Edgar Degas
Diego Martelli (1839 - 1896)
1879"It's really impossible to pick a favourite. I always find Van Dyck's oil sketch of Charles I's soon-to-be fatherless daughters moving... and I love Degas. He draws with the skill of a Renaissance master but uses it to fill his pictures with life and vigour. The National Galleries are lucky enough to have a few of his works. All are worth a look, but if I have to pick one, it would be Degas's portrait of Diego Martelli."
Peter Capaldi, actor/director
"What I love about Degas's Martelli portrait is it's "unfinished" state, allowing special insight into the way the painting was made, the seeming spontaneity of the composition only arrived upon after numerous preparatory studies which by good fortune I once stumbled across in Paris. This is a wonderful painting for art students to investigate because it reveals that Degas, the great painter of modern life, set about his task in much the same way as Titian - and that is what the practice of painting is all about."
Sandy Moffat, artist
- Glossary (2 terms)
- Open
Impressionism
An influential style of painting that originated in France in the 1870s with artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-August Renoir and Alfred Sisley. They were interested in capturing the changing effects of light, frequently exploring this through landscape scenes painted in the open air.
Macchiaioli
A group of Florence-based painters active in the 1850s and 1860s, known for their exploration of the effects of individual strokes or blobs of paint. The group's name derives from the Italian for `blob?.
- Glossary (3 terms)
- Open
École des Beaux-Arts
A government art school in Paris founded in 1628. Though once under royal control, it was made independent by Napoléon III in 1863.
Impressionism
An influential style of painting that originated in France in the 1870s with artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-August Renoir and Alfred Sisley. They were interested in capturing the changing effects of light, frequently exploring this through landscape scenes painted in the open air.
An image pressed or stamped onto paper or fabric. This encompasses a wide variety of techniques, usually produced in multiples, although one-off prints, known as monoprints, are also included. The term is also applied to photographic images.
- Credits Purchased 1932
- Medium Oil on canvas
- Size 110.40 x 99.80 cm (framed: 134.60 x 124.50 x 8.60 cm)
