WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.799 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Our mission is always 00:00:02.799 --> 00:00:05.299 to take these complex worlds, arts, history, 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:08.099 science, distill that essential knowledge from 00:00:08.099 --> 00:00:10.480 the sources, and really give you the full context, 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:12.400 but, you know, without the information overload. 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:14.960 And today we're diving into someone who's just 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:19.629 fascinatingly complex. contradictory even, one 00:00:19.629 --> 00:00:21.730 of the 19th century's most brilliant figures, 00:00:22.030 --> 00:00:24.789 Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas. Better known, of 00:00:24.789 --> 00:00:27.410 course, is Edgar Degas. Exactly. And we hit the 00:00:27.410 --> 00:00:29.850 central paradox right away, don't we? You look 00:00:29.850 --> 00:00:32.070 in any art history book, Degas is right there, 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:35.189 key founder of Impressionism. He was in seven 00:00:35.189 --> 00:00:37.090 of the eight independent shows between, what, 00:00:37.109 --> 00:00:40.649 1874 and 1886. But this is the kicker, if you'd 00:00:40.649 --> 00:00:42.490 actually call him an Impressionist to his face. 00:00:42.649 --> 00:00:44.990 Oh, he would not have liked that. No. Deeply 00:00:44.990 --> 00:00:46.850 offended. He absolutely rejected the term. He 00:00:46.850 --> 00:00:50.810 preferred, well, realist or maybe even more pointedly, 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:53.890 a classical artist painting modern life. He really 00:00:53.890 --> 00:00:55.990 was a walking contradiction. Absolutely. And 00:00:55.990 --> 00:00:58.030 that's our goal today, isn't it? To get past 00:00:58.030 --> 00:01:00.990 that simple label, you know, the ballet painter. 00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:05.840 We need to uncover the difficult. sophisticated, 00:01:06.280 --> 00:01:09.640 technically brilliant artist who somehow bridged 00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:12.579 that huge gap between Renaissance draftsmanship 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:16.780 and, well, the radical fleeting subjects of modern 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:20.640 Paris. How did he fuse that classical rigor with, 00:01:20.719 --> 00:01:23.120 say, laundresses or jotties? That's the question. 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:25.099 It is. And we've got a deep stack of sources 00:01:25.099 --> 00:01:28.040 here covering everything, really. His early ambitions, 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:30.359 you know, wanting to be a history painter. Then 00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:32.260 the financial crisis that sort of pushed him 00:01:32.260 --> 00:01:35.260 into modernity. His compositional innovations, 00:01:35.459 --> 00:01:36.900 which were groundbreaking. And we also have to 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:38.659 touch on the controversies, his personality, 00:01:38.859 --> 00:01:41.719 his politics. They were thorny, to say the least. 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:43.939 Definitely. So by the end of this deep dive, 00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:46.579 you should have a really thorough, nuanced picture 00:01:46.579 --> 00:01:49.500 of this pivotal figure in 19th century art. OK, 00:01:49.579 --> 00:01:53.200 so to understand that rigor. in degas art we 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:55.159 really have to look at his upbringing right that 00:01:55.159 --> 00:01:58.180 sounds quite rigorous itself it was he was born 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:02.599 hilaire germain edgar degas 1834 paris moderately 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:05.620 wealthy family his father augustin degas was 00:02:05.620 --> 00:02:09.560 a banker pretty prominent and his mother celestine 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:12.900 muson degas she had interesting roots creole 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:14.840 from new orleans that's right her family had 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:17.219 settled there uh Decades earlier. And there's 00:02:17.219 --> 00:02:19.560 a small detail the sources mention, but it feels 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:22.520 telling. As an adult, he dropped the aristocratic 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:26.620 Degas spelling. Just became Degas. Simpler. Simpler. 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.039 And that little change dropping the dead, it 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:31.500 feels quite symbolic, maybe moving away from 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:34.199 that inherited aristocracy, identifying more 00:02:34.199 --> 00:02:36.479 as a man of the new professional age. Whereas 00:02:36.479 --> 00:02:38.780 his brother René stuck with the more grandiose 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:41.300 Degas. Exactly. René refused to make that change. 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.180 So this early choice, it kind of mirrors his 00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:46.960 later rejection of, say, academic art for modern 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.039 subjects. It's an interesting parallel. Life 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:51.099 wasn't entirely smooth, though. His mother died 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:53.379 when he was only 13. Yes, a huge loss. So the 00:02:53.379 --> 00:02:55.500 main influences after that were his father, who 00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:57.939 was highly cultured, and interestingly, a set 00:02:57.939 --> 00:03:00.740 of unmarried uncles. And his father had very 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:03.099 traditional expectations for him, career -wise. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:06.139 Law school at the University of Paris. That was 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:08.219 the plan after he graduated from the Lycée Louis 00:03:08.219 --> 00:03:11.020 -Lagrange in 1853. A very prestigious school. 00:03:11.139 --> 00:03:14.000 But Degas, well, he wasn't feeling the law career. 