Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834–1917) has been called “the most misunderstood of famous modern artists.” He is at once utterly familiar and remarkably enigmatic. Popularly labeled “the Impressionist who painted ballet dancers,” he is, in fact, far more than that—a tough, complex, unpredictable artist who is difficult to categorize. A brilliant draftsman, with an unerring grasp of eloquent contour and telling interval, he possessed one of the most acute, pitiless eyes in the history of French painting; only Chardin and Matisse seem comparable. But Degas was also fascinated by the ephemeral, the incomplete, and the transient, and (as with Chardin and Matisse) his desire for optical truth—which is not the same as verisimilitude—was filtered through a powerful sense of abstract structure and willed harmony, so much so that it’s even arguable whether Degas was an Impressionist at all, despite his close...

 

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