Edgar Degas paintings and pastels

Pastels are the most famous and representative works of Degas' art. Among Degas' numerous pastels, we have chosen this Woman Before a Mirror - Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg) - reproduced on the home page. Here, Degas has chosen elegant and harmonious colors showing his perfect mastery of technique: like At the Milliner's from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum – Madrid - and his Dancer in Green from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In some, he plays with a dominant color, with green in his Large Dancers, with blue in his Two Dancers at Rest and with pink in his Dancers from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. For his pastels, Degas can use various supports: paper, panel, cardboard and even canvas as for his Seated Dancers. He also turns to other subjects such as bathers illustrated by this pastel Bathers from the National Gallery, Washington and horse racing like Before the Race from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Paintings present another facet of Degas' art. He treats certain subjects not found in his pastels touching for example on music and the Opera like Degas' Father Listening to Pagans from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Another theme addressed by Degas, essentially in his paintings: his portraits of which The Bellelli Family from the Musée d'Orsay is undoubtedly the most illustrious example.

Through the variety of subjects treated in his paintings and pastels, Degas was an observer of intimacy, thus distinguishing himself from the Impressionist artists who sought other values.