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拍品專文
"As far as I can remember, whenever I called on Degas, I was almost as sure to find him modeling in clay as painting," the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel once remarked (quoted in Degas at the Races, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, p. 180). In the 1880s, sculpture became central to Degas’ examination of the female form. The present bronze, Femme assise dans un fauteuil, s'essuyant la hanche gauche, which depicts a seated bather engaged in an intimate act of personal toilette, marks a radical departure from traditional conceptions of feminine beauty. Here, Degas leverages the body’s expressive potential through a natural yet unconventional pose that shows the nude afresh. The figure twists her torso as she leans forward to dry her left hip, the movement of which is offset by the armchair on which she sits.
Such domestic appurtenances also contribute to Degas’ original conception of the theme, for the sight of a contemporary woman in a state of undress would have certainly affronted nineteenth-century bourgeois sensibilities. A far cry from classical nudes à la Venus, this sculpture employs a complex visual language that elevates the iconographic novelty of this bathing bourgeoise.
Degas himself discussed his new perspective on the female nude and the intimisme that runs through all his treatments of the subject: “Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience, but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through the keyhole” (quoted in R. Kendall, ed., Degas by Himself: Drawings, Prints, Paintings, Writings, London, 1987, p. 311). In the case of Femme assise dans un fauteuil, s'essuyant la hanche gauche, that sense of a stolen glimpse into the woman's private realm is palpable. These bathers are a domestic counterpart to the images of ballerinas shown in the wings of the theatre or in rehearsal, captured between their formal routines, and therefore provides an intriguing sense of the reality that underlies art. Degas adds another twist by using models that he himself posed and directed, meaning that his depictions of this supposed reality were in fact attained through a process that itself relied upon artifice.
Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires provides access to free comprehensive health care for the un-insured in the region; their true vision is health equity.
Such domestic appurtenances also contribute to Degas’ original conception of the theme, for the sight of a contemporary woman in a state of undress would have certainly affronted nineteenth-century bourgeois sensibilities. A far cry from classical nudes à la Venus, this sculpture employs a complex visual language that elevates the iconographic novelty of this bathing bourgeoise.
Degas himself discussed his new perspective on the female nude and the intimisme that runs through all his treatments of the subject: “Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience, but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through the keyhole” (quoted in R. Kendall, ed., Degas by Himself: Drawings, Prints, Paintings, Writings, London, 1987, p. 311). In the case of Femme assise dans un fauteuil, s'essuyant la hanche gauche, that sense of a stolen glimpse into the woman's private realm is palpable. These bathers are a domestic counterpart to the images of ballerinas shown in the wings of the theatre or in rehearsal, captured between their formal routines, and therefore provides an intriguing sense of the reality that underlies art. Degas adds another twist by using models that he himself posed and directed, meaning that his depictions of this supposed reality were in fact attained through a process that itself relied upon artifice.
Volunteers in Medicine Berkshires provides access to free comprehensive health care for the un-insured in the region; their true vision is health equity.