Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas’ “Waiting”

Among the most interesting transaction of redbrick art on screening in the J. Paul Getty Museum is Edgar Germain Hilaire take waiting, a pastel impression make around 1882. In this work, remove captures the picture of a young danseuse and an elderly woman sitting on a bench, evidently postponement for something to happen or someone to arrive. The painting is a study of the nipping contrast between offspring and old age, which is illustrated in the play of colors, light, and shadows that the panther carefully preserved in his work.The young ballerina is painted in soft colors of gold, blue, and cream which reflect the light era the older woman is garbed in black. In the same manner, the younger issuing is painted to suggest motion, energy and restlessness here she is massaging her feet, apparently time lag for a performance to begin. The woman, on the former(a) hand, is immobile, devoid of light driving and comes across to be waiting for the action to end so she can buoy rest. withdraw hold is displayed in a teensy-weensy dark room situated on the left side of the museum entrance. Exhibited along with it are German cougar Joseph Viviens Portrait of a Man and Swiss painter Jean-tienne Liotards Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone at Seven. The darkness of the room brings out the keen contrast in colors and the use of light in the pastels. Likewise, its small size is clearly meant to convey a sense of intimacy wherein the attestator feels a sense of privilege at catching a glance of so personal a thing as an individuals portrait.The arrangement of the paintings depicts the various influences of artists according to their respective periods. In government agencyicular, the works scan the progression of depicting and the use of pastel as a specialty since Viviens Portrait of a Man in 1725 to take postponement a century and a half later. It is clear that remove work is a huge departure from the conventional concept of painting stacks po rtraits. Viviens portrait is carefully composed according to the exquisite conventions of balance and color its subject is self-consciously positioned at the center of the canvass, capturing the face, and his encounter appears to come out of the shadows.Viviens colors are austere and sombre, which reflects the overabundant course at that time. Liotards Maria Frederike van Reede-Athlone, on the some other hand, reflects a subtle change in the painters pallet from Viviens dark, muted colors to bold, albeit cold tones. However, the same rule is utilize regarding the subjects position. Hence, remove Waiting stands out in discriminating contrast to the two paintings.First, he clearly circumvents the prevailing concept of portraiture by showing two subjects who assume positions that are not ordinarily accepted in portraiture the young girl is shown massaging her feet, which makes her face unobserved by the interview, while the womans face is half-covered by her hat. withdraw b esides draws his subjects from a very different angle and perspective he is obviously not as interested in showing their seventh cranial nerve countenances as in showing their characters through body language. He as well as abandons the dark tones in favor of bold, bright, and warm colors to create outstanding contrasts in his work.Waiting illustrates take affinity with the impressionist movement, although he apparently abhorred being called one because of major ideological rifts with prominent impressionist painters. He particularly criticized his self-confessed impressionist contemporaries for their practice of painting in plein-air as he believed that it was tantamount to copying which interfered with the artists imagination. (Smith 58) Nevertheless, Degas work clearly shares the same impressionist characteristics as shown in his style and choice of events and people of everyday life as subjects.Like the works of most impressionist painters such as Edouard Manet, Claude Mone t, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Jean Frederic Bazille, and Camille Pissarro, Degas Waiting reflected the belief that art should relate to the real world and reflect modern life as opposed to painting religious and mythological figures that was traditionally favored by connosieurs of high art. (Snider) Its choice of subject, a ballerina and her fellow traveller in the process of waiting, captures an aspect of modern French life. Its style doubtlessly mirrors the impressionists fascination with capturing light in the most realistic manner, and its colors also carry the impressionist preference for warm, vibrant tones that suggest movement and life.Although Degas works and his obsession with the figures of women, particularly dancers, in his paintings have often invited varied interpretation from art critics and academicians, it is clear that his optic-class background and upbringing has abominable influence in shaping his choice of subjects. (Theodore 145) Reff Theodore infers that Degas passion for painting movement arose from his early exposure to the ballet which was a familiar part of the contemporary scene in nineteenth century Paris. (145)The impact of Degas background is also seen in his being deeply concerned with right for its own sake, in probing life beneath the crust of beloved manners (Nicolson 172) in his depiction of Parisian modern life. In Waiting, Degas honestly portrays the differences between his subjects, in effect making a bid near the sad truth that the young ballerina, with all her vibrancy and beauty, leave behind soon pass into the life of her companion, drained and weary of the world.It is suggested that Degas and other impressionists ideas were largely influenced by the rapid technological and social developments of their time. Indeed, impressionism drew untold of its ideas from innovations, techniques, and concepts in photography. (Snider) Clearly, Degas and his contemporaries were so impressed by t he mightiness of photographs to capture the exact effect of light on its subjects that they sought to restitute this ability in their paintings. Other painters, like Monet, even tried to copy the photographic effects of varying shutter speeds in his work. (Snider)Degas background as an artist produced and molded by extraordinary and tumultous changes in his time that was brought about by the rapid industrialization of France and all of Europe, his pastel work Waiting could be displayed in another gallery together with Claude Monets Gare Saint-Lazare, a painting which shows the Saint-Lazare train station. This painting would give a contemporary audience an idea of Waitings background as the train is a ubiquitous symbol of the industrial revolution which gripped not only the economic but also cultural life of Europe in Degas time. Hence, Monets work sets the mood for Degas curious study of youth and old age in the age of modernity, where everything passes quickly.Other works that c ould be exhibited aboard Degas Waiting is Auguste Renoirs painting The Dance at the Moulin Delagalette and Degas own work The Millinery Shop which shows the social activities of the French middle class and the activities of working-class women, respectively. The two paintings would also highlight the contrast that Degas sought to portray in his subjects, wherein Renoirs middle-class subjects, painted as they socialize in a party, is compared with a lone woman while making hats that are ostensibly worn by those who can expend it. Likewise, Andy Warhols Campbell Soup Cans would also be a fitting raise to the gallery as it signifies the advent of mass production. Although Warhols work is at odds with the impressionist theme of Degas work, it nevertheless echoes the ordinariness and insistent pattern of modern life that Degas captures in his painting.Works CitedNicolson, Benedict. Degas Monotypes. The Burlington powder magazine 100.662 (May 1958)172-175Reff, Theodore. Edgar Degas a nd the Dance. Arts Magazine 53.3(November 1978)145-149.Smith, George E. James, Degas, and the Modern View. NOVEL A assemblage on Fiction 21.1 (Autumn 1987) 56-72Snider, Lindsay. A Lasting Impression French Painters bring down the Art World. The History Teacher, 25.1(November 2001). 5 May 2008. http//historycooperative.org/