98-584: The Hamburger Kunsthalle is the art museum of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg , Germany. It is one of the largest art museums in the country. It consists of three connected buildings, dating from 1869 (main building), 1921 (Kuppelsaal) and 1997 (Galerie der Gegenwart), located in the Altstadt district between the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) and the two Alster lakes. The name Kunsthalle indicates
196-449: A history painter , a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classical Western art. In his early thirties he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life. Degas was born in Paris , France , into a moderately wealthy family. He
294-408: A "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art
392-436: A cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized
490-449: A collaboration of museums and galleries that are more interested with the categorization of art. They are interested in the potential use of folksonomy within museums and the requirements for post-processing of terms that have been gathered, both to test their utility and to deploy them in useful ways. The steve.museum is one example of a site that is experimenting with this collaborative philosophy. The participating institutions include
588-455: A conundrum to art historians in search of a literary source— Thérèse Raquin has been suggested —but it may be a depiction of prostitution . As his subject matter changed, so, too, did Degas's technique. The dark palette that bore the influence of Dutch painting gave way to the use of vivid colors and bold brushstrokes. Paintings such as Place de la Concorde read as "snapshots," freezing moments of time to portray them accurately, imparting
686-621: A copyist in the Louvre Museum , but his father expected him to go to law school . Degas duly enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in November 1853 but applied little effort to his studies. In 1855, he met Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres , whom he revered and whose advice he never forgot: "Draw lines, young man, and still more lines, both from life and from memory, and you will become
784-757: A detail that had caught his attention: a secondary figure, or a head which he treated as a portrait. Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting The Bellelli Family —an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon , although it remained unfinished until 1867. He also began work on several history paintings : Alexander and Bucephalus and The Daughter of Jephthah in 1859–60; Sémiramis Building Babylon in 1860; and Young Spartans Exercising around 1860. In 1861, Degas visited his childhood friend Paul Valpinçon in Ménil-Hubert-en-Exmes , and made
882-678: A good artist." In April of that year Degas was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts . He studied drawing there with Louis Lamothe , under whose guidance he flourished, following the style of Ingres. In July 1856, Degas traveled to Italy , where he would remain for the next three years. In 1858, while staying with his aunt's family in Naples , he made the first studies for his early masterpiece The Bellelli Family . He also drew and painted numerous copies of works by Michelangelo , Raphael , Titian , and other Renaissance artists, but—contrary to conventional practice—he usually selected from an altarpiece
980-640: A hint of anti-Semitism. In 1881, he exhibited two pastels, Criminal Physiognomies , that depicted juvenile gang members recently convicted of murder in the "Abadie Affair". Degas had attended their trial with sketchbook in hand, and his numerous drawings of the defendants reveal his interest in the atavistic features thought by some 19th-century scientists to be evidence of innate criminality. In his paintings of dancers and laundresses, he reveals their occupations not only by their dress and activities but also by their body type: his ballerinas exhibit an athletic physicality, while his laundresses are heavy and solid. By
1078-480: A hundred things and not finish one of them", and was in any case notoriously reluctant to consider a painting complete. His interest in portraiture led Degas to study carefully the ways in which a person's social stature or form of employment may be revealed by their physiognomy , posture, dress, and other attributes. In his 1879 Portraits, At the Stock Exchange , he portrayed a group of Jewish businessmen with
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#17330851052281176-451: A job. From 1870 Degas increasingly painted ballet subjects, partly because they sold well and provided him with needed income after his brother's debts had left the family bankrupt. Degas began to paint café life as well, in works such as L'Absinthe and Singer with a Glove . His paintings often hinted at narrative content in a way that was highly ambiguous; for example, Interior (which has also been called The Rape ) has presented
1274-466: A less idealized treatment of the figure is already apparent. During his early career, Degas also painted portraits of individuals and groups; an example of the latter is The Bellelli Family ( c. 1858–67 ), an ambitious and psychologically poignant portrayal of his aunt, her husband, and their children. In this painting, as in Young Spartans Exercising and many later works, Degas
1372-523: A little-known group of 73 plaster casts, more or less closely resembling Degas's original wax sculptures, was presented as having been discovered among the materials bought by the Airaindor Foundry (later known as Airaindor-Valsuani) from Hébrard's descendants. Bronzes cast from these plasters were issued between 2004 and 2016 by Airaindor-Valsuani in editions inconsistently marked and thus of unknown size. There has been substantial controversy concerning
