Painter name: Edgar Degas Form of art belong: Impressionism

Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas was a French painter and sculptor whose innovative composition, skillful drawing, and perceptive analysis of movement made him one of the masters of modern art in the late 19th century. He was born in a well-to-do banking family on July 19, 1834, in Paris.

He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under a disciple of the famous French classicist J.A.D. Ingres, where Degas developed the great drawing ability that was to be a salient characteristic of his art. After 1865, under the influence of the budding impressionist movement, he turned to contemporary themes. But, unlike the impressionists, he was uninterested in the study of natural light that fascinated them. He was attracted by theatrical subjects so most of his works depict racecourses, theaters and cafes,etc.. Degas was a keen observer of women and can see this in his portraits as well as in his studies of (ballet)dancers, milliners, and laundresses.

In the 1880s, when his eyesight began to fail, Degas began increasingly to work in two new media that did not require intense visual acuity: sculpture and pastel. Degas was not well known to the public, and his true artistic stature did not become evident until after his death. He died in Paris on September 27, 1917.