Degas [antikvár]

which he took his eldest son. This civilized and cultured atmosphere may have prompted Edgar to excel in his drawing class, the only subject in which he received first honors at graduation in 1853. By that time Edgar was determined to become an artist, a desire which did not meet with the approval of his father who hoped that his eldest son would join the family bank. As a compromise, Edgar began the study of law at Faculté de Droit in 1853 and in the same year entered the studio of Félix Joseph Barrias, a mediocre academic painter. At the time, the French art world was split into three opposing groups: the Neoclassicists, led by Ingres and his followers, who dominated the state-run École des Beaux-Arts and the official exhibitions at the Salon; the Romanticists—Delacroix and his followers; and the Realists—Courbet and his followers. It was to the Neoclassicists that Edgar Degas was first attracted. (The artist began spelling his name as one word early in his career.) He was already personally familiar with the work of Ingres, which he saw at the home of his school friend Paul Valpinçon. Possessing a natural facility for drawing, Degas was attracted to the style which emphasized the importance of line. The neoclassicist course of study, as taught at the École, consisted of drawing constantly, first from casts of antique sculpture, then later from the nude model. Copying works by the Old Masters, either from repro- ductions or from the originals, was considered essential. This was exactly the procedure Degas followed for over a decade. The year he entered Barrias' studio he registered at the Louvre and at the Print Room of the Bibliotheque Nationale to copy works in their collections. A typical example of this practice (Figure r) shows the informal combination of motifs from several sources which had attracted his attention. In 1854, after dropping out of law school, Degas moved to the studio of Louis Lamothe, a minor pupil of Ingres. A year later he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, the citadel of neoclassicism where, however, he remained for only a short time. In that same year, through his friend Valpinçon's father, he visited Ingres, who advised him to "Draw lines, young man, many lines from memory or from nature; it is in that way that you will become a good artist." Degas' most frequent subjects during this early period were members of his own family, of whom he did numerous drawings. With Ingres' advice and example firmly in mind, Degas drew his brother René standing at a desk (Figure 2). A comparison between this youthful work and a portrait drawing by Ingres (Figure 3) shows a similar use of line to define form, rather than modeling with tone, and a preciseness of detail. But Degas' work, although accomplished, betrays the stiffness and slight awkwardness typical of a pupil. The dream of every student of the École was a trip to Italy to see and study the great works of antiquity and of the Renaissance. For Degas, as a result of his wealth and his Italian relations, such trips were numerous. Probably first in 1856 and then regularly for the rest of the decade, he journeyed through Italy, visiting relatives in Naples and Florence and copying works by the Italian masters, such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Mantegna. In 1856 and 1857 he established himself in Rome, where he may have studied informally