1470-433: A major factor in social mobility (for example, getting a higher-paid, higher-status job). The argument states that certain art museums are aimed at perpetuating aristocratic and upper class ideals of taste and excludes segments of society without the social opportunities to develop such interest. The fine arts thus perpetuate social inequality by creating divisions between different social groups. This argument also ties in with
1568-462: A model upon learning she was Protestant . Although Degas painted a number of Jewish subjects from 1865 to 1870, his 1879 painting Portraits at the Stock Exchange may be a watershed in his political opinions. The painting is a portrait of the Jewish banker Ernest May—who may have commissioned the work and was its first owner—and is widely regarded as anti-Semitic by modern experts. The facial features of
1666-560: A modern context. He began to paint women at work, milliners and laundresses . His milliner series is interpreted as artistic self-reflection. Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet La Source , exhibited in the Salon of 1868, was his first major work to introduce a subject with which he would become especially identified, dancers. In many subsequent paintings, dancers were shown backstage or in rehearsal, emphasizing their status as professionals doing
1764-402: A number of online art catalogues and galleries that have been developed independently of the support of any individual museum. Many of these, like American Art Gallery, are attempts to develop galleries of artwork that are encyclopedic or historical in focus, while others are commercial efforts to sell the work of contemporary artists. A limited number of such sites have independent importance in
1862-706: A painting of the Kunsthalle was involved in the so-called Frankfurt art theft . While on loan to the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt, the painting Nebelschwaden by Caspar David Friedrich was stolen. After negotiations with the thieves, a lawyer bought back the painting; when the Kunsthalle refused to pay him the agreed "consideration", he sued and won. In 1997, the museum opened the Galerie der Gegenwart building, an extension of 5,600 square metres (60,000 sq ft) that
1960-513: A section of the public. In classical times , religious institutions began to function as an early form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects, such as Julius Caesar , often donated their collections to temples. It is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. In Europe, from the Late Medieval period onwards, areas in royal palaces, castles , and large country houses of
2058-478: A sense of movement. The lack of color in the 1874 Ballet Rehearsal on Stage and the 1876 The Ballet Instructor can be said to link with his interest in the new technique of photography. The changes to his palette, brushwork, and sense of composition all evidence the influence that both the Impressionist movement and modern photography, with its spontaneous images and off-kilter angles, had on his work. Blurring
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#17330851052282156-604: A series of rooms dedicated to specific historic periods (e.g. Ancient Egypt ) or other significant themed groupings of works (e.g. the gypsotheque or collection of plaster casts as in the Ashmolean Museum ) within a museum with a more varied collection are referred to as specific galleries, e.g. Egyptian Gallery or Cast Gallery . Works on paper, such as drawings , pastels , watercolors , prints , and photographs are typically not permanently displayed for reasons of conservation . Instead, public access to these materials
2254-418: A venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts , music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections. An institution dedicated to the display of art can be called an art museum or an art gallery, and the two terms may be used interchangeably. This
2352-416: Is also sometimes used to describe businesses which display art for sale, but these are not art museums. Throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions or political leaders and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces . Although these collections of art were not open to the general public, they were often made available for viewing for
2450-457: Is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory". Recognized as an important artist in his lifetime, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of Impressionism". Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with
2548-519: Is often identified as an Impressionist , an understandable but insufficient description. Impressionism originated in the 1860s and 1870s and grew, in part, from the realism of painters such as Courbet and Corot . The Impressionists painted the realities of the world around them using bright, "dazzling" colors, concentrating primarily on the effects of light, and hoping to infuse their scenes with immediacy. They wanted to express their visual experience in that exact moment. Technically, Degas differs from
2646-559: Is provided by a dedicated print room located within the museum. Murals or mosaics often remain where they have been created ( in situ ), although many have also been removed to galleries. Various forms of 20th-century art, such as land art and performance art , also usually exist outside a gallery. Photographic records of these kinds of art are often shown in galleries, however. Most museums and large art galleries own more works than they have room to display. The rest are held in reserve collections , on or off-site. A sculpture garden
