Edgar Degas: Life and Work

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Degas' pictures of bathers and ballerinas leave no doubt that he appreciated feminine beauty, but, according to friends, he disliked women and was impotent. This fastidious bachelor was one of the most reticent of artists. Sutton, a British art critic, attempts to pierce the aura of secrecy in a biographical study that combines magnificent art reproductions and a dry text. Here is Degas the young apprentice in Naples and Rome worshipping Giotto, Titian and Bellini; and the cosmopolite whose circle included Renoir, Tissot, Gauguin, Whistler, Morisot, Cassatt, Pissarro. Degas's little-known forays into historical painting conjure up an ancient world full of vitality. Also here are his late pastels, lyrical serenades that look as if they were done by Turner. Pictures of laundresses, absinthe-drinkers, jockeys and Parisian street scenes are treated in separate chapters that establish Degas' debt to the realism of Daumier and the Goncourt brothers. (January 16)

Library Journal

Noted British art critic Denys Sutton has produced a praiseworthy monograph on the enigmatic but illustrious master. Degas fits no category, though he exhibited with the Impressionists, whose color and movement he embraced even while deploring the term itself. Among such giants as Monet and Renoir, Degas holds his own. He did not abandon the linear tradition exemplified by Ingres but progressed from perceptive family portraits and historical pictures to the real world of the racetrack, the theater, and especially the ballet. This monumental book vividly develops the personality of Degas, and analyzes his work partly through previously unpublished extracts of his correspondence. One hundred superior color reproductions plus 194 black-and-white illustrations and photographs enhance this all-inclusive critique and biography. Highly recommended for all academic art collections and large public libraries. Gloria K. Rensch, formerly with Vigo Cty. P.L., Terre Haute, Ind.