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:16.740 Applied very little effort, apparently. And pivoted 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:19.310 almost immediately to art. Pretty much registered 00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:22.030 as a copyist in the Louvre. That tells you something 00:03:22.030 --> 00:03:25.009 right there. He was serious. He wanted the foundation, 00:03:25.030 --> 00:03:27.169 the techniques the old masters had. He wasn't 00:03:27.169 --> 00:03:29.830 looking for shortcuts. And then came that really 00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:33.069 pivotal moment, the encounter with Ingres, Jean 00:03:33.069 --> 00:03:37.530 -Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1855, the titan 00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:41.639 of neoclassicism. A figure Degas absolutely revered. 00:03:41.639 --> 00:03:43.780 You can see why. Anger represented the highest 00:03:43.780 --> 00:03:45.780 standards of drawing, of classical precision. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.219 And Anger gave him that crucial piece of advice. 00:03:48.520 --> 00:03:51.240 The famous line, draw lines, young man, and still 00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:53.500 more lines, both from life and from memory, and 00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:56.180 you will become a good artist. That sums up Degas' 00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:58.800 entire artistic ethos, really. Something he never 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:02.090 abandoned. Never. Even when painting dancers 00:04:02.090 --> 00:04:04.909 or jockeys, that emphasis on line, on the drawing 00:04:04.909 --> 00:04:07.270 underneath, it's always there. It's what fundamentally 00:04:07.270 --> 00:04:09.650 separates him from someone like Monet, right? 00:04:09.870 --> 00:04:12.830 Absolutely. Monet was all about color, light, 00:04:13.030 --> 00:04:17.170 atmosphere. Degas was structure first, line first. 00:04:17.610 --> 00:04:20.449 And Gray's advice led him to thrive under Louis 00:04:20.449 --> 00:04:22.790 Lamothe at the École des Beaux -Arts, who followed 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:25.370 that same style. And that classical foundation 00:04:25.370 --> 00:04:28.139 got cemented during his big trip to Italy. Three 00:04:28.139 --> 00:04:31.779 years, 1856 to 1859. Yeah, and this wasn't just 00:04:31.779 --> 00:04:34.199 tourism. He was there to study. Michelangelo, 00:04:34.279 --> 00:04:37.379 Raphael, Titian. But even then, his way of copying 00:04:37.379 --> 00:04:40.600 was, well, unconventional. Already showing his 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:44.000 unique eye. How so? You'd think copying Raphael 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:45.839 means copying the whole thing. Not necessarily 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:47.920 for Degas. The sources say he'd often focus on 00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:50.379 specific bits that grabbed him, like a secondary 00:04:50.379 --> 00:04:52.579 figure way in the background, or just a single 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:54.980 head from a group. Interesting. So he's treating 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:57.300 that detail almost like a mini portrait. Exactly. 00:04:57.379 --> 00:04:59.660 Using the old masters, not just for technique, 00:04:59.819 --> 00:05:01.980 but to sharpen his eye for individual psychology, 00:05:02.339 --> 00:05:04.600 isolating those little moments of human intensity. 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:07.639 Okay. That makes sense then. Why his first big 00:05:07.639 --> 00:05:10.060 ambition was to be a history painter. That was 00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:12.180 the top tier in the French Academy. The highest 00:05:12.180 --> 00:05:14.360 goal. And his early works show it. Things like 00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:17.100 Alexander and Bucephalus, the Daughter of Jephthah, 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:21.699 Semiramis building Babylon around 1860, all aimed 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.519 at that grand tradition. But the work that really 00:05:24.519 --> 00:05:27.139 signaled where he was heading, the blend of technique 00:05:27.139 --> 00:05:30.560 and psychology, was the Bellelli family. Started 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:34.060 in Italy around 1858. Yes. Intended for the Salon, 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:36.750 the big official exhibition. But it wasn't history. 00:05:36.889 --> 00:05:39.930 It was this powerful contemporary portrait of 00:05:39.930 --> 00:05:42.949 his aunt, uncle, and their two daughters. And 00:05:42.949 --> 00:05:44.529 when you look at it, the psychological tension 00:05:44.529 --> 00:05:47.430 is just, wow. The sources really highlight this. 00:05:47.490 --> 00:05:49.629 It's not just a formal picture. What makes it 00:05:49.629 --> 00:05:51.889 so poignant? Well, it's the spacing, isn't it? 00:05:51.910 --> 00:05:53.689 The way the figures are grouped, but also so 00:05:53.689 --> 00:05:56.029 isolated. The uncle, Gennaro Bellelli, he's standing 00:05:56.029 --> 00:05:58.490 apart, back slightly turned, looks quite distant. 00:05:58.649 --> 00:06:02.269 And the aunt, Lore. She's in black. very upright, 00:06:02.410 --> 00:06:05.050 severe almost. You feel this deep melancholy, 00:06:05.050 --> 00:06:07.129 this tension, this emotional distance from her 00:06:07.129 --> 00:06:10.170 husband. And the two girls, they connect the 00:06:10.170 --> 00:06:13.029 composition, but they seem very formal, restrained. 00:06:13.189 --> 00:06:16.410 So he's using that classical, meticulous draftsmanship 00:06:16.410 --> 00:06:18.990 to expose the uncomfortable emotional reality 00:06:18.990 --> 00:06:22.230 of this mid -19th century family. It's that blend 00:06:22.230 --> 00:06:25.370 of classical skill and modern psychological subject 00:06:25.370 --> 00:06:27.670 matter that's so groundbreaking. He finally did 00:06:27.670 --> 00:06:30.649 exhibit at the Salon in 1865, but it was with 00:06:30.649 --> 00:06:32.470 a History painting, scene of war, the Middle 00:06:32.470 --> 00:06:34.750 Ages. And it barely got noticed. Seems the establishment 00:06:34.750 --> 00:06:37.290 wasn't quite ready for what he was about to unleash. 00:06:37.589 --> 00:06:40.129 So that lack of success with history painting, 00:06:40.329 --> 00:06:43.050 maybe that was the push he needed. It seems like 00:06:43.050 --> 00:06:46.810 it. After that 1865 salon, he pretty much stopped 00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:49.250 trying those classical or historical narratives. 