2744-823: Is reflected in the names of institutions around the world, some of which are considered art galleries, such as the National Gallery in London and Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin , and some of which are considered museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo . The phrase "art gallery"
2842-557: Is similar to an art gallery, presenting sculpture in an outdoor space. Sculpture has grown in popularity with sculptures installed in open spaces on both a permanent and temporary basis. Most larger paintings from about 1530 onwards were designed to be seen either in churches or palaces, and many buildings built as palaces now function successfully as art museums. By the 18th century additions to palaces and country houses were sometimes intended specifically as galleries for viewing art, and designed with that in mind. The architectural form of
2940-502: Is to shape identity and memory, cultural heritage, distilled narratives and treasured stories. Many art museums throughout history have been designed with a cultural purpose or been subject to political intervention. In particular, national art galleries have been thought to incite feelings of nationalism . This has occurred in both democratic and non-democratic countries, although authoritarian regimes have historically exercised more control over administration of art museums. Ludwig Justi
3038-653: The British Museum was established and the Old Royal Library collection of manuscripts was donated to it for public viewing. In 1777, a proposal to the British government was put forward by MP John Wilkes to buy the art collection of the late Sir Robert Walpole , who had amassed one of the greatest such collections in Europe , and house it in a specially built wing of the British Museum for public viewing. After much debate,
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3136-738: The Guggenheim Museum in New York City by Frank Lloyd Wright , the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry , Centre Pompidou-Metz by Shigeru Ban , and the redesign of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Mario Botta . Some critics argue these galleries defeat their purposes because their dramatic interior spaces distract the eye from the paintings they are supposed to exhibit. Museums are more than just mere 'fixed structures designed to house collections.' Their purpose
3234-743: The Guggenheim Museum , the Cleveland Museum of Art , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art . There are relatively few local/regional/national organizations dedicated specifically to art museums. Most art museums are associated with local/regional/national organizations for the arts , humanities or museums in general. Many of these organizations are listed as follows: Edgar Degas Edgar Degas ( UK : / ˈ d eɪ ɡ ɑː / , US : / d eɪ ˈ ɡ ɑː , d ə ˈ ɡ ɑː / ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas , French: [ilɛːʁ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɛdɡaʁ də ɡa] ; 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917)
3332-511: The Lycée Louis-le-Grand . His mother died when he was thirteen, and the main influences on him for the remainder of his youth were his father and several unmarried uncles. Degas began to paint early in life. By the time he graduated from the Lycée with a baccalauréat in literature in 1853, at age 18, he had turned a room in his home into an artist's studio. Upon graduating, he registered as
3430-670: The Musée du Louvre during the French Revolution in 1793 as a public museum for much of the former French royal collection marked an important stage in the development of public access to art by transferring the ownership to a republican state; but it was a continuation of trends already well established. The building now occupied by the Prado in Madrid was built before the French Revolution for
3528-622: The Renwick Gallery , built in 1859. Now a part of the Smithsonian Institution , the Renwick housed William Wilson Corcoran 's collection of American and European art. The building was designed by James Renwick Jr. and finally completed in 1874. It is located at 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Renwick designed it after the Louvre's Tuileries addition. At the time of its construction, it
3626-553: The mystification of fine arts . Research suggests that the context in which an artwork is being presented has significant influence on its reception by the audience, and viewers shown artworks in a museum rated them more highly than when displayed in a "laboratory" setting Most art museums have only limited online collections, but a few museums, as well as some libraries and government agencies, have developed substantial online catalogues. Museums, libraries, and government agencies with substantial online collections include: There are
3724-532: The 17th century onwards, often based around a collection of the cabinet of curiosities type. The first such museum was the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford , opened in 1683 to house and display the artefacts of Elias Ashmole that were given to Oxford University in a bequest. The Kunstmuseum Basel , through its lineage which extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet , which included a collection of works by Hans Holbein
