Edgar Degas presents a scene from the boudoir with realism well balanced by delicacy and finesse.
by Jerry N. Weiss
The subject of women’s private ablutions preoccupied Edgar Degas (1834–1917) for many years and inspired variants in oil, sculp-ture, monotype and pastel. By the mid-1880s, Degas had amassed for inclusion in the last Impressionist exhibition a sequence that he described as “women bathing, washing them-selves, drying themselves, toweling by themselves, combing their hair or obtaining it combed.” The description suggests an unusually intimate pre-profession, significantly eliminated from the historical narratives Degas sought to paint in his youth. The same acuteness of observation he brought to other genres was now targeted on the rest room and boudoir. Provided the majestic structure of the principal figure and the body’s tactile existence, Girl Obtaining Her Hair Combed may perhaps be the very best figure Degas developed in any medium. Incredibly, the pastel does not seem to have been incorporated in the Impressionist exhibition of 1886. It was probable marketed by Degas soon thereafter and was seldom witnessed publicly prior to its acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1929. Female Obtaining Her Hair Combed represents the peak of Degas’ center age. His classical teaching experienced offered a basis for remarkably sensible scientific studies of Parisian lifetime, but by the 1880s, the artist’s eyesight had begun to deteriorate, and his do the job became significantly less in-depth and more gestural. In Lady Obtaining Her Hair Combed, Degas’ visual notion is nevertheless sharp, even though the lively handling of pastel is a premonition of the expressive vigor that would charac-terize his late function.
This is just one of Degas’ most remarkably fixed and technically intricate pastels. Much of the surface area was drawn in hatched strokes, with levels of diverse colors used just one atop one more. The white and environmentally friendly-gold tones shimmer. According to the catalogue from a 1988 retrospective, some shadow passages had been painted, then smudged, with moistened chalks, around which Degas additional a diluted pastel wash with a brush. The determine, specifically drawn, is a marvel of luminous, nuanced tones.
The composition is built upon two diagonals. 1 is composed of the divan upon which the figure sits and the other of the determine, the towel beneath her and the standing attendant. With each other, they sort a cross, with the woman’s torso at its fulcrum.
While Girl Possessing Her Hair Combed has been in contrast to Rembrandt’s exquisite nude, Bathsheba at Her Bathtub, there is an critical difference: Rembrandt’s painting depicts a biblical tale of terrific pathos, whilst Degas’ scrutiny of the design is set in a contemporary inside. Even so, the pliant pores and skin of Degas’ bather is sensual sufficient to remember other influences, perhaps the odalisques of Ingres and Delacroix.
Marjorie Shelley, a conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, notes the fragility of this get the job done. Some of Degas’ pastels were being composed of artificial colorants that are susceptible to fading, and the operates must therefore be exhibited in subdued lighting. A even more complication is the paper. “Degas chose lower-excellent, machine-made, wooden-pulp sheets for their shade and rough texture,” states Shelley. “His mounter wrapped and glued them at their edges to millboard panels designed of recycled paper, which supplied Degas with a good area to work on and enabled him to easily spot the completed composition in a body.”
Jerry N. Weiss is a contributing author to great art magazines. He teaches at the Artwork Learners League of New York.
