How did Edgar Degas balance line and color in his art?
Edgar Degas balanced the historic tension between line and color throughout his career, often reconciling these impulses through his technical evolution.12
Early in his life, Degas was drawn to the linear restraint of Classical masters like Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, while simultaneously admiring the lyrical, densely hued surfaces of Venetian painters such as Titian and the work of EugĂšne Delacroix. This duality defined his artistic development; he was a masterful draftsman who meticulously prepared his compositions through assiduous drawing, yet he embraced the vibrant color palettes and light-filled brushwork associated with the Impressionists.13
In his later years, Degas achieved a resolution of these forces in his pastels, which combined vigorous drawing with brilliant, often unnatural hues. His late works frequently featured pastels layered over energetic charcoal drawings or built up in dense, crusty layers of color. By the end of his career, this dialogue between line and color evolved into a modern idiom, where he prioritized expressive form and structure, ultimately influencing many leading figurative artists of the 20th century.124