3822-612: The 18th century. In Italy, the art tourism of the Grand Tour became a major industry from the 18th century onwards, and cities made efforts to make their key works accessible. The Capitoline Museums began in 1471 with a donation of classical sculpture to the city of Rome by the Papacy , while the Vatican Museums , whose collections are still owned by the Pope, trace their foundation to 1506, when
3920-401: The 1970s, a number of political theorists and social commentators have pointed to the political implications of art museums and social relations. Pierre Bourdieu , for instance, argued that in spite the apparent freedom of choice in the arts, people's artistic preferences (such as classical music, rock, traditional music) strongly tie in with their social position. So called cultural capital is
4018-569: The 19th century, and international modern and contemporary art. The museum collection traces its origin to 1849, when it was initially established by the Hamburg Kunstverein, which was founded in 1817. The collection opened to the public a year later as the Städtische Gallerie (municipal painting gallery). The collection grew quickly, and it soon became necessary to provide a suitable building. The original red-brick Kunsthalle building
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4116-597: The Gallery of Contemporary Art. The highlights of the collection include the medieval alters of Master Bertram and Master Francke , 17th-century Dutch paintings, works of early to mid 19th-century German Romanticism , and collections of impressionism and classic modernism. The Kunsthalle is also known for its international contemporary art collections and exhibitions, which include post-1950 Pop Art, conceptual art, video art and photography. The Old Masters Collection shows works by Bartel Beham, Bernardo Bellotto , Lucas Cranach
4214-625: The Impressionist movement. Degas's style reflects his deep respect for the old masters (he was an enthusiastic copyist well into middle age) and his great admiration for Ingres and Delacroix. He was also a collector of Japanese prints , whose compositional principles influenced his work, as did the vigorous realism of popular illustrators such as Daumier and Gavarni . Although famous for horses and dancers, Degas began with conventional historical paintings such as The Daughter of Jephthah ( c. 1859–61 ) and Young Spartans Exercising ( c. 1860–62 ), in which his gradual progress toward
4312-478: The Impressionists in that he continually belittled their practice of painting en plein air . You know what I think of people who work out in the open. If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don't mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning. "He was often as anti-impressionist as
4410-448: The Impressionists, however, and rejected the rigid rules and judgments of the Salon. Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans , or Little Dancer of Fourteen Years , which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it
4508-653: The Marxist theory of mystification and elite culture . Furthermore, certain art galleries, such as the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris are situated in buildings of considerable emotional impact. The Louvre in Paris is for instance located in the former Royal Castle of the ancient regime , and is thus clearly designed with a political agenda. It has been argued that such buildings create feelings of subjugation and adds to
4606-527: The Younger and purchased by the city of Basel in 1661, is considered to be the first museum of art open to the public in the world. In the second half of the 18th century, many private collections of art were opened to the public, and during and after the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars , many royal collections were nationalized, even where the monarchy remained in place, as in Spain and Bavaria . In 1753,
4704-1389: The Younger , Master Francke, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes , Johann Georg Hinz , Jan Massys , Giambattista Pittoni , Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn , Peter Paul Rubens , Jacob Isaacksz van Ruisdael and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo , among others. The Gallery of 19th-century Art shows work by Carl Blechen , Arnold Böcklin , Gustave Courbet , Edgar Degas , Anselm Feuerbach , Caspar David Friedrich , Jean-Léon Gérôme , Wilhelm Leibl , Max Liebermann , Édouard Manet , Adolph Menzel , Claude Monet , Auguste Rodin and Philipp Otto Runge , among others. The Classical Modernism gallery shows works by Francis Bacon , Max Beckmann , Lovis Corinth , James Ensor , Max Ernst , Ernst Ludwig Kirchner , Paul Klee , Oskar Kokoschka , Paula Modersohn-Becker , Edvard Munch , Emil Nolde and Pablo Picasso , among others. The Gallery of Contemporary Art shows works by Joseph Beuys , Tracey Emin , David Hockney , Rebecca Horn , Ilya Kabakov , On Kawara , Yves Klein , Kitty Kraus , Robert Morris , Hermann Nitsch , George Segal , Richard Serra , Franz Erhard Walther , and Andy Warhol , among others. The Hamburg Kunsthalle continuously carries out temporary exhibitions on contemporary and historic art, in addition to its constant rotation of temporary exhibitions. Yearly there are on average 20 special exhibitions. In December 2023,
4802-433: The active lending-out of a museum's collected objects in order to enhance education at schools and to aid in the cultural development of individual members of the community. Finally, Dana saw branch museums throughout a city as a good method of making sure that every citizen has access to its benefits. Dana's view of the ideal museum sought to invest a wider variety of people in it, and was self-consciously not elitist. Since
