DEGAS, Edgar
(b. 1834, Paris, d. 1917, Paris)

The Races. Before the Start

1873
Oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Degas, free of the need to sell pictures in order to live, pursued his interest in people, their characters and temperaments, their faces and body language. He painted uncommissioned portraits or had his acquaintances present situations that conveyed typical behaviour. Crowds at racetracks and the lean, diminutive jockeys on their delicate, nervy horses supplied him with open-air motifs.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.