The work of Degas does need some thought, some contemplation; he was a painter, printmaker, sculptor and poet*. He also studied photography. A complex artist then with a proper breath of interests. A restless, enquiring mind too one would guess. In 1855, abandoning a law degree, he entered the studio of Louis Lamothe, who had been a pupil in turn of Jean-Auguste-Dominic Ingres, his great hero, enrolling also in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Although easy to see the Beaux Arts system as stultifying it did give students a thorough knowledge of the craft of drawing and painting. Without such a background it seems hard to conceive of Degas producing the work he did. Politically he was an ultra conservative, Royalist and reactionary, with a deep distrust, like Auguste Renoir, of Modernity and Socialism.
'Drawing', wrote the late, great Peter Fuller, 'was key to Degas's art.' And the emphasis of this exhibition, which is laid out sequentially, is on work on paper, in the main drawings, and the female form. Less space is dedicated to Degas, the painter of horses and of landscapes, and to Degas the sculptor but there is a copy, in bronze, of the decidedly creepy 'Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'. Enough really to give a rounded portrait of Degas the artist. There are also a small number of oils dotted around the exhibition, including the terrible 'Art of Warfare in the Middle Ages', young Degas's attempt at a history painting. However there are, in the 2nd gallery, a small group of oils of a completely different quality which Degas painted of women in some kind of communication or other. They are exquisite in the manner in which they capture a fleeting moment of contact between two people. This group of oils forms a hinge, as it were, in the exhibition, a moment of transition leading to the 3rd and largest gallery which is given over to Degas's drawings of ballet dancers and solitary bathing women. Reading up for this blog I've come across critics saying that Degas wasn't interested in his subjects as people merely as a vehicle for his interest in colour, form and movement. After seeing this exhibition I really begin to question this. The interplay of people in these paintings and drawings seems just as important to me as any play of light or colour; the German painter, Max Liebermann, spoke of Degas's ability to convey an 'impression of a fleeting moment of time'. I have to confess I didn't much like Degas's drawings of solitary bathers, with exception of the woman drinking coffee beside her bath. Subsequently I found a quote from the film maker Jean Renoir, son of August Renoir, that perhaps has resonances with the work of Degas. Renoir fils recalled hearing his father talking of 'that state of grace which comes from contemplating God's most beautiful creation, the human body.'
One of the aims of the exhibition is to place Degas within an art historical context, and to this end the work of his contemporaries, particularly those he admired, punctuate the exhibition; and there is some very interesting work on display, mostly small scale and some rather jewel like. Those rich nineteenth century colours are wonderful. In addition to a bright paintings of apples by Cezanne, look out for the Corots, a beautiful group portrait (in pencil) by Ingres, and two monumental life studies by Cezanne and David. Both the convey the deep beauty and heft of the male form.
The final section demonstrates his influence on subsequent British art. There is work (amongst others) by Moore, Auerbach, Sickert, Bacon, Freud and Hockney - a lovely pencil-crayon drawing of Celia Birtwell. The Freud was stunning and I liked the Bacon more than I thought I would.
Then out the door and up the street. It is the Cambridge film festival, but in our chronic inability to be organised we only saw one film. It was however a real corker: 'The Loves of Casanova'. It starred the émigré Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine.
'Drawing', wrote the late, great Peter Fuller, 'was key to Degas's art.' And the emphasis of this exhibition, which is laid out sequentially, is on work on paper, in the main drawings, and the female form. Less space is dedicated to Degas, the painter of horses and of landscapes, and to Degas the sculptor but there is a copy, in bronze, of the decidedly creepy 'Little Dancer of Fourteen Years'. Enough really to give a rounded portrait of Degas the artist. There are also a small number of oils dotted around the exhibition, including the terrible 'Art of Warfare in the Middle Ages', young Degas's attempt at a history painting. However there are, in the 2nd gallery, a small group of oils of a completely different quality which Degas painted of women in some kind of communication or other. They are exquisite in the manner in which they capture a fleeting moment of contact between two people. This group of oils forms a hinge, as it were, in the exhibition, a moment of transition leading to the 3rd and largest gallery which is given over to Degas's drawings of ballet dancers and solitary bathing women. Reading up for this blog I've come across critics saying that Degas wasn't interested in his subjects as people merely as a vehicle for his interest in colour, form and movement. After seeing this exhibition I really begin to question this. The interplay of people in these paintings and drawings seems just as important to me as any play of light or colour; the German painter, Max Liebermann, spoke of Degas's ability to convey an 'impression of a fleeting moment of time'. I have to confess I didn't much like Degas's drawings of solitary bathers, with exception of the woman drinking coffee beside her bath. Subsequently I found a quote from the film maker Jean Renoir, son of August Renoir, that perhaps has resonances with the work of Degas. Renoir fils recalled hearing his father talking of 'that state of grace which comes from contemplating God's most beautiful creation, the human body.'
One of the aims of the exhibition is to place Degas within an art historical context, and to this end the work of his contemporaries, particularly those he admired, punctuate the exhibition; and there is some very interesting work on display, mostly small scale and some rather jewel like. Those rich nineteenth century colours are wonderful. In addition to a bright paintings of apples by Cezanne, look out for the Corots, a beautiful group portrait (in pencil) by Ingres, and two monumental life studies by Cezanne and David. Both the convey the deep beauty and heft of the male form.
The final section demonstrates his influence on subsequent British art. There is work (amongst others) by Moore, Auerbach, Sickert, Bacon, Freud and Hockney - a lovely pencil-crayon drawing of Celia Birtwell. The Freud was stunning and I liked the Bacon more than I thought I would.
Then out the door and up the street. It is the Cambridge film festival, but in our chronic inability to be organised we only saw one film. It was however a real corker: 'The Loves of Casanova'. It starred the émigré Russian actor Ivan Mosjoukine.
Mosjoukine (French transliteration) was part of the culturally rich and important Russian community that formed in Paris after the 1917 Revolution. Think music, theology, literature and theatre and cinema. The director was another émigré: Alexander Volkov. It is a lavish historical epic. I'm almost inclined to call it a romp, but such a word wouldn't do it proper justice. The highlights for me, at least, were the crowd scenes filmed on location in Venice. Superb. The hand coloured scene set upon a Venetian canal full of gondolas - breath taking. In all very satisfying. Look out for actress Diana Karenne with her haunting fin-du-siècle looks, as though she had stepped out from a painting by Ferdinand Knopf.
* Degas's poetry, mainly in sonnet form, is discussed, I think, in Paul Valery's 'Degas, Danse, Dessin' (1938).
* Degas's poetry, mainly in sonnet form, is discussed, I think, in Paul Valery's 'Degas, Danse, Dessin' (1938).
The Loves of Casanova
1927
Producer: Noe Bloch, Gregor Rabinovitch
Director: Alexandre Volkov
Cinematographer: Fedote Bourgasoff, Leonce-Henri Buel, Nicholi Toporkoff
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