Edgar Degas Livres

Cinquante-trois reproductions des oeuvres de Degas; quelques pages sur la vie et l'art de ce peintre.

This book includes seventy reproductions of pastels from various collections worldwide as well as essay with historical context,and the working methods and materials that Degas employed, focusing on innovative techniques that incorporated the use of fixative and of the pastel medium wet.

DEGAS BY HIMSELF is a milestone in published approaches to the work of this remarkable figure. No other book has illustrated so many of Degas' works in colour, including his best-known paintings and sketches, as well as many works that will be unfamiliar to most people. The book draws on a range of sources - the artist's own notebooks and letters, as well as anecdotes and memoirs from his intimate circle - to trace a vivid portrait of Degas and reveal intimate aspects of his life and personality. His notebooks and letters show him as a forceful and expressive writer; there are letters to friends and customers, urgent messages to exhibitors at the Impressionist exhibition and, finally, a number of short and sad letters from his last years. Degas was also known as a wit and conversationalist, provoking a number of his friends to write down his words for posterity. For the first time, reminiscences and reported remarks have been brought together, conjuring up an unexpected picture of the artist as a man of wisdom and good humour.

Degas's scenes of the ballet seem to summarize the vitality and the fragile glamour of the modern spectacle. The text which accompanies the illustrations looks at Degas's varied use of media and discusses the in-between world of theatre wings where fact and fiction collide.

Including more than two hundred full-color reproductions of his famous works and a collection of writings from his diaries and textbooks, a portrait of Degas reveals his discipline, intense self-criticism, artistic struggles, and reflective side.