Abstract: Edgar Degas both launched and concluded his career as a public sculptor with only one sculpture and one exhibition, Little Dancer Fourteen Years Old (fig. 1) in the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition, 1881. Yet in its time Little Dancer transcended the boundaries of sculpture and caused contemporary Paris to react with strong but varied responses.1 Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote, “The fact is that with one blow, M Degas has overthrown the traditions of sculpture, just as he long since shook the conventions of painting,” while Paul Mantz commented upon “the instinctive ugliness of a face upon which all vices imprint their detestable promises.”2 Despite this one sculpture exhibition, Degas worked in wax and clay from as early as 1865.3 In 1919 Joseph Durand-Ruel wrote:It is quite true that Degas has spent a good deal of time, not only in the later years of his life, but for the past fifty years, in modelling in clay. Thus, as far as I can remember—that is to say, perhaps forty years—whenever I called on Degas I was almost as sure to find him modelling in clay as painting.4
Publication Year: 1995
Publication Date: 1995-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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