Painting techniques of the masters
Edgar Degas ( 1834 - 1917 )
Degas originally started out studying law, but soon gave it up to train under Louis Lamothe, himself a pupil of Ingres. Degas did meet Ingres who was to encourage Degas to "draw Lines" and he was soon to develop as a great classical draughtsman, combining this with his skill as a colourist.
Degas liked to intellectualise art stating himself that "what I do is the result of study and reflection... of inspiration and spontaneity I know nothing". Unlike other impressionists, he tended to work inside from memory and was not particularly interested in working from nature. Degas also has a strong scientific curiosity that would lead him to experiment with different techniques and materials.
He would use a variety of grounds on canvas even experimenting with raw canvas. Degas also painted onto colour paper mounted onto canvas, where the colour and absorbency plays an important part of the work. These works show Degas employing a technique of soaking the oil binder from the colour on blotting paper prior to diluting it with turpentine to create a fluid, quick drying medium. This dry pastel-like film was similar to that of his pastel drawings and he would often combine this with gouache, printing ink and other drawing materials to create multi-media works.
X-rays have shown that below Degas tighter early works hide the blurred studies that is more reminiscent of his later works. Unlike Monet and Renoir, Degas' paint film was built up in layers.
For Degas, pastels where an ideal combination of colour and line, cross hatching effects were built up in layers allowing colours to show through. He would then steam the surface to turn this into films of colour which could be worked with a brush or fingers or, if liquid enough, like a scumbled wash.