Odd Man Out: Readings of the Work and Reputation of Edgar Degas

by Carol Armstrong
Getty Publications, Los Angeles, CA, 2003
299 pp., illus. 127 b/w, 4 col. Trade, $24.95
ISBN: 0-89236-728-8.

Reviewed by Amy Ione
The Diatrope Institute, PO Box 6813
Santa Rosa, CA 95406-0813

ione@diatrope.com

Carol Armstrong’s detailed analysis of Edgar Degas’ work and reputation in Odd Man Out aids immensely in opening a door for re-visiting some of the long-standing assumptions we hold about the work and methods of this excellent painter. In the Getty publication, a reprint of the book first published by the University of Chicago Press in 1991, she examines a number of critical texts instrumental in forming Degas’ reputation and effectively confronts a variety of paradoxes that explain how he became an "odd man out" within the modernist canon. Indeed, using careful juxtapositions of his work with critical commentary, the author firmly establishes the degree to which critics of his own time laid the ground for initial misperceptions. These errors were then re-worked by others and continue to feed the views many hold to this day.

Critically his complexity has made Degas an anomaly stylistically and popularly associated with dancers and the Impressionists. An enigmatic and withdrawn character during his lifetime, his early characterizations tended to be grounded in mystery. Much of his early reputation had little concrete detail, and assumptions about his strange personality were buttressed by the fact that he largely withdrew from the public eye after 1886 (probably due in part to his increasing visual degeneration). A corollary to this seclusion is that, unlike many of his contemporaries who are established figures in modernist lore (e.g., Courbet and Manet), Degas’ contributions are hard to place. Armstrong’s stronger sections grapple with this difficulty, giving much attention to the ways in which the critical examination established his historical reputation.

Viewed as a realist, he was nonetheless rejected by realists. Those who were inclined to read his work textually reinforced this rejection most noticeably. The novelist critics were particularly dissatisfied with the stories that they read in his pictures, concluding they were undeveloped. For example, Zola, who wielded great influence in his day, wrote that, "I cannot accept a man who shuts himself up all his life to draw a ballet-girl as ranking co-equal in dignity and power with Flaubert, Daudet and Concourt" (p. 15). Also well developed are Armstrong’s analyses of the comments by the realist writer Edmond Duranty and the naturist-symbolist Karl Huysmans. She ably details how their quite different approaches to reading Degas’ work equally failed to perceive the pictorial issues and observational concerns contained within his oeuvre. These are just some instances of this author’s facility for succinctly summarizing historical trends and offering primary source material to back up her presentation. All and all, she contextually situates Degas well.

These sections convincingly convey that Degas’ inclinations baffled the authorities of his time. Critics and peers agreed he had all of the traditional skills. Many, however, were disconcerted by his tendency to work serially. Indeed, they were bewildered by his penchant to work repetitively, claiming that he didn’t tell "proper" stories. Another problem was that he was seen as a part of the Impressionist group and a painter of modern life, but it was hard to classify him as a modernist. He did not adopt their narrative nor did he turn to many of the techniques that distinguished the Impressionists from others of that time (e.g., sloppy brushwork, vague pictorial structure, and the use of cacophonic color combinations for effect). In summary, his theatrical and carefully crafted compositions contrasted sharply with the spontaneity associated with Impressionism, just as his subject matter tended to avoid the narrative themes associated with history painting.

While Armstrong has a real gift for inserting commentary that conveys her interest in this artist and how his realism, which was definitely in touch with modern life, rarely directly spoke about modernity or larger themes, she is less successful in dealing with the issues that Degas faced in his own life. The book makes it clear that his time in New Orleans (in the 1870s) had a major impact on later projects and was foundational to the thematic serialization that increasingly replaced social communication as his work matured. Yet she hardly mentions the impact of his impending blindness. Briefly, Degas enlisted in the National Guard in 1870 to help defend Paris against the Prussian invasion in the Franco-Prussian war. Shortly afterward he began to notice visual problems. Armstrong looks at his travels to New Orleans at this time in depth, but hardly mentions it in relation to his visual decline. Nor does she consider the thesis that the problems with his vision were connected to a form of retinopathy although he blamed the cold weather he experienced during guard duty and to the bright sunlight to which he was later exposed during his time in Louisiana. Granted, Degas never specifically described the impact of his vision on his art. Still, in my opinion, it is hard to ignore the many factors that suggest his visual degeneration had a major impact on his work. His visual problems are well developed in Michael Marmor’s recent book Degas Through His Own Eyes, my Leonardo review of which is located at http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/reviews/dec2003/degas_ione.html. One obvious change was the way the artist adapted his techniques as his eyes worsened. For example, Degas changed medium from oils to pastels, which are looser and easier to work with, dry more slowly, and require less precision. His bolder coloration could be attributed to the difficulties in color differentiation due to his condition as well as a decline in contrast sensitivity and acuity. This possibility is evidently demonstrated in the progressively wider strokes evident in his later works. Possibly Degas’ retinopathy may have also accounted for his move into sculpture, printmaking, and photography, areas often simply attributed to stylistic changes and personal development.

In summary, given the trends Armstrong identifies in Degas’ work as it matured, I think her voice would seem stronger if she had engaged with the effects of his eyesight in his stylistic modulation. What I believe was lost became especially apparent in the concluding sections when she compares his early paintings and late photographic self-portraits without concerning herself with his physiological changes. Rather than fully clarifying this artist in light of what we know of his life, her efforts instead seem to add yet another myth about this painter to the literature without elevating the discussion. For example, when commenting on his gaze in the early painted portraits, Armstrong never asks if the repetitive peculiarity of his one eye might point to something physically indicative of a developing visual condition. Instead she interprets the peculiarity metaphorically, suggesting that Degas makes one eye seem odd in the hopes that he might be able to see his eye in the painting of it, and so forth.

To her credit, Armstrong develops Degas source material effectively. She indicates that although this fine artist was not a history painter, this genre was one from which Degas derived many of his pictorial interests. Actually, he did a number of rather interesting history paintings early on; they are among the best of the genre in the history of French painting. Popular press caricature was another point of reference. Her writings about Daumier’s influence are excellent in this regard, particularly the sections that refer to the pieces of his work included in Degas’ personal collection. According to Armstrong, the series of images derived from Daumier’s work¾ the laundry interiors, the orchestra series, and the dance pictures that devolved from them, and the café-concerts¾ all filtered Degas’ larger dismantling of pictorial legibility through the medium of caricature. Indeed caricature was the form of nineteenth-century pictorial physiognomics and as such an important concern in the domain of realism.

Finally, Armstrong does a good job of describing key elements of Degas art such as increased scale of figure-to-ground relationship, and the occupation of the extreme foreground, which was heightened in Degas’ post-1886 oeuvre, during the years of his increasing blindness. More attention might have been given to the compositional dynamism of his depiction of space and his novel use of oblique and unusual perspectives. Throughout her exposition, Armstrong clearly states that her primarily concern is the artist’s imagery, not his life. I would counter that in Degas’ case one cannot separate his pictorial goals from his visual acuity. Doing so skews the analysis significantly and fails to bridge the contradictions within the scholarship. Unfortunately, her recognition of his decreasing visual acuity is limited, and this approach restricts her as she endeavors to resolve the contradictions. This, in my view, is the weak point of Armstrong’s effort to reconcile this "odd man out." Still, even with the limitations mentioned above, I recommend the book to all who are fascinated by Edgar Degas. This scholarly yet easy to read publication does contribute to scholarship on this tantalizing artist.