Edgar Degas: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Degas called himself a realist, not an Impressionist: a classicist draughtsman who trained on Ingres and the Louvre's old masters, then turned that line onto rehearsal rooms, racetracks, laundresses and cafés. This mix traces the academic spine beneath the modern subject, the photography and Japanese prints that reorganized his framing, and the Paris circle he quarreled with and printed alongside.

The Kynda mix for Edgar Degas

• Key Influence · La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1814). Degas was taken as a young man to meet the aged Ingres, who famously told him to draw lines, many lines — advice he repeated for the rest of his life. Trained under Louis Lamothe, an Ingres pupil, Degas kept the Ingresque primacy of contour even in his most dissolved late pastels, and he collected Ingres works obsessively. The elongated nude's cool, drawn-tight line is the ancestor of Degas's bathers.
• Influencia Obscura · Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge (1887). Muybridge's sequential photographs of horses and moving figures, published in French journals and in book form, corrected centuries of painted gallops. Degas, a racetrack painter and an avid amateur photographer himself, studied such plates and revised his horses' leg positions accordingly; several late wax horse sculptures echo specific Muybridge frames. The hidden thread is scientific instantaneity feeding a classicist's hand.
• Local Roots · Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (1877). Caillebotte organized and bankrolled several of the Paris Impressionist exhibitions in which Degas showed, and shared his taste for sharp perspective, cropped figures and the engineered look of Haussmann's city. Both men treated modern urban Paris as a set of calculated vantage points rather than atmospheric sensation, and Caillebotte's bequest helped fix the group's place in French museums.
• Beyond the Medium · Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1831). Japanese prints flooded Paris from the 1860s and Degas collected them. Hokusai and his contemporaries supplied the devices that make Degas look modern: high vantage points, radically off-center figures sliced by the frame edge, flat decorative screens and bars cutting the picture. The ballet pictures seen from a box, and the bathers viewed from above, translate ukiyo-e composition into oil and pastel.
• Peer · Olympia by Édouard Manet (1863). Manet and Degas met copying in the Louvre and became sparring partners for two decades, trading subjects, arguing, and famously falling out when Manet cut down Degas's portrait of him and his wife. Both were upper-bourgeois Parisians who took the modern figure, not landscape, as their field. Olympia's flat confrontational realism is the scandal against which Degas's own cool observation defined itself.
• From the Canon · The Bellelli Family by Edgar Degas (1858). Painted in Florence of his Italian aunt and her family, this early portrait already contains the mature Degas: a wall and table dividing husband from wife, figures pushed to the edges, psychological distance conveyed by placement rather than expression. It explains his method better than the famous ballets — the compositional estrangement he would later apply to rehearsal rooms, milliners' shops and café tables.
• Key Collaborator · The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt (1893). Degas invited Cassatt to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1877, beginning a decades-long friendship of studio visits, blunt criticism and shared enthusiasm for Japanese prints and pastel. He advised her on printmaking technique; she advised American collectors who built the first great Degas holdings in the United States. The elevated viewpoint and tilted bathtub here are unthinkable without their dialogue.
• Legacy · At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1892). Toulouse-Lautrec revered Degas above all living artists, sought his approval, and lived near him in Montmartre; friends recorded his elation at a kind word from Degas. The cropped foreground figure, the plunging floor, the artificial lamplight on performers and the unsentimental scrutiny of entertainers at work are Degas's devices carried into the cabaret and into the modern poster.