4900-400: The anti-Semitic "Anti-Dreyfusards" until his death. During his life, public reception of Degas's work ranged from admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a number of paintings accepted in the Salon between 1865 and 1870. These works received praise from Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and the critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary . He soon joined forces with
4998-418: The art world. The large auction houses, such as Sotheby's , Bonhams , and Christie's , maintain large online databases of art which they have auctioned or are auctioning. Bridgeman Art Library serves as a central source of reproductions of artwork, with access limited to museums, art dealers , and other professionals or professional organizations. There are also online galleries that have been developed by
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#17330851052285096-414: The authenticity of these plasters as well as the circumstances and date of their creation as proposed by their promoters. While several museum and academic professionals accept them as presented, most of the recognized Degas scholars have declined to comment. Degas, who believed that "the artist must live alone, and his private life must remain unknown", lived an outwardly uneventful life. In company he
5194-609: The banker in profile have been directly compared to those in the anti-Semitic cartoons rampant in Paris at the time, while those of the background characters have drawn comparisons to Degas' earlier work Criminal Physiognomies . The Dreyfus Affair , which divided opinion in Paris from the 1890s to the early 1900s, intensified his anti-Semitism. By the mid-1890s, he had broken off relations with all of his Jewish friends, publicly disavowed his previous friendships with Jewish artists, and refused to use models who he believed might be Jewish. He remained an outspoken anti-Semite and member of
5292-496: The claim stating, "It is simply not clear whether this work is the one that hung in the Robert Graetz collection. Art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art , usually from the museum 's own collection . It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art , art museums are often used as
5390-617: The critics who reviewed the shows", according to art historian Carol Armstrong ; as Degas himself explained, "no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament, I know nothing." Nonetheless, he is described more accurately as an Impressionist than as a member of any other movement. His scenes of Parisian life, his off-center compositions, his experiments with color and form, and his friendship with several key Impressionist artists—most notably Mary Cassatt and Manet—all relate him intimately to
5488-527: The decade beginning in 1874. Disenchanted by now with the Salon, he instead joined a group of young artists who were organizing an independent exhibiting society. The group soon became known as the Impressionists. Between 1874 and 1886, they mounted eight art shows, known as the Impressionist Exhibitions. Degas took a leading role in organizing the exhibitions, and showed his work in all but one of them, despite his persistent conflicts with others in
5586-521: The distinction between portraiture and genre pieces, he painted his bassoonist friend, Désiré Dihau , in The Orchestra of the Opera (c. 1870) as one of fourteen musicians in an orchestra pit, viewed as though by a member of the audience. Above the musicians can be seen only the legs and tutus of the dancers onstage, their figures cropped by the edge of the painting. Art historian Charles Stuckey has compared
5684-607: The earliest of his many studies of horses. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages , which attracted little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon during the next five years, he submitted no more history paintings, and his Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (Salon of 1866) signaled his growing commitment to contemporary subject matter. The change in his art
5782-521: The end of 1907, and is believed to have continued making sculptures as late as 1910, he apparently ceased working in 1912, when the impending demolition of his longtime residence on the rue Victor Massé forced him to move to quarters on the Boulevard de Clichy . He never married, and spent the last years of his life, nearly blind, restlessly wandering the streets of Paris before dying in September 1917. Degas
5880-690: The entire building solely intended to be an art gallery was arguably established by Sir John Soane with his design for the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817. This established the gallery as a series of interconnected rooms with largely uninterrupted wall spaces for hanging pictures and indirect lighting from skylights or roof lanterns . The late 19th century saw a boom in the building of public art galleries in Europe and America, becoming an essential cultural feature of larger cities. More art galleries rose up alongside museums and public libraries as part of
5978-614: The figure, the pictures created in this late period of his life bear little superficial resemblance to his early paintings. In point of fact, these paintings—created late in his life and after the heyday of the Impressionist movement—most vividly use the coloristic techniques of Impressionism. For all the stylistic evolution, certain features of Degas's work remained the same throughout his life. He always painted indoors, preferring to work in his studio from memory, photographs, or live models. The figure remained his primary subject; his few landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. It