00:06:49.649 --> 00:06:53.029 Right, because his next submission, 1866, scene 00:06:53.029 --> 00:06:55.639 from the steeplechase. The Fallen Jockey, that's 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:57.600 a total pivot, isn't it? Absolutely definitive. 00:06:58.100 --> 00:07:00.699 Contemporary subject matter. Racehorses, jockeys, 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:03.060 the spectacle of modern Paris. And this commitment 00:07:03.060 --> 00:07:05.420 to the now was definitely influenced by his friendship 00:07:05.420 --> 00:07:08.100 with Manet. Edward Manet. They met a couple of 00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:10.319 years earlier, possibly copying Velazquez and 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:12.680 Louvre. That's the story, yeah. But the real 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:14.439 catalyst, the thing that really forced him to 00:07:14.439 --> 00:07:16.420 paint for a living, wasn't just artistic choice. 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:21.959 It was a series of... Pretty major shocks, financial, 00:07:22.220 --> 00:07:25.600 personal, starting around the early 1870s. Okay, 00:07:25.680 --> 00:07:28.079 what happened first? Well, the Franco -Prussian 00:07:28.079 --> 00:07:31.420 War in 1870, he enlisted in the National Guard. 00:07:31.699 --> 00:07:33.639 And it was during rifle training, wasn't it, 00:07:33.639 --> 00:07:35.639 that they discovered his eyesight problem? Exactly, 00:07:35.879 --> 00:07:38.540 defective eyesight. It became a lifelong worry, 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:41.319 progressively getting worse. And this is crucial 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:43.680 because, as we'll talk about, it pushed him towards 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.379 certain mediums later on, maybe even contributed 00:07:46.379 --> 00:07:48.500 to his isolation. After the war, there's the 00:07:48.500 --> 00:07:51.680 famous trip to New Orleans in 1872. Yes, visiting 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:54.379 his mother's family, his Creole relatives. His 00:07:54.379 --> 00:07:56.980 uncle, Michel Misson, lived there on Esplanade 00:07:56.980 --> 00:07:59.300 Avenue. And this trip produced one of his most 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:02.240 distinctive works, a cotton office in New Orleans. 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:05.360 Which just this incredibly detailed, complex 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:08.670 interior scene. A real snapshot of American business 00:08:08.670 --> 00:08:11.750 life through his relatives. And remarkably, the 00:08:11.750 --> 00:08:13.350 sources point out this was the only painting 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:17.110 of his life bought by a museum during his lifetime. 00:08:17.290 --> 00:08:19.290 Incredible, isn't it? The museum in Powell bought 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:22.980 it. It really underscores how, well. precarious 00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:24.899 his financial situation was about to become. 00:08:25.139 --> 00:08:27.660 He wasn't exactly a commercial success yet. And 00:08:27.660 --> 00:08:30.019 that precariousness became reality when he got 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:33.259 back to Paris. His father died in 1873. And the 00:08:33.259 --> 00:08:35.620 aftermath was catastrophic. It turned out his 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:38.539 brother, Rene, had run up enormous business debts, 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:41.659 bad banking decisions. The family name, which 00:08:41.659 --> 00:08:44.179 Degas valued highly, was on the line. Reputation 00:08:44.179 --> 00:08:46.919 meant everything. It did. So Degas, driven by 00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:49.279 this strong sense of family honor, took charge. 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:51.519 He sold his house, sold his inherited collection 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.120 of old master art, basically liquidated assets 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.720 to pay off René's debts. Wow. So overnight, the 00:08:57.720 --> 00:08:59.799 formerly comfortable artist is forced to rely 00:08:59.799 --> 00:09:02.120 entirely on selling his own work. For the first 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:05.360 time in his life, yes. Completely reliant on 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:08.480 art sales. And it's an amazing historical footnote. 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:11.220 The sources are very clear that the decade starting 00:09:11.220 --> 00:09:14.820 right then, 1874, fueled by the sudden intense 00:09:14.820 --> 00:09:17.720 financial need, it's precisely when he produced 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:20.059 a huge amount of his greatest work. Pressure 00:09:20.059 --> 00:09:22.580 makes diamonds, I guess. Or masterpieces in this 00:09:22.580 --> 00:09:25.580 case. And this financial pressure lined up perfectly 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:27.899 with his growing disillusionment with the official 00:09:27.899 --> 00:09:30.879 salon. They weren't really accepting his modernizing 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.480 work anyway. So he threw his lot in with the 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:35.370 independent group. The ones who became known 00:09:35.370 --> 00:09:38.149 as the Impressionists. He did. He was instrumental 00:09:38.149 --> 00:09:41.129 in organizing their exhibitions, showed his work 00:09:41.129 --> 00:09:43.210 in seven out of the eight shows. Which brings 00:09:43.210 --> 00:09:45.370 us right back to that core contradiction. He's 00:09:45.370 --> 00:09:48.269 participating, organizing, but fundamentally 00:09:48.269 --> 00:09:51.080 disagreeing with their whole philosophy. Absolutely. 