Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917), born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (IPA /ilɛʀ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɛdɡɑʀ dəɡɑ/), 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.

Biography
Degas was born in Paris, France, the eldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas and Augustin De Gas, a banker. The family was moderately wealthy. At age eleven, Degas (as a young man he abandoned the more pretentious spelling of the family name)

Artistic career
Degas is often identified as an Impressionist, an understandable but insufficient description. Impressionism originated in the 1860s and 1870s and grew, in part, from the realism of such painters as Courbet and Corot. The Impressionists painted the realities of the world around them using bright, "dazzling" colors, concentrating primarily on the effects of light, and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy.
Technically, Degas differs from the Impressionists in that, as art historian Frederick Hartt says, he "never adopted the Impressionist color fleck",

Artistic style
During his life, public reception of Degas' work ranged from admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, and in the several years following 1860, Degas had a number of paintings accepted in the Salon. These works received praise from Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the critic, Castagnary.

Reputation

History of painting
Western painting Notes



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