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#17330851052286076-409: The fore and he broke with all his Jewish friends. His argumentative nature was deplored by Renoir, who said of him: "What a creature he was, that Degas! All his friends had to leave him; I was one of the last to go, but even I couldn't stay till the end." After 1890, Degas's eyesight, which had long troubled him, deteriorated further. Although he is known to have been working in pastel as late as
6174-484: The founder of the Newark Museum , saw the traditional art museum as a useless public institution, one that focused more on fashion and conformity rather than education and uplift. Indeed, Dana's ideal museum would be one best suited for active and vigorous use by the average citizen, located near the center of their daily movement. In addition, Dana's conception of the perfect museum included a wider variety of objects than
6272-544: The grander English country houses could be toured by the respectable for a tip to the housekeeper, during the long periods when the family were not in residence. Special arrangements were made to allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in galleries, as with most of the paintings of the Orleans Collection , which were housed in a wing of the Palais-Royal in Paris and could be visited for most of
6370-520: The group's exhibitions. The resulting rancor within the group contributed to its disbanding in 1886. As his financial situation improved through sales of his own work, he was able to indulge his passion for collecting works by artists he admired: old masters such as El Greco and such contemporaries as Manet , Cassatt , Pissarro , Cézanne , Gauguin , Van Gogh , and Édouard Brandon . Three artists he idolized, Ingres , Delacroix , and Daumier , were especially well represented in his collection. In
6468-523: The group. He had little in common with Monet and the other landscape painters in the group, whom he mocked for painting outdoors . Conservative in his social attitudes, he abhorred the scandal created by the exhibitions, as well as the publicity and advertising that his colleagues sought. He also deeply disliked being associated with the term "Impressionist", which the press had coined and popularized, and insisted on including non-Impressionist artists such as Jean-Louis Forain and Jean-François Raffaëlli in
6566-806: The idea was eventually abandoned due to the great expense, and twenty years later, the collection was bought by Tsaritsa Catherine the Great of Russia and housed in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg . The Bavarian royal collection (now in the Alte Pinakothek , Munich) was opened to the public in 1779 and the Medici collection in Florence around 1789 (as the Uffizi Gallery). The opening of
6664-461: The largest category of art museums in the country. While the first of these collections can be traced to learning collections developed in art academies in Western Europe, they are now associated with and housed in centers of higher education of all types. The word gallery being originally an architectural term, the display rooms in museums are often called public galleries . Also frequently,
6762-481: The late 1880s, Degas also developed a passion for photography. He photographed many of his friends, often by lamplight, as in his double portrait of Renoir and Mallarmé . Other photographs, depicting dancers and nudes, were used for reference in some of Degas's drawings, and paintings. As the years passed, Degas became isolated, due in part to his belief that a painter could have no personal life. The Dreyfus Affair controversy brought his anti-Semitic leanings to
6860-606: The later 1870s, Degas had mastered not only the traditional medium of oil on canvas , but pastel as well. The dry medium, which he applied in complex layers and textures, enabled him more easily to reconcile his facility for line with a growing interest in expressive color. In the mid-1870s, he also returned to the medium of etching , which he had neglected for ten years. At first he was guided in this by his old friend Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic , himself an innovator in its use, and began experimenting with lithography and monotype . He produced some 300 monotypes over two periods, from
6958-406: The mid-1870s to the mid-1880s and again in the early 1890s. He was especially fascinated by the effects produced by monotype and frequently reworked the printed images with pastel. By 1880, sculpture had become one more strand to Degas's continuing endeavor to explore different media, although the artist displayed only one sculpture publicly during his lifetime. These changes in media engendered
7056-513: The municipal drive for literacy and public education. Over the middle and late twentieth century, earlier architectural styles employed for art museums (such as the Beaux-Arts style of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City or the Gothic and Renaissance Revival architecture of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum) succumbed to modern styles , such as Deconstructivism . Examples of this trend include
7154-541: The museum received public criticism for its response to a restitution claim by the family of Holocaust victim Robert Graetz concerning Paula Modersohn-Becker 's painting Girl's Head . Listed for more than twenty years on the German Lost Art Foundation's website, the painting passed through the Nazi art dealer Konrad Doebbeke and was gifted to the museum by Doebbeke's widow. The museum director Alexander Klar rejected