00:09:51.179 --> 00:09:53.259 He had total disdain for their signature thing, 00:09:53.340 --> 00:09:56.039 painting on plein air outdoors. He thought it 00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:58.980 was sloppy, intellectually shallow. That famous 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:01.320 quote about wanting the government to use birdshot 00:10:01.320 --> 00:10:04.220 on landscape painters. So telling, isn't it? 00:10:04.259 --> 00:10:06.740 It just highlights how different his own studio 00:10:06.740 --> 00:10:09.299 practice was. He wasn't chasing sunsets. No, 00:10:09.399 --> 00:10:12.580 the total opposite. Working indoors, using memory, 00:10:12.820 --> 00:10:16.299 sketches, models who posed again and again. And 00:10:16.299 --> 00:10:19.690 increasingly, photography. He insisted, and this 00:10:19.690 --> 00:10:22.990 is a key quote, no art was ever less spontaneous 00:10:22.990 --> 00:10:26.070 than mine. What I do is the result of reflection 00:10:26.070 --> 00:10:28.470 and of the study of the great masters, modern 00:10:28.470 --> 00:10:30.809 subject, classical method. And his personality 00:10:30.809 --> 00:10:32.990 didn't help smooth things over within the group 00:10:32.990 --> 00:10:35.289 either, did it? He was argumentative. Constantly, 00:10:35.309 --> 00:10:37.769 arguing with the core landscape guys like Monet. 00:10:37.850 --> 00:10:40.309 And he caused friction by insisting they include 00:10:40.309 --> 00:10:42.250 artists who weren't really impressionists at 00:10:42.250 --> 00:10:45.269 all, like the satirist Forain or the genre painter 00:10:45.269 --> 00:10:48.320 Raffaelli. So he wanted a broader church. But 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:50.720 they felt it diluted the brand, so to speak. 00:10:50.779 --> 00:10:53.000 Pretty much. That insistence on including others, 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:55.779 that rancor, it definitely contributed to the 00:10:55.779 --> 00:10:57.879 group finally falling apart after the last show 00:10:57.879 --> 00:11:00.799 in 1886. Degas was critical to their start, but 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.100 also, well, a difficult collaborator who helped 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:05.940 push them to the end. Okay, so regardless of 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:07.899 the label impressionist, realist, whatever the 00:11:07.899 --> 00:11:10.940 technical skill is, just undeniable. Once he 00:11:10.940 --> 00:11:14.299 focused on modern life, he was seen as this supreme 00:11:14.299 --> 00:11:17.539 draftsman. And the... Sources really emphasize 00:11:17.539 --> 00:11:19.879 his ability to capture motion. He really was 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:22.080 a visual sociologist of movement, wasn't he? 00:11:22.490 --> 00:11:24.889 Whether it's the effort of a woman washing, the 00:11:24.889 --> 00:11:27.309 blur of a horse race, or the discipline of a 00:11:27.309 --> 00:11:30.350 dancer, he understood anatomy under stress. Comes 00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:32.309 right back to that Ingram's advice, the importance 00:11:32.309 --> 00:11:35.309 of line and structure. Exactly. That deep classical 00:11:35.309 --> 00:11:38.529 understanding of the figure is what let him capture 00:11:38.529 --> 00:11:41.090 a fleeting pose and make it look completely natural, 00:11:41.230 --> 00:11:43.789 completely convincing. And his style wasn't just 00:11:43.789 --> 00:11:46.269 about movement. His compositions were revolutionary. 00:11:46.509 --> 00:11:49.250 He started breaking the old framing rules, using 00:11:49.250 --> 00:11:51.870 things like awkward cropping, unusual viewpoints. 00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:54.639 He was capturing what we might call the accidental 00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:57.080 framing of modern life, like looking through 00:11:57.080 --> 00:11:58.799 a window or catching something out of the corner 00:11:58.799 --> 00:12:01.379 of your eye. Think about Place de la Concorde 00:12:01.379 --> 00:12:04.240 from 1875. Right. It feels like a snapshot. Yeah. 00:12:04.379 --> 00:12:06.700 Figures cut off by the edge of the canvas, unbalanced. 00:12:06.820 --> 00:12:09.240 It creates this real sense of movement of a moment 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.720 caught in time. It really does. And it connects 00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:14.000 directly to the rise of photography, doesn't 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.639 it? That instantaneous quality cameras offered. 00:12:16.860 --> 00:12:18.700 But it wasn't just photography influencing him, 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.200 was it? Japanese prints, too. Oh, massively. 00:12:21.789 --> 00:12:24.990 Lucio Prince were flooding Paris then. He loved 00:12:24.990 --> 00:12:27.309 their compositional tricks, the flat planes of 00:12:27.309 --> 00:12:31.029 color, figures pushed to the side, dramatic diagonals, 00:12:31.070 --> 00:12:33.309 those high vantage points that flatten everything 00:12:33.309 --> 00:12:37.409 out. The orchestra at the opera around 1870. 00:12:37.490 --> 00:12:39.210 That seems to pull all these ideas together. 00:12:39.429 --> 00:12:42.590 It's a portrait, but also a genre scene. And 00:12:42.590 --> 00:12:45.710 the viewpoint is just odd. Brilliantly odd. The 00:12:45.710 --> 00:12:47.789 subject is the opera house, this professional 00:12:47.789 --> 00:12:50.840 world. He shows it from the perspective of, like, 00:12:50.899 --> 00:12:53.679 a distracted audience member. His friend, the 00:12:53.679 --> 00:12:56.080 bassoonist Desiree Dihau, is there, but he's 00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.440 just one guy in the pit. And the dancers on stage 00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:00.820 are cut off. Severely. You just see their legs, 00:13:00.820 --> 00:13:03.220 the bottom of their tutis. He's less interested 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:04.899 in the star performers and more in the whole 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:06.960 environment, how your eye scans across the scene, 00:13:07.100 --> 00:13:09.779 how we consume spectacle in the modern city. 00:13:10.019 --> 00:13:12.200 It's like an immersive viewpoint, almost cinematic. 00:13:12.830 --> 00:13:16.070 It really is. It reinforces that Degas' subject 00:13:16.070 --> 00:13:18.490 was often the experience of modern life itself, 00:13:18.809 --> 00:13:21.809 seen through these deliberately, almost arbitrary 00:13:21.809 --> 00:13:24.190 -seeming frames. Something else that defines 00:13:24.190 --> 00:13:26.710 his later work especially is this idea of the 00:13:26.710 --> 00:13:30.269 unfinished. You see incredibly detailed bits 00:13:30.269 --> 00:13:33.470 right next to areas that look barely sketched. 