The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (132 page)

Dean , Graham
.

See
SUPERREALISM
.

 
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(1941– ).
American
Superrealist
sculptor. As with Duane
Hanson
, his figures are made of fibreglass and are realistic to the last detail, but De Andrea specializes in nude figures and his models are usually young and attractive.

 
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decorative arts
.

Term embracing
applied art
and also including objects that are made purely for decoration.

 
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(1834–1917).
French painter, graphic artist, and sculptor. He was the son of a wealthy art-loving banker (the family name was originally de Gas, but Degas adopted the less pretentious form) and was initially trained for the law. In 1855, however, he entered the École des
Beaux-Arts
and studied under Louis Lamothe (1822–69), a pupil and admirer of
Ingres
, who laid the foundation of Degas's superb draughtsmanship. His real artistic education, however, was gained through assiduous study of the Old Masters, and between 1854 and 1859 he spent much of his time in Italy. Most of his early works were portraits or history paintings on classical themes (
Young Spartans
, NG, London). In 1861 Degas met
Manet
while copying a
Velázquez
in the Louvre and was introduced by him to the circle of the young
Impressionists
. During the next few years he abandoned historical pictures and turned to contemporary subjects, with a special predilection for racing scenes, ballet, theatre, circus, rehearsals, café scenes, and laundresses. Degas exhibited in seven out of the eight Impressionist exhibitions and is regarded as one of the prominent members of the Impressionist School. He was, however, Impressionist only in certain restricted aspects of his work and like Manet (who also came from an upper-middle-class background) stood somewhat aloof from the rest of the group. He had little interest in landscape and therefore did not share the Impressionist concern for rendering the effects of changing light and atmosphere. He was more interested in draughtsmanship than most of the others and—apart from Manet—he alone had a thoroughly academic background. As with the other Impressionists, he liked to give the suggestion of accidental, spontaneous, and unplanned scenes, and Degas's pictures often cut off figures in the manner of a badly executed snapshot or used unfamiliar viewpoints. Like them he was influenced by the new techniques of photography and by Japanese colour prints (see
UKIYO-E
) and he was interested in conveying the impression of movement. But he did not paint out of doors or directly from nature. The appearance of spontaneity and accidental effects was an appearance only; in reality his pictures were carefully composed. ‘Even when working from nature, one has to compose’, he said, and ‘No art was ever less spontaneous than mine’.
Degas always worked much in
pastel
and when his sight began to fail in the 1880s his preference for this medium increased. His colours grew stronger and his compositions more simplified. He was a restless experimenter, mixing tempera and pastel, for example, and using a technique called
peinture à l'essence
, in which pigment from which the oil has been removed is thinned with turpentine to promote rapid drying. From 1880 Degas also modelled in wax, but he exhibited only one sculpture in his lifetime, the famous
Little Fourteen-year-old Dancer
(1881) dressed in a real tutu (it was cast in bronze after his death; one cast is in the Tate, London). During the 1890s, as his fears of failing sight increased, he devoted more time to modelling, doing mostly horses in action, women at their toilet, or nude dancers in characteristic postures. These also were cast after his death. For the last twenty years of his life Degas was virtually blind and lived a reclusive life. He was a formidable personality and his complete devotion to his art made him seem cold and aloof. His genius compelled universal respect among other artists, however;
Renoir
ranked him above
Rodin
as a sculptor, and in 1883 Camille
Pissarro
wrote that he was ‘certainly the greatest artist of our epoch’. He was the first of the Impressionist group to achieve recognition and his reputation as one of the giants of 19th-cent. art has endured undiminished.

 
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degenerate art
.

A term coined in Germany in the 1930s to discredit all contemporary art that did not correspond to the ideology of the Nazi party. Adolf Hitler and Alfred Rosenberg (the chief theoretical spokesman of Nazism) linked art with political doctrines and racial theories, attacking modern art as ‘political and cultural anarchy’. Nazi-approved art was thoroughly traditional in concept and technique and took as its subject-matter themes (often militaristic) that glorified Hitler and his ideals of Aryan supremacy. Hitler made his first speech against ‘degenerate art’ (in German
entartete Kunst
) at Nuremberg in 1934, and a series of exhibitions designed to ridicule modern art culminated in an infamous show (also called Entartete Kunst) that opened in Munich in 1937 and then went on tour round Germany. The works on display were confiscated from German museums and were mocked by being shown alongside pictures done by inmates of lunatic asylums. Among the artists included were some of the giants of modern art—
Beckmann
,
Dix
,
Grosz
,
Kandinsky
,
Mondrian
, and
Picasso
, for example. As a propaganda exercise the exhibition was a huge success, more than two million people visiting it in Munich alone. German artists whose work was declared ‘degenerate’ were forbidden to exhibit or even to work, and people who sympathized with modern art were deprived of their posts in museums and teaching posts. Some of the confiscated works were sold at auction, Nazi officials helped themselves to others, and the ‘unsaleable stock’ is said to have been burnt in Berlin.