A Study On The Style Of Edgar Degas's Pastel

The painting context where Degas lived included the artistic trend of that time, the invention of photography, the popularity of Ukiyo-e , the argument between Ingres and Delaroix in sketch and color ,etc, which had a great effect on the painting conceptions. Therefore, the painting context is the underlying reason of his artistic style in pastel and the study on it can strengthen the understanding of the formation of his artistic style.Degas's choice of painting subject matters is the main element in the formation of his artistic style. Based on the education of classicism and the orientation of realistic aesthetics that he took, Degas transferred the early creation of historical subject matters to the dominant creation of subject matters of contemporary life consciously and successfully. Meanwhile, the pastel chalk is the ideal tool to express his artistic dream because its features satisfy the Degas's pursuit of art. No matter the subject matter is about cinema life ,horse race, naked bashing women or ironing washwomen, they are suitable for Degas to use the pastel chalk to present movement, develop the characteristic of impulse creation ,correct again and again and recreate, thus developing the flash effect of color firmly combining with sketch and achieving the perfect combination between sketch and color in the same work.Finally, the formation of his artistic style also depends on the expression of techniques, namely the detailed usage of painting language.The integrated function of three points above on the painting context, the choice of subject matters and the expression of techniques is the main element of the formation of Degas's pastel and the significant basis on the analysis about it. That can be understood in the following two aspects. Firstly, the painting context where Degas lived and his personal detailed situation have a great influence on his choice of painting subject matters and the development of technical techniques and form the internal orientation and accumulation in the artistic style. In turn, the internal orientation and accumulation play a dominant role in the development of uniqueness on the Degas's painting techniques. Secondly, the unique expression of techniques not only achieves internal artistic orientation and accumulation and make them clearer so as to select the artistic trend and materials suitable for his personalities more actively. The perfect combination between internal artistic orientation and personal methods of expression contributes to the uniqueness of Degas's painting style.Under the integrated argument of the above three points, Degas's painting style is endowed with following chareateristics: 1, Perfect combination between sketch and colour and "magnificent" feature in tone due to the attachment to traditional art of sketch and the enthusiam for colors; 2,Revealing the essence of life through"ugly"image,despite that characters possess"ugly"features in his works ,because of his dedicated creation attitude that entered the realm of oneness between himself and models ; 3, Adopting the composition style of"close-up " and "news photograph" to explore and exploit the essence and source of art, in Degas's works ,under the infulence of the popular composition way of Japanese Ukiyo-e prints and photography in Europe at that age; 4,Acquiring another feature that his constant explorations on techniques of pastel contribute to extending its expressive force, and enriching and refreshing stereovision of pictures by the study of his techniques on pastel.In the 19th century of France, hundreds of flowers bloom, and hundreds of schools contend. Edgar Degas absorbed the essence of many schools and formed his own artistic style, such as classicism school, romanticism school, realism school, impressionism school and other art schools. Finally, Degas became the master of pastel.