00:13:33.490 --> 00:13:36.230 Yeah, that's a complex one. He did often blame 00:13:36.230 --> 00:13:39.549 his failing eyesight after 1870, said he couldn't 00:13:39.549 --> 00:13:41.870 maintain the fine detail. But maybe that wasn't 00:13:41.870 --> 00:13:44.690 the whole story. Probably not. He also admitted 00:13:44.690 --> 00:13:47.029 he had this reluctance to just stop working on 00:13:47.029 --> 00:13:49.169 something. He apparently said he preferred to 00:13:49.169 --> 00:13:51.350 begin a hundred things and not finish one of 00:13:51.350 --> 00:13:53.629 them. He was notoriously unwilling to call a 00:13:53.629 --> 00:13:56.509 painting done. For him, finished maybe implied 00:13:56.509 --> 00:13:58.990 there was nothing more to discover or fix. The 00:13:58.990 --> 00:14:01.250 process of looking, adjusting, refining that 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:03.870 was continuous. So once that financial pressure 00:14:03.870 --> 00:14:07.909 hit in the 1870s, his subjects shifted very deliberately 00:14:07.909 --> 00:14:11.029 towards women at work. Milliners, laundresses. 00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:13.980 And of course, dancers. These weren't romantic 00:14:13.980 --> 00:14:16.259 depictions, though. They were driven partly by 00:14:16.259 --> 00:14:19.500 economics. Dancers especially sold well. And 00:14:19.500 --> 00:14:21.299 they eventually made up more than half his entire 00:14:21.299 --> 00:14:23.539 output. But he didn't paint them like glamorous 00:14:23.539 --> 00:14:26.860 stars on stage. Rarely. Mostly backstage, in 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:29.440 rehearsal rooms. Stretching, exhausted, tying 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:31.980 a shoe, adjusting a strap. He focused on their 00:14:31.980 --> 00:14:35.139 status as professionals, doing a tough job. The 00:14:35.139 --> 00:14:37.940 sheer grind behind the performance. The labor 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:40.840 involved. What about the milliners and laundresses? 00:14:41.059 --> 00:14:43.200 The milliner series, Women Making Hats, that's 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:45.440 often seen as him reflecting on his own art. 00:14:45.620 --> 00:14:48.299 You know, the milliner carefully arranging ribbons 00:14:48.299 --> 00:14:51.100 and fabrics, just like Degas meticulously arranged 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:54.019 elements in his paintings. Both skilled workers 00:14:54.019 --> 00:14:56.720 manipulating materials. And the laundresses. 00:14:56.980 --> 00:14:59.220 They allowed him to study bodies under physical 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:02.970 strain. bending, stretching, pressing heavy irons, 00:15:02.970 --> 00:15:06.169 the reality of working -class female labor. Then 00:15:06.169 --> 00:15:08.789 later, his subjects shift again, becoming much 00:15:08.789 --> 00:15:11.029 more intimate, women bathing, drying themselves, 00:15:11.370 --> 00:15:14.870 combing their hair, like in the tub. Right. And 00:15:14.870 --> 00:15:16.889 it's in these late news, ironically, that his 00:15:16.889 --> 00:15:18.990 classical drawing starts to give way a bit more 00:15:18.990 --> 00:15:21.169 to the color techniques he supposedly disliked 00:15:21.169 --> 00:15:23.549 in the Impressionists. How so? Well, the strict 00:15:23.549 --> 00:15:26.279 definition of form relaxes. The underlying structure 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:29.059 is still rigorous, classic Degas, but the color 00:15:29.059 --> 00:15:31.580 becomes much more expressive, more abstract almost. 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:34.820 Backgrounds dissolve into pure texture and hue. 00:15:35.139 --> 00:15:38.159 It's a fascinating late career synthesis, really. 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:41.440 His love of line finally reconciling with that 00:15:41.440 --> 00:15:44.059 modern obsession with color. And that late move 00:15:44.059 --> 00:15:46.639 towards expressive color, it was helped along 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:50.019 by him moving beyond just oil paint, right? Especially 00:15:50.019 --> 00:15:52.379 into pastel. His eyesight must have played a 00:15:52.379 --> 00:15:54.679 role there, too. It seems very likely pastel 00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:57.419 allowed for bolder strokes, maybe less demanding 00:15:57.419 --> 00:16:00.259 on failing vision than fine oil work. And by 00:16:00.259 --> 00:16:02.700 the late 1870s, he wasn't just using castel. 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:05.220 He was an absolute master of it. It wasn't just 00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:07.840 like chalk drawings, though, was it? No, not 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:10.159 at all. It's important to realize he applied 00:16:10.159 --> 00:16:13.139 pastel this dry medium in really complex layers 00:16:13.139 --> 00:16:15.799 and textures. He'd build up these dense surfaces, 00:16:15.980 --> 00:16:18.799 sometimes using fixative or even water to bind 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:21.159 to the layers. He could get a richness and depth 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:23.559 that really rivaled oil paint. So pastel was 00:16:23.559 --> 00:16:25.860 the perfect solution for him in a way. It let 00:16:25.860 --> 00:16:27.840 him keep that focus on drawing the ingress line. 00:16:28.169 --> 00:16:31.169 But also embrace the vibrant, expressive color 00:16:31.169 --> 00:16:33.909 that modern art was exploring. You see it beautifully 00:16:33.909 --> 00:16:36.769 in things like Blue Dancers from 1897. It's a 00:16:36.769 --> 00:16:39.789 perfect fusion. Beyond pastel, he was also really 00:16:39.789 --> 00:16:43.529 into printmaking. Monotypes, specifically. He 00:16:43.529 --> 00:16:47.559 made hundreds. Around 300, yeah. Mainly mid -1870s 00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:50.080 to mid -80s, then again in the early 90s. He 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.700 was fascinated by these reproductive processes. 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:55.059 Can you just quickly explain what a monotype 00:16:55.059 --> 00:16:57.519 is for anyone unfamiliar? Sure. Monotype means 00:16:57.519 --> 00:17:00.240 single print. Basically, you paint or draw directly 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:02.899 onto a smooth plate, usually metal, with ink. 00:17:03.039 --> 00:17:05.440 Then you run it through a press onto paper. So 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:07.660 you only get one good print. Usually just one 00:17:07.660 --> 00:17:10.420 strong one, maybe a second, weaker ghost print. 