on stage

This painting in shades of grey was immediately noticed at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The painter Giuseppe De Nittis wrote to a friend: "I remember a drawing that must have been of a dance rehearsal […] and I can tell you it was extremely beautiful: the muslin costumes were so diaphanous, and the movements so true to life that it has to be seen to be believed; it is just impossible to describe". Like De Nittis, many critics see this work as a drawing rather than a painting. It is true that Degas captured the most delicate nuances by using shaded tones. He invented this neutral, milky tone, whilst the harsh stage lighting brings out the brilliant white of the tutus that give rhythm to the composition.

Of all Degas' ballet scenes, this monochrome painting differs radically from the veritable "orgy of colours" splashed around in his later works. The explanation is to be found no doubt in the fact thatBallet Rehearsal was meant to serve as a model for an engraver.

small dancer aged 14

When Degas died in 1917, 150 wax or clay sculptures were found in his studio. These statues had remained more or less unknown to the public while the artist was alive, except for Dancer Aged 14which Degas had shown in the Impressionist exhibition in 1881. Naturally coloured, fitted with real hair, dressed in a tutu and real dancing slippers, it was an example of hyperrealism, verism taken to the extreme. Presented in a showcase like a specimen in the museum, it revealed a Degas bordering on the anthropologist or a naturalist. The critics were not mistaken: the work was violently accused of representing the girl in a bestial manner; she was compared to a monkey or an Aztec; she had a face "on which all the vices imprint their detestable promises, the mark of a particularly vicious character".

Degas thus took realism to its logical conclusion by depicting the society of his time in a barefaced almost scientific way with no shade of hypocrisy. The bronze edition made after his death, including the copy in the Musée d'Orsay, tried to preserve the characteristics of the wax statue as much as possible. The glass cage is the only element that Degas himself wanted, asserting the Dancer's status as a work of art.

bom, por hoje é só!!

terça que vem tem mais :)