Gauguin and Degas Paul Gauguin Thesis

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These pastel-colored etches influenced Degas' late-life paintings. Those were characterized by women frequently engaged in some type of grooming, such as bathing. Rather than the tightly-structured lines of his earlier works, these later works seemed more hurriedly-drawn and less meticulous than his early works.

For example, in Woman Drying Her Hair, a pastel on paper, Degas depicts the back of a nude woman, drying her hair. Unlike many of his works, which overtly differentiate between women of different classes and different occupations, this image in the photo is very every-woman. The bather is classically female, but the painting holds no clues as to her lifestyle outside of the bath. Moreover, the work demonstrates Degas' unique use of light, as it contains unrealistic amounts of shadow, almost as if the bather is caste in an artificial light. Though Degas rejected much of what has come to be associated with Impressionism, his works actually became more characteristic of Impressionism as he grew older.

Degas used a different approach in his sculpture than he did in his paintings. One notable difference is that Degas intended his paintings for exhibition, but did not intend to exhibit his sculptures.

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Moreover, it does not seem that he created his sculptures to be used as aids for his paintings. Instead, he seemed to approach sculpture as another way of approaching art. Unlike many of his paintings, which retained unfinished areas, Degas' sculptures were generally completed. In his paintings, the main subjects were generally completed, but Degas would frequently have large areas of empty space, making a work appear incomplete. In contrast, his sculptures were meticulously complete. For example, in Dancer at Rest, Hands behind Her Back, Right Leg Forward, Degas manages to convey the complete image of a dancer in a sparse manner that focuses entirely on his strong use of lines. While he uses lines and movement in his paintings, his use of color and the style of brushstroke, use of shadow, and other criteria can either enhance or detract from his bold use of lines. However, in sculpture, the product is generally complete, and relies almost entirely upon Degas' use of line and movement.

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