00:17:10.660 --> 00:17:12.559 Because the ink is applied directly and often 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:15.000 wiped away to create highlights, the image is 00:17:15.000 --> 00:17:17.480 basically destroyed in the printing. It blurs 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:20.079 the line between drawing and printmaking. Diggus 00:17:20.079 --> 00:17:22.160 loved that quality. And he often worked back 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:24.380 into them. Frequently reworked the printed image 00:17:24.380 --> 00:17:26.700 with pastel, just doubling down on that mixed 00:17:26.700 --> 00:17:29.099 media approach he favored. His exploration of 00:17:29.099 --> 00:17:31.460 technology didn't end there either. Photography 00:17:31.460 --> 00:17:34.420 became a real passion later on in the late 1880s. 00:17:34.910 --> 00:17:37.890 A serious passion, not just snapshots. He staged 00:17:37.890 --> 00:17:40.970 elaborate photo shoots, often photographing his 00:17:40.970 --> 00:17:44.369 friends like Renoir and Mallarmé under dramatic 00:17:44.369 --> 00:17:47.430 lamplight. Very controlled compositions. And 00:17:47.430 --> 00:17:49.990 he used photos as reference material. Extensively. 00:17:50.250 --> 00:17:52.950 Photos of dancers, nudes, they fed directly back 00:17:52.950 --> 00:17:55.769 into his drawings and paintings. It just reinforces 00:17:55.769 --> 00:17:59.049 again how much his work was studio -based, thought 00:17:59.049 --> 00:18:02.029 -out, not spontaneous plein air stuff. Okay, 00:18:02.069 --> 00:18:04.230 now we have to tackle the big public controversy 00:18:04.230 --> 00:18:07.450 of his career. The sculpture. The little dancer 00:18:07.450 --> 00:18:11.859 of 14 years. 1881. The only one he ever showed 00:18:11.859 --> 00:18:14.079 publicly. And it was designed to provoke, wasn't 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:16.200 it? It wasn't traditional bronze or marble. It 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:19.980 was wax, nearly life size and mixed media realism 00:18:19.980 --> 00:18:22.480 pushed to the extreme. Real hair, real cloth 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:25.500 tutus, satin ribbons. Exactly. It was hyper realistic. 00:18:25.779 --> 00:18:28.880 And the reaction was, well, mostly hostile. Critics 00:18:28.880 --> 00:18:31.019 called it appalling ugliness. They couldn't handle 00:18:31.019 --> 00:18:32.960 the realism. They struggled with it. The combination 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:35.400 of traditional sculpture technique with real 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:38.240 everyday materials. She looked too real, too 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.119 common. maybe. Not the idealized form they expected 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:44.140 from sculpture. But not everyone hated it. Huysmans, 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.369 the critic, saw its importance. J .K. Heisman's, 00:18:47.369 --> 00:18:50.930 yes, a key naturalist critic. He got it immediately. 00:18:51.349 --> 00:18:53.950 Said Degas had revolutionized the traditions 00:18:53.950 --> 00:18:57.089 of sculpture, which arguably he had. And Degas 00:18:57.089 --> 00:18:59.549 himself clearly valued sculpture highly. He said, 00:18:59.650 --> 00:19:02.549 drawing is a way of thinking, modeling another. 00:19:02.789 --> 00:19:05.210 Put it on the same level intellectually. He did. 00:19:05.529 --> 00:19:07.750 Yet, even though he went on to make about 150 00:19:07.750 --> 00:19:10.990 more wax sculptures over the years, he kept them 00:19:10.990 --> 00:19:13.900 all private. hidden away in his studio. Which 00:19:13.900 --> 00:19:16.880 leads us straight into that really tricky posthumous 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:20.099 bronze controversy. After he died in 1917, they 00:19:20.099 --> 00:19:23.279 found all these waxes, many damaged. Right. And 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:26.119 his heirs wanted to preserve this hidden part 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:28.640 of his work. They consulted a founder, Adrian 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:31.039 Hebrard. And Hebrard decided some could be cast. 00:19:31.299 --> 00:19:34.240 He deemed 74 of the waxes stable enough to cast 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:36.859 in bronze. And he oversaw that casting process 00:19:36.859 --> 00:19:40.500 between 1919 and 1936. This is why almost all 00:19:40.500 --> 00:19:42.859 the Degas bronzes you see in museums today, apart 00:19:42.859 --> 00:19:45.819 from that original wax little dancer, are posthumous 00:19:45.819 --> 00:19:48.920 casts. They're called simulages. What does simulages 00:19:48.920 --> 00:19:51.380 mean exactly? Why is that term important? It's 00:19:51.380 --> 00:19:54.049 crucial. It means they are cast made from a mold 00:19:54.049 --> 00:19:55.730 that might not have been taken directly from 00:19:55.730 --> 00:19:58.990 Degas' original wax, but possibly from an intermediate 00:19:58.990 --> 00:20:02.089 plaster cast or even another bronze copy. So 00:20:02.089 --> 00:20:04.089 while they represent his original forms, they 00:20:04.089 --> 00:20:07.109 were cast years after his death without his supervision. 00:20:07.450 --> 00:20:10.079 Raising questions about accuracy. surface detail, 00:20:10.299 --> 00:20:13.200 his final intentions, especially since he never 00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:15.660 chose to cast them in bronze himself. Precisely. 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:17.519 And the whole thing got even more complicated 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:21.319 in 2004. Suddenly, this new group of 73 plaster 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:23.980 casts surfaced. They looked very similar to the 00:20:23.980 --> 00:20:25.980 original waxes. Another layer of complexity. 00:20:26.220 --> 00:20:28.259 What happened then? Bronzes were then cast from 00:20:28.259 --> 00:20:30.599 these new plasters, and it just ignited a huge 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:33.460 controversy. Are these plasters legitimate intermediate 00:20:33.460 --> 00:20:37.200 steps Degas made? Or are they later maybe unauthorized 00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:39.359 copies? Where did they come from? And the reaction 00:20:39.359 --> 00:20:42.000 from scholars. Tells you everything. Most major 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.880 Degas experts just declined to comment, refused 00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:47.900 to get drawn into this really charged, high -stakes 00:20:47.900 --> 00:20:50.400 debate about authenticity. It just shows how 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.700 difficult it is to manage the legacy of an artist 00:20:52.700 --> 00:20:55.619 like Degas who kept so much hidden, so much unfinished. 