7252-522: The museum's history as an 'art hall' when it was founded in 1850. Today, it houses one of the few art collections in Germany that cover seven centuries of European art , from the Middle Ages to the present day . Its permanent collections focus on North German painting of the 14th century, paintings by Dutch, Flemish and Italian artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, French and German drawings and paintings of
7350-513: The paintings that Degas would produce in later life. Degas began to draw and paint women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair, and bathing (see: After the Bath, Woman drying herself ). The strokes that model the form are scribbled more freely than before; backgrounds are simplified. The meticulous naturalism of his youth gave way to an increasing abstraction of form. Except for his characteristically brilliant draftsmanship and obsession with
7448-567: The public a decade later in 1824. Similarly, the National Gallery in Prague was not formed by opening an existing royal or princely art collection to the public, but was created from scratch as a joint project of some Czech aristocrats in 1796. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is generally considered to have been the first art museum in the United States. It was originally housed in
7546-458: The public display of parts of the royal art collection, and similar royal galleries were opened to the public in Vienna , Munich and other capitals. In Great Britain, however, the corresponding Royal Collection remained in the private hands of the monarch, and the first purpose-built national art galleries were the Dulwich Picture Gallery , founded in 1814 and the National Gallery, London opened to
7644-565: The recently discovered Laocoön and His Sons was put on public display. A series of museums on different subjects were opened over subsequent centuries, and many of the buildings of the Vatican were purpose-built as galleries. An early royal treasury opened to the public was the Green Vault of the Kingdom of Saxony in the 1720s. Privately funded museums open to the public began to be established from
7742-464: The sculptures were not created as aids to painting, although the artist habitually explored ways of linking graphic art and oil painting, drawing and pastel, sculpture and photography. Degas assigned the same significance to sculpture as to drawing: "Drawing is a way of thinking, modelling another". After Degas's death, his heirs found in his studio 150 wax sculptures, many in disrepair. They consulted foundry owner Adrien Hébrard, who concluded that 74 of
7840-559: The social elite were often made partially accessible to sections of the public, where art collections could be viewed. At the Palace of Versailles , entrance was restricted to people of certain social classes who were required to wear the proper apparel, which typically included the appropriate accessories, silver shoe buckles and a sword , could be hired from shops outside. The treasuries of cathedrals and large churches, or parts of them, were often set out for public display and veneration. Many of
7938-399: The traditional art museum, including industrial tools and handicrafts that encourage imagination in areas traditionally considered mundane. This view of the art museum envisions it as one well-suited to an industrial world, indeed enhancing it. Dana viewed paintings and sculptures as much less useful than industrial products, comparing the museum to a department store. In addition, he encouraged
8036-418: The traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting." Degas created a substantial number of other sculptures during a span of four decades, but they remained unseen by the public until a posthumous exhibition in 1918. Neither The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years nor any of Degas's other sculptures were cast in bronze during the artist's lifetime. Degas scholars have agreed that
8134-716: The viewpoint to that of a distracted spectator at a ballet, and says that "it is Degas' fascination with the depiction of movement, including the movement of a spectator's eyes as during a random glance, that is properly speaking 'Impressionist'." Degas's mature style is distinguished by conspicuously unfinished passages, even in otherwise tightly rendered paintings. He frequently blamed his eye troubles for his inability to finish, an explanation that met with some skepticism from colleagues and collectors who reasoned, as Stuckey explains, that "his pictures could hardly have been executed by anyone with inadequate vision". The artist provided another clue when he described his predilection "to begin
8232-514: The waxes could be cast in bronze . It is assumed that, except for the Little Dancer Aged Fourteen , all Degas bronzes worldwide are cast from surmoulages [ fr ] (i.e., cast from bronze masters). A surmoulage bronze is a bit smaller, and shows less surface detail, than its original bronze mold. The Hébrard Foundry cast the bronzes from 1919 until 1936, and closed down in 1937, shortly before Hébrard's death. In 2004,
8330-452: Was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures , prints , and drawings. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism , he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist , and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did. Degas
