Dancing forms - fluttering soul

by Petar PLAMENOV

2 September (Thursday) - 29 October (Friday), NAG
National Gallery of Fine Arts
Address:
Sofia, 1 Batenberg Sqr.
Working time: thu-sun 10:30–18:00
Phone: 02 980 00 93

The sculptures of Edgar Degas for the first time in Bulgaria - exposition in Sofia National Gallery of Fine Arts.This unique exhibition opens tomorrow at 7 p.m. and will continue to 29 October.
Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917), born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (pronounced), was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. A superb draughtsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance, and over half his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are considered to be among the finest in the history of art.



Early in his career, his ambition was to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.

From 1874 Degas sent works to the impressionist group shows (he helped organise first impressionist exhibition). In 1881 he showed The little dancer of fourteen years, his only sculpture exhibited during his life. After the Last Impressionist exhibition in 1886, Degas stopped sending works to exhibitions. In the 1880s, when his eyesight began to fail, Degas shifted his talent to sculpture and pastel, which did not require such acute vision. By the 1890's he could only work on large compositions and in 1908 he gave up art completely. It was a crippling blow to Degas. Degas was evicted from his home and a new studio was found for him, but he never settled there. He wandered the streets like a blind Homer.





Degas' sculpture stands outside the mainstream of nineteenth-century French sculpture. He was never interested in creating public monuments, and, with one exception, neither did he display his sculpture publicly. The exception was The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. It was shown in the sixth Impressionist exhibition held in Paris in 1881, but the work has little to do with Impressionism. Modeled in wax and wearing a real bodice, stockings, shoes, tulle skirt, and horsehair wig with a satin ribbon, the figure astonished Degas' contemporaries, not only for its unorthodox use of materials, but also and above all for its realism, judged brutish by some. The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer was not seen again publicly until April 1920.




Upon Degas' death in 1917, more than 150 pieces of sculpture were found in his studio. Most were of wax, clay, and plastiline. Nearly all had reached various stages of deterioration.The original sculptures, mostly of wax and long thought to have been destroyed, had in fact been preserved by Hébrard. They came to light in 1955 when they appeared in New York at Knoedler and Company, where they were offered for sale. The master models, which were completely unknown until 1955 when Palazzolo revealed their existence and explained their function, began appearing on the market in the early 1970s.