00:20:56.250 --> 00:20:58.589 Moving from his complicated art to his complicated 00:20:58.589 --> 00:21:03.829 life. Degas the man sounds, well, difficult, 00:21:04.049 --> 00:21:08.369 secretive, argumentative. Notoriously so. He 00:21:08.369 --> 00:21:11.430 lived a very outwardly simple, uneventful life. 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:14.869 He had this belief, quite stark really, that 00:21:14.869 --> 00:21:18.009 the artist must live alone and his private life 00:21:18.009 --> 00:21:21.390 must remain unknown. He really cultivated that 00:21:21.390 --> 00:21:23.769 image, didn't he? The misanthropic bachelor. 00:21:24.109 --> 00:21:26.170 George Moore calling him an old curmudgeon sounds 00:21:26.170 --> 00:21:28.329 about right from the sources. Seems fair. Known 00:21:28.329 --> 00:21:30.329 for his wit, but a wit that could easily turn 00:21:30.329 --> 00:21:33.029 cruel. And while he started out moving in, you 00:21:33.029 --> 00:21:34.809 know, vaguely left -leaning Republican circles. 00:21:34.970 --> 00:21:36.609 Signs of prejudice started showing up early. 00:21:36.750 --> 00:21:39.170 They did. There's that anecdote, maybe minor, 00:21:39.210 --> 00:21:41.190 but telling of him firing a model just because 00:21:41.190 --> 00:21:43.650 he found out she was Protestant. And this prejudice 00:21:43.650 --> 00:21:46.410 seemed to escalate later, particularly his anti 00:21:46.410 --> 00:21:48.670 -Semitism. Scholars even link it to some of his 00:21:48.670 --> 00:21:52.160 paintings. Yes, specifically the 1879 work Portraits 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:54.680 at the Stock Exchange. Modern experts widely 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:57.339 see anti -Semitic sentiment in it. It depicts 00:21:57.339 --> 00:22:00.319 the Jewish banker, Ernest May. How so? What do 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.829 they point to? Well, they argue the way Degas 00:22:02.829 --> 00:22:05.829 depicts May's facial features, particularly the 00:22:05.829 --> 00:22:08.549 exaggerated nose and his posture, which seems 00:22:08.549 --> 00:22:11.690 sort of overly eager, almost grasping. They say 00:22:11.690 --> 00:22:13.930 it closely mirrors the visual tropes used in 00:22:13.930 --> 00:22:16.170 anti -Semitic cartoons and publications that 00:22:16.170 --> 00:22:18.250 were common in Paris then. That's really important 00:22:18.250 --> 00:22:20.490 context. It takes it beyond just personal views 00:22:20.490 --> 00:22:23.089 and shows it potentially reflected in the artwork 00:22:23.089 --> 00:22:25.650 itself. Maybe a turning point in his politics. 00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:28.500 And the real breaking point, the thing that solidified 00:22:28.500 --> 00:22:30.859 these views publicly was the Dreyfus affair, 00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:33.980 that huge political crisis that just tore France 00:22:33.980 --> 00:22:37.700 apart in the 1890s and early 1900s. Alfred Dreyfus, 00:22:37.779 --> 00:22:40.299 the Jewish army captain falsely accused of treason. 00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:43.440 It split the country. Dreyfusards versus anti 00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:46.460 -Dreyfusards. And Degas was vehemently anti -Dreyfusard. 00:22:46.759 --> 00:22:49.079 Fiercely so, the sources say. And this stance 00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:51.380 really amplified his anti -Semitism. It did, 00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:54.000 with devastating personal results. He systematically 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:56.559 broke ties with all his Jewish friends, publicly 00:22:56.559 --> 00:22:58.720 disowned friendships with Jewish artists he'd 00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:01.579 known before. This argumentative, rigid nature 00:23:01.579 --> 00:23:05.160 just led to profound isolation. One by one, friends 00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:08.289 just couldn't take it anymore. Exactly. Renoir's 00:23:08.289 --> 00:23:10.309 comment is just heartbreaking, isn't it? What 00:23:10.309 --> 00:23:12.690 a creature he was that Degas, all his friends 00:23:12.690 --> 00:23:15.369 had to leave him. I was one of the last to go, 00:23:15.369 --> 00:23:17.950 but even I couldn't stay till the end. It really 00:23:17.950 --> 00:23:20.650 underscores the tragedy. A man with such deep 00:23:20.650 --> 00:23:23.369 psychological insight in his paintings seemed 00:23:23.369 --> 00:23:25.849 incapable of maintaining basic human connection 00:23:25.849 --> 00:23:28.650 in his own life. It's a stark contrast. Yet, 00:23:28.670 --> 00:23:31.069 despite all this difficulty, his professional 00:23:31.069 --> 00:23:34.089 life did involve some incredibly important, if... 00:23:34.279 --> 00:23:37.920 ultimately complex partnerships, Mary Cassatt 00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:40.259 stands out. The American painter. Their connection 00:23:40.259 --> 00:23:43.309 seemed immediate. It did. Degas invited her to 00:23:43.309 --> 00:23:46.509 show with the Impressionists in 1877. They had 00:23:46.509 --> 00:23:49.410 a lot in common, affluent backgrounds, fiercely 00:23:49.410 --> 00:23:52.549 independent spirits, neither ever married, and 00:23:52.549 --> 00:23:54.930 crucially, a shared dedication to figure painting, 00:23:55.190 --> 00:23:56.950 trying to keep it relevant against the rising 00:23:56.950 --> 00:23:59.309 tide of landscape. They were often seen studying 00:23:59.309 --> 00:24:01.230 together at the Louvre. And their partnership 00:24:01.230 --> 00:24:03.950 went deep into the studio, technically. Degas 00:24:03.950 --> 00:24:06.109 made these really innovative prints of Cassatt 00:24:06.109 --> 00:24:08.730 looking at art, experimenting with process. And 00:24:08.730 --> 00:24:11.420 she studied printmaking with him directly. Right 00:24:11.420 --> 00:24:14.759 there in his studio, using his press, between 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:18.880 1879 and 1880. She also posed for him. She's 00:24:18.880 --> 00:24:21.940 in his millinery series. And importantly, she 00:24:21.940 --> 00:24:24.039 was instrumental