The Museum of Fine Art’s newestx exhibit “Degas and the Nude,” featuring the work of Edgar Degas, is on display from Oct. 9 to Feb. 5, 2012. The exhibit displays work from throughout Degas’s career, including some of his earliest etchings, never-before-seen monotypes and prints, and revisitations and reinventions of later work.
The exhibit guides you through the artist’s life, and through this scheme visitors can appreciate his journey of self-discovery. It offers insight into Degas’s motivations and ambitions throughout his decades-long career.
The first group of work, “The Classical Body,” comes from the very beginning of Degas’s career in the 1850s. In 1853, at the young age of 18, Degas concentrated on creating the perfect nude form according to the well-established standards imposed on 19th century French artists.
Hung side-by-side with the sketches are two large oil paintings entitled “Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys” and “Young Spartans Exercising.” The foregrounds are organized identically, with a group of nude girls on the left and a group of nude boys on the right, and in the middle of each background is another eye-attracting feature that creates a visual triangle. Both are stunning pieces, but their identical layout sets up a theme of repetition that persists throughout the exhibit.
The second group of work, “The Body in Peril,” features the fruits of Degas’s desire to paint scenes from history. He strived to create anatomically correct nudes that fit the conventions of his time. “Scene of War in the Middle Ages” is his greatest accomplishment in that respect. The piece depicts a group of soldiers on horseback riding off the canvas, leaving a trail of downtrodden, nude women in their wake. The painting has been interpreted many ways, but in general conveys the idea that when soldiers come through town, women suffer. Degas’s sketches for each of the nudes in “Scene of War in the Middle Ages” are also on display.
The next room visitors amble into presents a dramatic shift in subject matter. “The Body Exploited” features work Degas never intended the public to view. Lining the walls are monotypes portraying prostitutes, mostly nude and in various stages of coitus. What is most revealing about these pieces is that the males featured are fully clothed and barely present, appearing in the corner of the work or just inside a doorway.
The monotype entitled “Two Women” is even more interesting: it features two women sexually gratifying each other, presumably for the pleasure of a client. The curious part is that there is no client in the print, suggesting that the viewer is the client. Considering that Degas had never intended to show these works publicly, the lack of male nudity in the works suggests the possibility that what is on display is Degas’s handmade porn collection.
Degas’s public work began to break from convention beginning in the 1870s. “The Body Observed” features more natural-looking women. Degas appears to concern himself more with realism than with perfection at this time in his career. The women in these pieces are depicted doing everyday activities, adding an air of voyeurism to the works. Degas also begins to show his preference for certain poses. Often, the women are getting in or out of the bath with their backs to the viewer, or facing the viewer but brushing long hair obscuring the face. The intention seems to be to create ambiguous, unrecognizable “everywoman.”
During the last decade of his career, Degas departed even further from his classical beginnings. In the 1890s, Degas seems less concerned with anatomical correctness and more concerned with conveying emotion. These works are done in charcoal and pastel with bold, fat lines, and definitely stir something in the subconscious. But exactly what that is, is hard to put in words.
The exhibit is absolutely worth the trip on the MBTA Green Line. Admission to the MFA is free to UMB students with their school I.D. With that in mind, anyone who is even mildly interested in art or naked people should take the time to check out this exhibit.
