Page 38 - Studio International - July August 1973

(Far left)
Degas
Petite Danseuse 1880-81
Tate Gallery, London
(Left)
Gonzalez
Small Dancer 1 934/37
Silver, 8 5/8 in. high
Coll. Musée Nationale d'Art
Moderne, Paris

perception, the formalized subject-matter, but subvert a set of received conventions, without lighting, viewpoint — factors forced or
intrinsically because of the perfectly balanced however the deep conviction shared by his theatrical in the paintings or pastels — are no
and ordered structure of volume, the sculpture contemporaries in the necessity of painting as a longer an issue. New factors emerge — of real and
of Degas retains a 'timeless' quality, outside means of expression. illusioned balance in relation to gravity, of the
nineteenth-century naturalism or the The one area in which Degas was prepared to continuously changing relation of real volumes
conscious archaism of twentieth-century take risks, to put his intellect and his inhibitions when seen from every angle. Degas' sculpture is
sculpture. on one side and engage his feelings, was in the a triumph of drawing, not as design, but as the
There seems to me no doubt that Degas' modelling of volume. Over the years he moved hard-won equilibrium of volume, surface and
most substantial achievement rests in his from conventional oil painting into pastel and silhouette.
sculpture: and moreover, setting aside the heroic other more tactile techniques, affirming the The pose of Degas' figures, women in the
and public effort of Rodin, apparent in every figure and conventionalizing the background, in formalized postures of the dance or the toilet,
piece, to rescue and re-orient sculpture, a progressive attempt to accommodate this take on a formal significance in the sculpture,
individual models by Degas considered beside ambition on the flat surface, and still within the more substantial than the literary
comparable sculptures of Rodin, time and again general confines of the Ingres tradition, however `naturalism' of the figures as subject-matter in
impress by a quieter but more profound liberated the colour or handling; but he must the painting. Even more than in Rodin, the
ambition, a more original conception of what finally have come to realize the impossibility of variety and originality of Degas' figures
sculpture could be made to do, a tauter and this task, and acknowledged that for his talent demonstrate the poverty of invention in
more worked-out quality of formal invention. at this moment in history sculpture was the only European sculpture since the Renaissance, with
Degas grew up in the shadow of Ingres, and medium. its dependence on some half-dozen classical
remained isolated from Manet and the other He had in fact been making sculpture from as stereotypes. In sculptural terms, Degas'
impressionists in his continued concern for the early as 1865, though as he never considered conception of the figure was more original than
primacy of contour in the realization of depicted himself 'a sculptor' he never acquired even that of Rodin. The power of almost all of Rodin's
volume. Where Manet would quote from the rudiments of technique. In sculpture his figures after the Age of Bronze, whose attitude
unfamiliar masters in a deliberate challenge to lack of conventional training was his profound is classically derived, depends on a certain
the academic canons of figure painting, and advantage. What he lacked in the most impression of incompleteness — even where the
Monet, Pissarro and Renoir simply disowned elementary practical ability he more than figure is physically complete — as though it had
the conventional ambitions of Salon painting, compensated for in the freedom from been torn out of some larger architectural or
Degas alone felt compelled to take on and renew conventions that weighed on him so heavily in decorative context, its posture still implying a
the fundamental components of Ingres's art — painting. His first sculptures, of horses, have a former and different function. If one considers,
drawing, composition, perspective, defined liveliness and freshness, both of observation and for example, the great number of figures from
subject-matter. The innovations that Degas handling, possibly unequalled in European the Adam onwards, whose heads are so
certainly made in painting — the use of unusual sculpture. Those elements which despite all unnaturally bowed that head, neck, shoulders,
models, attitudes and subjects, of photography efforts remained awkwardly separate in his and sometimes raised arms form a continuous
and Japanese prints in composition, of painting — drawing, handling, composition, horizontal top profile, the suggestion of the
unexpected viewpoints and light sources — are subject-matter — cohered and merged into one caryatid form, of a given architectural function
perhaps best seen as intellectual attempts to simple and direct physical activity. Colour, isolated from its context, is irresistible. Rodin's
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