in helping him sell his work 00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:26.880 in America. That provided vital income for him 00:24:26.880 --> 00:24:29.339 after his family's financial mess. But as seems 00:24:29.339 --> 00:24:31.519 to be the pattern with Degas, the collaboration 00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:34.119 eventually fractured. Abruptly, the technical 00:24:34.119 --> 00:24:36.500 side ended when he suddenly pulled out of a Prince 00:24:36.500 --> 00:24:38.519 journal they were planning together. And the 00:24:38.519 --> 00:24:41.160 personal relationship suffered too. The Dreyfus 00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:44.099 affair again? It created an unbridgeable gap. 00:24:44.720 --> 00:24:47.500 Cassatt was strongly pro -Dreyfus, totally opposed 00:24:47.500 --> 00:24:50.059 to his anti -Dreyfusar position. There's that 00:24:50.059 --> 00:24:52.259 telling story about the portrait he painted of 00:24:52.259 --> 00:24:54.599 her, Mary Cassatt seated, holding cards. Yes, 00:24:54.700 --> 00:24:57.099 Cassatt eventually sold it. And she said, quite 00:24:57.099 --> 00:24:59.039 forcefully, she didn't want people to know she'd 00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:00.960 posed for it because she felt it made her look 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.359 like a repugnant person. Wow. speaks volumes 00:25:04.359 --> 00:25:06.619 about the emotional toll of being subjected to 00:25:06.619 --> 00:25:09.640 Degas' intense, maybe unforgiving psychological 00:25:09.640 --> 00:25:12.599 gaze. It really does. But what's fascinating 00:25:12.599 --> 00:25:15.480 is, despite that rift, despite her feelings about 00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:18.000 that portrait, the sources confirm they kept 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:20.140 visiting each other right up until his death 00:25:20.140 --> 00:25:24.319 in 1917. So the professional respect, maybe some 00:25:24.319 --> 00:25:28.259 deeper bond, managed to survive the political 00:25:28.259 --> 00:25:31.349 and personal clashes. It seems so. Beyond Cassatt, 00:25:31.430 --> 00:25:33.609 you know, he was also important for Suzanne Valadon. 00:25:33.849 --> 00:25:36.289 He bought her first drawings, taught her soft 00:25:36.289 --> 00:25:38.250 ground etching. And we have to mention Manet 00:25:38.250 --> 00:25:42.150 again. Their rivalry, their dynamic, was key 00:25:42.150 --> 00:25:44.269 in pushing Degas towards contemporary scenes. 00:25:44.569 --> 00:25:47.690 That relationship is still generating major exhibitions 00:25:47.690 --> 00:25:50.349 even now. Absolutely. And although Degas didn't 00:25:50.349 --> 00:25:51.990 have formal students in the traditional sense, 00:25:52.069 --> 00:25:54.990 his influence was huge. His methods, the line, 00:25:55.109 --> 00:25:57.730 the viewpoints, the study of movement, they profoundly 00:25:57.730 --> 00:26:00.250 affected younger artists. Jean -Louis Foran, 00:26:00.509 --> 00:26:03.109 Walter Sickert, Cassatt herself, and maybe most 00:26:03.109 --> 00:26:05.819 significantly, Henri de Toulouse -Lautrec. Toulouse 00:26:05.819 --> 00:26:08.160 -Trec really carried that Degas gaze into the 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:10.039 next generation, didn't he? He absolutely did. 00:26:10.140 --> 00:26:12.339 Into the cabarets and brothels of Montmartre. 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:15.099 Hashtag outro. So as we wrap up this deep dive, 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:18.380 Edgar Degas really resists any simple box, doesn't 00:26:18.380 --> 00:26:20.880 he? He's just defined by these powerful contradictions. 00:26:21.079 --> 00:26:23.579 He really is. You've got the reluctant modernist, 00:26:23.640 --> 00:26:25.799 a founder of the Impressionist shows who hated 00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:28.380 the name, insisted he was a classical academic 00:26:28.380 --> 00:26:31.119 artist who just happened to paint modern life. 00:26:31.579 --> 00:26:33.539 You've got the meticulous draftsman following 00:26:33.539 --> 00:26:36.359 Ingress, using that incredible skill to show 00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:39.160 the reality of working women, the tired laundress, 00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.299 the disciplined dancer, capturing those fleeting, 00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:45.380 almost random moments of Paris. And then there's 00:26:45.380 --> 00:26:48.650 the man. Misanthropic, demanding privacy, whose 00:26:48.650 --> 00:26:51.630 cruel wit and rigid politics drove friends away. 00:26:51.869 --> 00:26:54.490 Yet this is the artist revered for creating some 00:26:54.490 --> 00:26:56.589 of the most profound, psychologically complex 00:26:56.589 --> 00:26:59.809 portraits ever made. Exposing the inner lives, 00:26:59.990 --> 00:27:02.470 the isolation of the people he observed. His 00:27:02.470 --> 00:27:04.930 lasting importance, it seems, lies in that unique 00:27:04.930 --> 00:27:07.369 synthesis. Taking the highest technical standards 00:27:07.369 --> 00:27:09.329 of the old masters. And applying them with this 00:27:09.329 --> 00:27:12.690 disruptive modern viewpoint, influenced by photography 00:27:12.690 --> 00:27:15.450 by Japanese prints. He really was the bridge. 00:27:15.529 --> 00:27:18.369 between, say, 15th century tradition and the 00:27:18.369 --> 00:27:20.990 20th century way of seeing. Which brings us to 00:27:20.990 --> 00:27:22.990 our final provocative thought for you to consider. 00:27:23.869 --> 00:27:26.569 Degas believed famously that a painter needed 00:27:26.569 --> 00:27:29.130 no personal life. It led him to deep solitude 00:27:29.130 --> 00:27:32.369 and, sadly, to prejudice. He pushed people away. 00:27:32.779 --> 00:27:35.819 So the question is, did that self -imposed isolation 00:27:35.819 --> 00:27:38.180 that made he necessary distance and difficult 00:27:38.180 --> 00:27:40.880 detachment, did it actually give him the unique 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:43.599 perspective he needed? Was it required to capture 00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:45.599 that profound, often uncomfortable psychological 00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:48.900 isolation, that raw truth we see in his greatest 00:27:48.900 --> 00:27:51.059 work? It's a compelling question to think about 00:27:51.059 --> 00:27:52.819 as you look again at the work of this brilliant, 00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:55.160 difficult, utterly contradictory artist.