Upon graduating, he registered as a copyist in the Louvre Museum, but his father expected him to go to law school. By the time he graduated from the Lycée with a baccalauréat in literature in 1853, at age 18, he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio.

Red chalk on laid paper 31 x 23.3 cm (12 3/16 x 9 3/16 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington.ĭegas began to paint early in life. His mother died when he was thirteen, and the main influences on him for the remainder of his youth were his father and several unmarried uncles. ĭegas (he adopted this less grandiose spelling of his family name when he became an adult) began his schooling at age eleven, enrolling in the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. His maternal grandfather Germain Musson was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, of French descent, and had settled in New Orleans in 1810. He was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole from New Orleans, Louisiana, and Augustin De Gas, a banker. 1855–1860 ĭegas was born in Paris, France, into a moderately wealthy family. 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.

Īt the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classical Western art. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and their portrayal of human isolation.

In addition to ballet dancers and bathing women, Degas painted racehorses and racing jockeys, as well as portraits. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist, and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did.ĭegas was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers and bathing female nudes. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance more than half of his works depict dancers. Edgar Degas ( UK: / ˈ d eɪ ɡ ɑː/, US: / d eɪ ˈ ɡ ɑː, d ə ˈ ɡ ɑː/ born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, French: 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.ĭegas also produced bronze sculptures, prints, and drawings.

Watercolor background pastel