Degas was one of the leading spirits of the Impressionist movement and organized many of its group exhibitions. Nevertheless his paintings differ from the others in a number of important respects. The basis of his training had been fine drawing in the tradition of the old masters. As a result, his approach was entirely distinct from that of the open-air Impressionists. Where they drenched their figures in atmosphere and often lost solidity, he emphasized a tight nervous outline; where they held their figures immobile to build them up in spots of color, he was able to express motion in a direct and exciting way.

The son of a banker, Degas entered the Beaux Arts school where he came under the influence of classical minded painters. He made copies of many old masters in the Louvre and in Italy, where he favored the Florentine masters, Holbein, and Mantegna. When he returned to Paris, he did a number of group portraits whose formal organization showed his classical training.

In 1862 he turned to scenes of the turf and painted racing subjects. These represent his first venture contemporary realism that affected many forward-looking young men at the time. By 1865 Degas had been introduced to the group that met with Edouard Manet Cafe Guerbois, where the talk was all about the new clear painting, the painting of light.

After a term of service in the Franco-Prussian War, Degas came back to Paris. Now began lifelong series of subjects from the theater and the cafe. Like the well-known ballet pictures these were all attempts to depict the most impermanent action and the most spontaneous effects. To them were added scenes of people at work, selling hats, ironing clothes, having their hair combed or nails manicured. These themes are a far cry from the charming oarsmen of Renoir or the smiling landscapes of Monet. The material chosen by Degas is closest in feeling to the subject matter of the Realist novel of the nineteenth century and indeed Degas thought of himself as a sort of sociologist in paint. Everything was set down in terms of the sharply angled, momentary technique he soon evolved.

A curious factor in his art is the strange contrast often found between an ordinary, even ugly scene and the charming color in which it is rendered. His ballet dancers, for example are not always beautiful. They may be skinny over-worked girls straining and puffing to achieve an effect that will appear in performance as the epitome of grace. The Dancers Practicing at the Bar (below) is a typical instance, showing not the glamorous result but the behind-the-scenes effort. The girls work unselfconsciously and stretch themselves into frequently awkward postures. The floor has just been watered and the watering can lies at the left. It is the anchor of a composition that shoots up diagonally to the right in an exaggerated vantage point perspective. This kind of arrangement in Degas, as in Renoir and others, stems from Japanese woodcut art introduced to Europe during the late 1850's. It offered informal subjects and poses, oblique perspective effects, stylized and outlined figures, and decorative color contrast.

Degas' painting is often called "keyhole art" for it so often seems to catch people unaware. These effects are consciously sought. Pictures like the Dancers Practicing at the Bar are only partly the result of direct backstage observation. They were actually done by calculated, almost academic posing of the models in his studio. There the painter was in complete control of the situation and could manipulate his figures any way he chose. The horse race scenes are also primarily studio products and, however spontaneous they may appear, the final work was achieved with the aid of wooden horse models.

His bathing scenes, such as the pastel drawing, After the Bath (below), are not done outdoors as Renoir's so often were. Degas generally shows his women in the tub or nearby it, drying themselves or combing their hair. He actually installed a tub in his studio and made drawings and studies of the models climbing in and out. The high tub offered various stretching possibilities, just as the motions of drying or combing caused the body to bend and curve itself. At the same time a sense of intimacy was conveyed, of witnessing a scene when the subject was unaware. The spectator sees the "house without walls" and looks into a room to observe how people live.

Technically Degas was faced with a conflict between linear tendencies and an Impressionist feeling for dissolving color. His early paintings were uniformly dark, but as he progressed he found it possible to get more brilliance by thinning the paint with liberal doses of turpentine. Finally he dropped oil painting completely for pastel drawing. With colored chalks he was able to draw in linear manner and give color to his figures at the same time. This solution enabled him to keep the forms solid and to make them move, two elements often lacking in orthodox outdoor Impressionism.

Degas provides interesting evidence of the fact that a man may be a political conservative and an artistic progressive. He was a royalist by conviction, but he also took the lead in organizing Impressionist exhibitions. He even helped write the catalog in which the ideology of the movement is set forth. He remains an outstanding example of this style and one of the greatest artists in the French tradition.