Degas Dance Politics And Society

This substantial new monograph on the work of Edgar Degas (1834-1917), one of the most significant artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, is a decisive contribution to the literature on the French Impressionist artist. An innovative and groundbreaking book, with underlying discussions related to "dance, politics and society," it pays special attention to issues of gender, identity, labor, race and the representation of women. Degas worked in various mediums, and, at the end of his life, left around 6,000 works, including 2,000 related to the world of dance and ballet. The contradictions and ambiguities of his art, especially the way he straddles both tradition and modernity, reaffirm both his uniqueness and significance in the history of Western art. Degas: Dance, Politics and Society includes ten essays, never before published, by experts around the world, and also features a visual essay of black-and-white photographs of the bronze sculptures, including Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, by the Brazilian artist Sofia Borges. Through her camera, Borges reinterprets and conceives new images of Degas' most cherished and classic sculptures. Borges' extraordinary photographs reveal, transform and revisit Degas' works in an innovative and radical manner. Exhibition: Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil (12.04.2020-08.01.2021).

This interdisciplinary collection of essays brings together scholars in the fields of art history, theatre, visual culture, and literature to explore intersections between the European avant-garde (c. 1880–1945) and themes of health and hygiene, such as illness, contagion, cleanliness, and contamination. Examining the artistic oeuvres of some of the canonical names of modern art – including Edgar Degas, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, George Orwell, Marcel Duchamp, and Antonin Artaud – this book investigates instances where the heightened political, social, and cultural currencies embedded within issues of hygiene and contagion have been mobilised, and subversively exploited, to fuel the critical strategy at play. This edited volume promotes an interdisciplinary and socio-historically contextualised understanding of the criticality of the avant-garde gesture and cultivates scholarship that moves beyond the limits of traditional academic subjects to produce innovative and thought-provoking connections and interrelations across various fields. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, literature, theatre, cultural studies, modern history, medical humanities, and visual culture.

He addressed the routine of the practice room, the drabness of backstage life, the moment of transformation as performers left or entered the stage, and the squalid, amorous adventures between the ballerinas and the black-suited, top-hatted, and often sinister gentlemen who sought their favors after a performance.

Seeks to illuminate the themes present in the artist's works, presenting new material about Degas's highly informed relationship with the ballet of the nineteenth century.

The New Art History and the Impressionist canon seem to have successfully claimed Edgar Degas as a misogynist, rabid nationalist and misanthrope whose art was both masterly and experimental. By analysing Degas’s approach to space and his self-fashioning attitude towards identity within the ambiguities of the political and artistic culture of nineteenth-century France, this book questions the characterisation of Degas as a right-wing Frenchman and artist, and will change the way in which Degas is thought about today.