The Rehearsal On Stage by Edgar Degas

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Impressionism can easily be viewed as a captivating and revolutionary art movement, which took place during the Nineteenth century in Europe. Artists of this era began to contend with newer technologies, like the camera, for it possessed the capability to seize a spontaneous moment in time. Impressionists wanted to do the same; they strived to paint the picture of a genuine moment happening in front of them. One famous artist of this time period was Edgar Degas . Degas’ The Rehearsal On Stage, created in1874, reflects the characteristics of the impressionism period style of art as well as Degas’ own personal artistic style. By combining these two influences, Degas was able to produce a painting, which could be used to evoke a feeling of physical, sexual, and moral tension while also depicting modern-day life.
Degas’ particular work, The Rehearsal Onstage, was created using pastels over a brush and ink drawing on a thin woven paper canvas. In fact, there is the second painting of Degas’, nearly identical to the one mentioned previously. However, it is instead known as The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage. Both variants of the composition are owned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York City .
In addition to these two works, Degas seemed to be particularly interested in the subject of ballet across many of his other works as well. He focused on elements such as its elegant scenery, costumes, and movements made by the dancers themselves. He was fascinated by the spontaneity of the performance and yet the amount of restraint that must be exercised by its participants at the same time. More often than not, Degas chose to recreate the ballerinas who were off guard. For example he chose to depicting them as they stood backstage in an ...

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...stern perspective. Fourteenth ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2014.

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