"More than any other artist in the Impressionist group, Degas was fascinated by ideas and consciously based his work on them. "What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters," he once confessed, "of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament I know nothing." Yet his work has been understood very inadequately from that point of view. Publications on him, once dominated by memoirs inspired by his remarkable personality, are now concerned with cataloguing and studying limited aspects of his complex art. Its intellectual power and originality, which were evident to contemporary writers like Duranty and Valery, have not been studied sufficiently by more recent critics. It is this side of Degas's art--as seen in his ingenious pictorial strategies and technical innovations, his use of motifs like the window, the mirror, and the picture within the picture, his invention of striking, psychologically compelling compositions, and his creation of a sculptural idiom at once formal and vernacular--that is the subject of these essays. Inevitably, given the range of his intellectual interests, the essays are also concerned with his contacts with leading novelists and poets of his time and his efforts to illustrate or draw inspiration from their works. Throughout, the author makes use of an important, largely unpublished source, the material in Degas's notebooks, on which he has recently published a complete catalogue"--Publisher's description.

Degas's major surviving photographs, little known even among devotees of the artist's paintings and pastels, are analyzed and reproduced for the first time in this volume, which accompanies an exhibition at The Metropolitan Muscum of Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

"This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Picasso Looks at Degas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 13 June-12 September 2010, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, 14 October 2010-16 January 2011."--T.p. verso.

Presents the life and paintings of Edgar Degas in a first person narrative drawn from letters, notebooks, and people's stories about the artist.

This absorbing, heartfelt work uncovers the story of the real dancer behind Degas’s now-iconic sculpture, shedding light on the struggles of late nineteenth-century Parisian life. She is famous throughout the world, but how many know her name? You can admire her figure in Washington, Paris, London, New York, Dresden, or Copenhagen, but where is her grave? We know only her age, fourteen, and the work that she did—because it was already grueling work, at an age when children today are sent to school. In the 1880s, she danced as a “little rat” at the Paris Opera, and what is often a dream for young girls now wasn’t a dream for her. She was fired after several years of intense labor; the director had had enough of her repeated absences. She had been working another job, even two, because the few pennies the Opera paid weren’t enough to keep her and her family fed. She was a model, posing for painters or sculptors—among them Edgar Degas. Drawing on a wealth of historical material as well as her own love of ballet and personal experiences of loss, Camille Laurens presents a compelling, compassionate portrait of Marie van Goethem and the world she inhabited that shows the importance of those who have traditionally been overlooked in the study of art.

There’s nothing more important to the future of your artwork than to educate and nurture the unique talent you were born to share with the world. The Canon of Design represents artistic integrity, and enables you to leave your mark on this earth as one of the most talented visual communicators ever known. Learn the language of design to stand with the great masters and reflect the beauty prominently found in nature. This field manual is written to you, for you, and will help shorten your journey to achieving artistic excellence!

See how iconic artists like Edgar Degas were influenced by their environments in this beautiful series produced in collaboration with The Met. See the world through Edgar Degas’s eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces. Have you ever wondered exactly what your favorite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw, and be inspired to create your own artworks, too. In What the Artist Saw: Edgar Degas, meet the famous French painter and sculptor. Learn all about how he broke new ground and captured the energy and elegance of skilled ballet dancers. In this series, follow the artists’ stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep—perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with then continue their own artistic journeys.