| News: It has often been said by visitors to the New York Museum of Modern Art that "I could do that." Indeed, a British graffiti artist has gone one step farther. The artist, who goes by the name Banksy, smuggled his own picture of a soup can into the museum and hung it on the wall. It stayed in place for three days before anyone realized that it was not part of the museum's collection. Other pieces by Banksy were smuggled and hung in other museums at the same time. These included the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History - in which Banksy hung a glass covered beetle with fighter jet wings and missiles attached to its body (a comment on war, according to the artist).
Paintings in history and the art of Edgar Degas:
The works of Degas, with their strictly verified and simultaneously dynamic, often asymmetrical composition, accurate, flexible pattern, unexpected angles, shapes and active interaction of figures and space combine seeming fairness and randomness of motive and the architectonics of the picture with careful forethought and calculation. "There was no art, less direct than mine" – thus the artist himself evaluated his own work. Each of his works is the result of long-term observations and patient, painstaking work to implement them in an artistic way. In the work of the master of nothing was impromptu. The completeness and reasonableness of his compositions are similar to the paintings of Poussin. But, as a result, on the canvas there are images that will not be an exaggeration to describe the embodiment of an instantaneous and random moment. In the French art of the late 19th century, works by Degas in this respect are diametrically opposite to the works of Cezanne. Cezanne's painting bears all the immutability of the world order and seems to be as a fully complete microcosm. But as of Degas, it contains only a truncated part of the frame of the powerful flow of life. The images of Degas are filled with dynamism, they embody the accelerated rhythms of the epoch, contemporary to the artist. Particularly the passion for the transfer of motion - this, literally defined the admirable themes of Degas: Images of galloping horses, dancers in rehearsal, laundresses and burnishers at work, dressing or combing woman.
Such methods require more accurate calculation than freedom and inspiration, but they talk also about the extraordinary ingenuity of the artist. In creative pursuits Degas came out as one of the boldest and most original artists of his time. At the beginning of his career path Degas proved that he can write as a master in the traditional manner with oil on canvas, but in later years he experimented extensively with different techniques or a combination of materials. He often painted not on canvas, but on cardboard and used different techniques, such as oil and pastel in one painting. The passion for the experiment was for him as to an artist in the blood – that’s why in 1879 one of the reviewers, who visited the exhibition of the Impressionists, wrote that Degas “tirelessly looks for a new technique".
The approach of the artist was creatively the same to the engraving and sculpture. The manner of Degas was formed under the influence of different artists. He deeply revered, for example, Ingres, and he considered himself painting in the traditional manner, which Ingres professed. This effect is clearly seen in the earlier works of Degas – the clear and classical in spirit, with clearly written shapes. Like many of his contemporaries, Degas was influenced by the Japanese graphic arts, with its unusual angles, to which he resorted in his subsequent works. Degas's paintings have many traces of fragmentation on the Japanese woodcut kakemono, unexpected for European art. Photography, which attracted Degas, made the composition of his paintings more fresh and unusual. Some of his works give the impression of a snapshot, but in fact this feeling is the result of the long and laborious work of the artist.
Edmond Goncourt wrote about Degas: "A highly sensitive person, catching the essence of things. I have never met another artist who, reproducing modern life, had better grasped her spirit". In the end, Degas was able to develop his own unique view of the experiences around us. He was sometimes called a cold, dispassionate observer, especially when painting portraits of women, but Berthe Morisot, one of the greatest artists of the time, said that Degas “admired the human qualities of young saleswomen in the store”. Not many other artists have studied the human body so intensively like Degas. They say that by the end of the session, the models of Degas were not just deadly tired from a long pose, but also painted with stripes, which the artist losing sight inflicted on their body as a markup, which helps him to exactly determine the proportions.
"Throughout his life - wrote Paul Valéry - Degas was looking at model images, considered from all points of view, in an incredible number of poses in all sorts of movements that unique system of lines that would express with great accuracy not only the present moment but the greatest synthesis. Neither grace nor the imaginary part of the poetry serve his purpose. His works do not glorify anything. Some space must be left in the work, so there could be certain charms, that are exciting the artist, taking the possession of his palette and guiding his hand. But Degas, the man, who was inherently strong-willed, not satisfied ever with the achievements, who had a very critical mind and was well mannered under the influence of the greatest masters - never gave up to the immediate pleasure in the work. |