What influenced Edgar Degas

• Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Degas revered Ingres and remembered his artistic advice. (also via La Grande Odalisque) “Three artists he idolized, Ingres , Delacroix , and Daumier , were especially well represented in his collection.” (Wikipedia)
• Paul Gauguin. Gauguin is named among the artists whose work Degas admired and collected. “Like Vincent two years earlier, Gauguin was quick to register his respect for the Degas nudes, making a sketchbook drawing of several works on the walls and later introducing at least one figure into his own repertoire.” (Van Gogh Museum Journal)
• Louis Edmond Duranty. Shackelford suggests Duranty’s appeal influenced Degas’s approach to figure painting. (also via The New Painting) “Both regarded themselves as figure painters, and the art historian George Shackelford suggests they were influenced by the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty 's appeal in his pamphlet The New Painting for a revitalization in figure painting” (Wikipedia)
• Suzanne Valadon. The text describes Degas as an admirer of Valadon and an early purchaser of her art. “Close friend and mentor Edgar Degas also taught her drawing and etching techniques.” (National Museum of Women in the Arts)
• Vincent van Gogh (1853). Van Gogh is named among the artists whose work Degas admired and collected. “For Van Gogh, Degas's 1886 pastels appear to have offered an immediate stimulus to his draughtsmanship.” (Van Gogh Museum Journal)
• Honoré Daumier. Daumier was among the artists Degas idolized and collected. “He was also a collector of Japanese prints , whose compositional principles influenced his work, as did the vigorous realism of popular illustrators such as Daumier and Gavarni .” (Wikipedia)
• Émile Zola. Kendall identifies Degas’s visual treatments of incidents and characters from Zola’s writing. (also via L'Assommoir) “In a series of drawings, paintings and prints from the 1860s and 1870s, Degas had given form to specific incidents and characters from the writings of Zola” (Van Gogh Museum Journal)
• Édouard Manet (1832). The text explicitly attributes a change in Degas’s art primarily to Manet’s example. (also via Olympia) “The change in his art was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet , whom Degas had met in 1864” (Wikipedia)
• Eugène Delacroix (1798). Delacroix was among the artists Degas idolized and collected. (also via The Death of Sardanapalus) “Three artists he idolized, Ingres , Delacroix , and Daumier , were especially well represented in his collection.” (Wikipedia)
• Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge (1887). Animal Locomotion (Eadweard Muybridge) — ghost for Edgar Degas “In 2010, the American painter Philip Pearlstein published an article in ARTnews suggesting the strong influences Muybridge's work and public lectures had on 20th-century artists, including Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, Georges Seurat, Marc…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Paul Gavarni. The text identifies Gavarni’s vigorous realism as an influence on Degas’s work. “He was also a collector of Japanese prints , whose compositional principles influenced his work, as did the vigorous realism of popular illustrators such as Daumier and Gavarni .” (Wikipedia)
• Louis Lamothe. Degas studied drawing under Lamothe. “He studied drawing there with Louis Lamothe , under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres.” (Wikipedia)
• Titian (1488). Degas studied Titian’s work by copying it. “He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo , Raphael , Titian , and other Renaissance artists” (Wikipedia)
• Paul Cézanne. Cézanne is named among the artists whose work Degas admired and collected. “he was able to indulge his passion for collecting works by artists he admired: old masters such as El Greco and such contemporaries as Manet , Cassatt , Pissarro , Cézanne , Gauguin , Van Gogh , and Édouard Brandon .” (Wikipedia)
• Michelangelo (1475). Degas studied Michelangelo’s work by copying it. “He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo , Raphael , Titian , and other Renaissance artists” (Wikipedia)
• Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau (1864). Oedipus and the Sphinx (Gustave Moreau) — ghost for Edgar Degas “He met a young Edgar Degas, for whom Moreau was to become something of a mentor while in Italy.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1814). La Grande Odalisque (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres) — titan for Edgar Degas “In 1855, he met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whom he revered and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become a good artist." In April of that year Dega…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• El Greco. El Greco is named among the artists whose work Degas admired and collected. “he was able to indulge his passion for collecting works by artists he admired: old masters such as El Greco and such contemporaries as Manet , Cassatt , Pissarro , Cézanne , Gauguin , Van Gogh , and Édouard Brandon .” (Wikipedia)
• The New Painting by Louis Edmond Duranty. Shackelford suggests Duranty’s pamphlet influenced Degas’s approach to figure painting. “the art historian George Shackelford suggests they were influenced by the art critic Louis Edmond Duranty 's appeal in his pamphlet The New Painting for a revitalization in figure painting” (Wikipedia)
• Impressionism. The text explicitly says Impressionism influenced Degas’s artistic technique. “The changes to his palette, brushwork, and sense of composition all evidence the influence that both the Impressionist movement and modern photography, with its spontaneous images and off-kilter angles, had on his work.” (Wikipedia)
• Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic. Lepic guided Degas when he returned to etching. “At first he was guided in this by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic , himself an innovator in its use, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype .” (Wikipedia)
• Raphael (1483). Degas studied Raphael’s work by copying it. “He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo , Raphael , Titian , and other Renaissance artists” (Wikipedia)
• The Death of Sardanapalus by Eugène Delacroix (1827). The Death of Sardanapalus (Eugène Delacroix) — titan for Edgar Degas (wikidata.org)
• Manette Salomon by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt (1867). Manette Salomon (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt) — culture for Edgar Degas (wikidata.org)
• L'Assommoir by Émile Zola (1877). L'Assommoir (Émile Zola) — culture for Edgar Degas (openlibrary.org)
• Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai (1831). Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Katsushika Hokusai) — culture for Edgar Degas (wikidata.org)
• The Rape of the Sabine Women by Nicolas Poussin (1637). The Rape of the Sabine Women (Nicolas Poussin) — titan for Edgar Degas (wikidata.org)

