Degas's Dream

Interesting online lecture from the National Gallery looking at Degas’s art collection, what he planned for it and how it influenced him.

Christina Bradstreet started by listing the paintings in Degas’s bedroom as an indication of his taste in art. She took us through a brief outline of his life including how he had to sell his father’s art collection and how he started to build up a collection himself as he grew richer.

He looked at how the artists he owned influenced his own work in particular focusing on Ingres, from whom he took line and composition, and Delacroix, for his use of colour.

She talked about his plans for his collection to become a public museum on his death however this didn’t happen and it was auctioned at the end of the First World War. The National Gallery sent Maynard Keynes to the sale and bought old masters and works by Degas and we looked at some of the works they bought.

 

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