Degas, the Artist's Mind

Download or read book Degas, the Artist's Mind written by Theodore Reff and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other Impressionist, Degas consciously based his work on ideas. "What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters," he once confessed; "of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament I know nothing." Theodore Reff here shows us the intellectual power and originality of Degas's complex art--as seen in his ingenious pictorial strategies and technical innovations; his use of motifs like the window, the mirror, the picture within the picture; his invention of striking, psychologically compelling compositions; and his creation of a sculptural idiom at once formal and vernacular. These essays also investigate Degas's contacts with leading novelists and poets of his time and his efforts to illustrate or draw inspiration from their works.