Edgar Degas Influence On Photography

Introduction

Art is the expression of human creativity, skill and imagination. There are many different forms and types of visual art, from painting; to sculpting; to modeling; to photography and many more (Wikipedia). A lot of people around the world may not know about artists that change their artistic direction because of photography. People also may suggest that art is only about painting and drawing, but photography influenced painting by giving artists new tools; which then influenced the artists who experimented with colour, mass and lighting (Reference). But to what extent did the invention of photography influence the development of painting from the end of 19th century to 1930? Artists had the ability to bring out specific features

Degas’ art took an unexpected turn as photography became a new element of the 19th century (Ruth Schenkel, Metmuseum). He painted a lot of paintings using cropping and zoom techniques cuts off part of the figure (Edgar-Degas) and brought other part much closer than was previously done. This was something that a lot of artists were amazed by and it was a really different way of painting, as painters would rarely cropped figures and placed all the images within the canvas. Degas used this cropping and zooming techniques in multiple paintings shown, “The Rehearsal” painted in 1873-74 shows a group of dancers and the technique is used on the right side of the picture where the figure is cropped slightly and the stairs on the left side isn’t fully shown. “Jockeys” painted in 1886 is also an example where he used cropping, as on the left side the horse is slightly cropped. Lastly, a painting painted in 1880 called “La Place Clichy” definitely shows the use of “zooming in” as the background of the photo includes people further away, which focuses on the main part of the picture hang(the lady in the front). Degas started to work with cameras and used a lot of techniques and media contrast and different lightings to create contours which creates the perfect photo. Degas’ photography usually included portraits of friends, family and self portraits and although it is

The great positive impact on specific artists chosen within this piece of writing meant that they were affected in art and had to change their ways and perspectives of visual art. The way that artists used techniques to produce a painting such as cropping and blurring ended up spreading around the art world and was taken into consideration by other artists who were amazed by this influence. The artists as well had to incorporate two different medias in one way or another. The overall idea of the invention of photography and development of painting is that photography dramatically changed the way that painters used their ideas and how the outcome of their pieces came out. They had a lot of different ideas that impacted other artists and became a new direction for them and their career. Without the specific artists mentioned, there would not be as many artists as famous as they are today who use the same techniques as well as developed uses of those techniques in both photography and