Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas loved the theaters, racetracks, and cafés of Paris. Some of his best-loved images are of the ballet dancers of the Paris theater. Degas’ use of unusual viewpoints and cropped compositions was drawn from Japanese woodblock prints. Many of the impressionists were attracted by the way space was constructed and manipulated in these prints and used some of these elements in their own work.

Degas was one of the few impressionists to make sculpture. He sculpted and modeled in wax and occasionally plaster, but his sculptures were not cast in bronze until after his death.