8428-422: Was a superb draftsman , and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers and bathing female nudes . In addition to ballet dancers and bathing women, Degas painted racehorses and racing jockeys , as well as portraits. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and their portrayal of human isolation. At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be
8526-553: Was constructed from 1863 to 1869. It was designed by architects Georg Theodor Schirrmacher and Hermann von der Hude , and financed largely through private donations. The Kunsthalle's first director was the art historian and educator Alfred Lichtwark (1852–1914). His successor during the interwar period was Gustav Pauli . He oversaw the completion of the Kuppelsaal (domed-hall) extension, the museum's first annex, designed by Fritz Schumacher and erected between 1914 and 1921. In 1994,
8624-453: Was designed by Cologne architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and that is dedicated to the Kunsthalle's contemporary art collections. The cubic building sits on a monolithic base at a prominent location in close proximity to the Binnenalster . The Kunsthalle is divided into four different sections: the Gallery of Old Masters, the Gallery of 19th-century Art, the Gallery of Classical Modernism, and
8722-442: Was drawn to the tensions present between men and women. In his early paintings, Degas already evidenced the mature style that he would later develop more fully by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual viewpoints. By the late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial forays into history painting to an original observation of contemporary life. Racecourse scenes provided an opportunity to depict horses and their riders in
8820-554: Was for example dismissed as director of the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) in Berlin in 1933 by the new Nazi authorities for not being politically suitable. The question of the place of the art museum in its community has long been under debate. Some see art museums as fundamentally elitist institutions, while others see them as institutions with the potential for societal education and uplift. John Cotton Dana , an American librarian and museum director, as well as
8918-657: Was found to be defective, and for the rest of his life his eye problems were a constant worry to him. After the war, Degas began in 1872 an extended stay in New Orleans , where his brother René and a number of other relatives lived. Staying at the home of his Creole uncle, Michel Musson, on Esplanade Avenue , Degas produced a number of works, many depicting family members. One of Degas's New Orleans works, A Cotton Office in New Orleans , garnered favorable attention back in France, and
9016-546: Was his only work purchased by a museum (the Pau ) during his lifetime. Degas returned to Paris in 1873 and his father died the following year, whereupon Degas learned that his brother René had amassed enormous business debts. To preserve his family's reputation, Degas sold his house and an art collection he had inherited, and used the money to pay off his brother's debts. Dependent for the first time in his life on sales of his artwork for income, he produced much of his greatest work during
9114-538: Was influenced primarily by the example of Édouard Manet , whom Degas had met in 1864 (while both were copying the same Diego Velázquez portrait in the Louvre, according to a story that may be apocryphal). Upon the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard , where his partaking in the defense of Paris left him little time for painting. During rifle training his eyesight
9212-615: Was known as "the American Louvre". University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in the West and East, making it a global practice. Although easily overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in the US alone. This number, compared to other kinds of art museums, makes university art museums perhaps
9310-461: Was known for his wit, which could often be cruel. He was characterized as an "old curmudgeon" by the novelist George Moore , and he deliberately cultivated his reputation as a misanthropic bachelor. In the 1870s, Degas gravitated towards the republican circles of Léon Gambetta . However, his republicanism did not come untainted, and signs of the prejudice and irritability which would overtake him in old age were occasionally manifested. He fired
9408-404: Was most interested in the presentation of his paintings, patronizing Pierre Cluzel as a framer, and disliking ornate styles of the day, often insisting on his choices for the framing as a condition of purchase. Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years . A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in
9506-462: Was not unusual for him to repeat a subject many times, varying the composition or treatment. He was a deliberative artist whose works, as Andrew Forge has written, "were prepared, calculated, practiced, developed in stages. They were made up of parts. The adjustment of each part to the whole, their linear arrangement, was the occasion for infinite reflection and experiment." Degas explained, "In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement". He
9604-570: Was the oldest of five children of Célestine Musson De Gas, a Creole from New Orleans , Louisiana , and Augustin De Gas, a banker. His maternal grandfather Germain Musson was born in Port-au-Prince , Haiti , of French descent, and had settled in New Orleans in 1810. Degas (he adopted this less grandiose spelling of his family name when he became an adult) began his schooling at age eleven, enrolling in
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