DEGAS VS PICASSO

Last weekend I went to the Picasso Museum to see a new exhibition about the work of Picasso and Degas. The exhibition portrays Picasso's passion for the impressionist artist.

One of the most beautiful and impressive works of Degas included in the exhibition is the Fourteen Year Old Little Dancer. One of Degas favourite subject was ballet dancers.

This little ballerina influenced very much some of Picasso works.

Picasso's Yellow Nude and Dwarf ballerina share the same pose with Degas' Ballerina

This is a PHOTO GALLERY of this exhibition

I particulary find the figure of Degas very fascinating. He potrays many social issues in his work, showing the hierarchical structure of French society, which distinguished the bourgeoisie from the lower classes. The world of ballet dominated by female dancers is also very important in his work. These ballet pictures together with his pictures of women bathing caused much controversy and contention.

Besides he lived in a period of great turbulence in France. During the last decades of the 19th C the Franco-Prussian War, the Commune insurrection and the Civil War affected the country for decades. The Dreyfus Affair which began in 1894 when a Jewish army officer was falsely accused of treason also divided the French community. Artists, writers and the French people in general were divided on the issue of Dreyfus's innocence of guilt. His stance on the matter was anti-Dreyfus what made him break with all his Jewish friends. He became isolated due in part to the Deyfus affair and to his belief that a painter could have no personal life. His life was being a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor who in his later years he also undertook experiments in the new medium of photography.