Contradiction And Intuition--Artistic Features Of Edgar Degas

Compared with other artists, Edgar Degas represents a more remarkably contradictory character in art history, especially in the issue of tradition and innovation, and in the contradiction between his own artistic personality and the greater art trend of the time. Therefore Degas becomes a man of contradictions, and his position of a great master in art history is hard to classify and is beyond doubt.The paper deliberately avoids repeating the predecessors' angle of writing in generally describing Degas's life, his artistic journey and artistic features. Instead, starting with contradiction and intuition- a more essential inner segment, it comments on Degas's art so as to provide a setting of thinking and broaden the space of thinking for contemporary artists.As to a youth of art, who was brought up admiring classical traditions and receiving systematic classical education, to become such classical masters as Ingres was undoubtedly Degas's ideal and pursuit, but born very sensitive and having excellent intuition, Degas could not in any way reject the vivid modern life and modern emotions. When real feelings were in contradiction with classical skills and forms, Degas broke down the barriers of classical stylization, gave modern emotional force to the classical forms and instilled vitality to the neo-classic forms, which were fully embodied in Degas's portraits.No any other artist can escape the influence of his time, and Degas was no exception. The second part of the paper, through analyzing and summarizing the similarities and differences between Degas and the impressionist school, expounds on the causes why Degas at his period of impressionism belonged to and also was independent of the impressionist school, and through revealing the contradictions between Degas and the impressionist school, analyzes how Degas through intuition broke through one contradiction after another and thus won his artistic independence. This part is the focal point of the paper.Compared with the Western modern artists who seek novelty for novelty's sake, Degas was more like an oriental artist, who made constant elevations in this field. Especially at his old age, Degas overcame his aging psychology and was all the more purely devoted to art, and his artistic life, after going through self-conscience of the classicist period and the awakening of the impressionist period, arrived at a freedom in creation. The paper analyzes and discusses Degas's exploration in color, figure and approaches of expression at his old age, and unfolds how Degas respected intuition, transformed his physiological crisis into a favorable artistic turn, inherited classicism and realism, transcended impressionism and touched on modernism, and how he became the great master of art unprecedented in the history of art.To know the various contradictions in his life time and his intuitionive choice before the diverse contradictions is of great realistic significance to us in appreciatingDegas's art, in understanding the developmental changes in the artistic journey of a great master of art, and in helping solve some urgent problems that we are facing today. Through it the writer of the paper has drawn lots of enlightenment, realizing that arts should face directly the contradiction between self and artistic style, and believing in intuition. We should be against tradition while respecting and learning from tradition, for only by being against tradition and putting the artistic primary point into inner self can the inherence of tradition become more significant.