Saturday, May 25, 2024

Degas' Experimental Foregrounds

What's going on with the two cows in this pastel drawing by Degas? The one on the right appears to be grazing, but we don't see its head or its feet.

Degas loved to experiment with cropping elements off the bottom of his compositions, most likely influenced by photography. Here he seems to be having fun, just seeing what he could get away with.

 More about breaking the foreground line on my Substack post. 

2 comments:

Jeff said...

I wonder if he was also experimenting with Japanese wood block prints compositions.

SummaSummanum said...

For anyone interested in Degas strategies, techniques and procedures,
I highly recommend the book DEGAS: The Artists Mind by Theodore Reff.