Edgar Degas - страница 2
Starting in 1854, Degas travelled frequently to Italy: first to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of his numerous cousins, and then to Rome and Florence where he copied tirelessly from the Old Masters. His drawings and sketches already revealed very clear preferences: Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Andrea Mantegna, but also Benozzo Gozzoli, Ghirlandaio, Titian, Fra Angelico, Uccello, and Botticelli. He went to Orvieto Cathedral specifically to copy from the frescoes of Luca Signorelli, and visited Perugia and Assisi. The pyrotechnics of Italian painting dazzled him. Degas was lucky like no other. One can only marvel at the sensitivity Edgar’s father demonstrated with respect to his son’s vocation, at his insight into his son’s goals, and at the way he was able to encourage the young painter. “You’ve taken a giant step forwards in your art, your drawing is strong, your colour tone is precise,” he wrote his son. “You no longer have anything to worry about, my dear Edgar, you are progressing beautifully. Calm your mind and, with tranquil and sustained effort, stick to the furrow that lies before you without straying. It’s your own – it is no one else’s. Go on working calmly, and keep to this path” (J. Bouret, Degas, Paris, 1987, p. 23).
Scene of War in the Middle Ages (detail), 1865.
Oil on paper, on canvas, 83.5 × 148.5 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
In 1855, Degas began to pursue studies at the École des beaux-arts, but did not show any particular zeal for his work. Degas preferred to learn at the museums. As soon as his first vacation arrived, Degas took the opportunity to return to Italy. There, at the Villa Medici, fate brought him into contact with residents of the École des beaux-arts who would become his friends: the painters Léon Bonnat, Henri Fantin-Latour, Élie Delaunay, Gustave Moreau, the sculptors Paul Dubois and Henri Chapu, and the musician Georges Bizet, who had not yet composed Carmen. Their gatherings in the old neighbourhoods of Rome, and the picnics with the beauties of the Italian landscape in the background, would remain impressed on his memory to the end of his life.
In the 1850s, Degas started doing portraits and self-portraits. From the very beginning in Degas’ portraits, one senses an attentive observer of human psychology. In Italy he began to paint portraits of his family members. One of his very first is an admirable portrait of his grandfather,