Peers and kindred spirits

• Jean-Louis Forain. Degas sought to include Forain in the exhibitions he helped organize. “Although Forain may not be as well known today as other Impressionist artists such as his close friend Edgar Degas (1834–1917), he was one of the more prominent to have exhibited with the group.” (Van Gogh Museum)
• Camille Pissarro (1830). Degas and Pissarro planned a prints journal together. (also via Hoarfrost) “These were destined for a prints journal planned by Degas (together with Camille Pissarro and others), which never came to fruition.” (Wikipedia)
• Jean-François Raffaëlli. Degas sought to include Raffaëlli in the exhibitions he helped organize. “In 1880 and 1881, at the invitation of Edgar Degas, he exhibited in the fifth and sixth Impressionist exhibitions, gaining an association with the avant-garde group.” (Van Gogh Museum)
• Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (1877). Paris Street; Rainy Day (Gustave Caillebotte) — geography for Edgar Degas “Around 1874, Caillebotte had met and befriended several artists working outside the Académie des Beaux-Arts, including Edgar Degas and Giuseppe de Nittis, and attended (but did not participate in) the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Impresionismo. Degas is named among painters whose renewing art gave rise to the Impressionist school. “El arte renovador de los pin tores Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas y Ceza nne dio lugar a la escuela im presionista.” (Diario Las AméRicas (Miami, Fla.;Miami Springs, Fla.))
• The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872). The Cradle (Berthe Morisot) — geography for Edgar Degas “Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions (15 April – 15 May 1874), which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet (1872). Impression, Sunrise (Claude Monet) — peer for Edgar Degas “=== Impressionism === When Durand-Ruel's previous support of Monet and his peers began to decline, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot exhibited their work independently; they did so under the n…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt (1893). The Child's Bath (Mary Cassatt) — collaborator for Edgar Degas “His scenes of Parisian life, his off-center compositions, his experiments with color and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist artists—most notably Mary Cassatt and Manet—all relate him intimately to the Impressionist m…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Turkeys by Claude Monet (1877). The Turkeys (Claude Monet) — collaborator for Edgar Degas “=== Impressionism === When Durand-Ruel's previous support of Monet and his peers began to decline, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot exhibited their work independently; they did so under the n…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Olympia by Édouard Manet (1863). Olympia (Édouard Manet) — peer for Edgar Degas “The change in his art was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet, whom Degas had met in 1864 (while both were copying the same Diego Velázquez portrait in the Louvre, according to a story that may be apocryphal).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Hoarfrost by Camille Pissarro (1873). Hoarfrost (Camille Pissarro) — collaborator for Edgar Degas “These were destined for a prints journal planned by Degas (together with Camille Pissarro and others), which never came to fruition.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Sarah Bernhardt by Nadar (1864). Sarah Bernhardt (Nadar) — geography for Edgar Degas

Who Edgar Degas influenced

• Mary Cassatt (1844). Cassatt is described as a feminized version of Degas' art. (also via The Tub, The Child's Bath) “Although Degas had no formal pupils, he greatly influenced several important painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain , Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert” (Wikipedia)
• Edward Hopper. Hopper modeled his early style after Degas. (also via L'Absinthe) “Early on, Hopper modeled his style after Chase and French Impressionist masters Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas .” (Wikipedia)
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Renoir admired Degas's depiction of movement. (also via L'Absinthe) “Renoir admired Edgar Degas ' sense of movement.” (Wikipedia)
• The Dream Collector: Sabrine & Sigmund Freud. Meek’s novel depicts an imagined version of Degas’s friendship with Valadon. “In Paris, Julie finds a passion for the new art emerging, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and forms friendships with the major artists of the period, including Pissarro, Monet, and Degas.” (Historium Press)
• Walter Sickert. The text names Sickert as a painter greatly influenced by Degas. “Although Degas had no formal pupils, he greatly influenced several important painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain , Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert” (Wikipedia)
• At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1892). At the Moulin Rouge (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec) — legacy for Edgar Degas “Although Degas had no formal pupils, he greatly influenced several important painters, most notably Jean-Louis Forain, Mary Cassatt, and Walter Sickert; his greatest admirer may have been Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Study of the Human Body by Francis Bacon (1949). Study of the Human Body (Francis Bacon) — legacy for Edgar Degas (wikidata.org)
• Guccio Gucci. At the Races in the Countryside (Edgar Degas) — culture for Guccio Gucci (via At the Races in the Countryside) (wikidata.org)
• Anna Pavlova (1882). L'Étoile (Edgar Degas) — culture for Anna Pavlova (via L'Étoile)