Dancers at the Barre- Edgar Degas

Is Degas an impressionist?

Degas was labelled as an impressionistic painter, though he never actually admitted to it . He rejected the word, felling as though it was constraining or better yet that it did not represent his body of work.

Impressionism, like many other art movements, was revolutionary, and its effect on the art community was great. The eloquent works of this period were a voyeuristic look into daily life through a painter's eyes. When looking at an impressionistic work one can notice how the artist went about creating the painting, applying brushstrokes in a painterly style. Perhaps one of the most famous works of this period, which perhaps you have already heard of, is Manet's A Bar At The Folies-Bergere (displayed below).

If you notice there is a difference between Manet's work and Degas', perhaps most evident in the figures. In Manet's painting of the bar-tender there is an attempt at a 3-dimensional form, however the only way this becomes evident to us is through the use of lighting. With the figures in the background there is not even an attempt at 3 dimensionality, overall characteristic of impressionistic work.

In Degas' painting, and many of his others, he makes an effort to shade and provide a depth of perspective in his subjects, even in a simple watering can.

So perhaps Degas was right, he is not an impressionist. Then what can we call him?

Art critics have an agonising need to label work, and artists. They desperately wish to constrain art to a title or confine it to a belief. But why should they? It becomes evident that Degas never wished to conform, and perhaps this is why the titles of his work are so similar and general: Dancers at the Barre, The Ballet Class, The Dance Class, Dancers in Blue etc. As Zadie Smith pointed out in her essay "Bird of a Few Words," "we have become used to titles that ironize or undercut what we are looking at, providing conceptual scaffolding for feeble visual ideas, or weak punchlines to duller jokes." Titles are essentially not important, and they certainly should not define an artist.

Struggling to find one for an experimental artist such as Degas is simply irrelevant. Labelling Degas as a particular kind of artist is merely allusive, it is an accessory, it certainly does not define the essence of his work.