Landscape
Medium
Pastel, over color monotype, with wiping and incising, on pink wove paper, altered to tan
Dimensions
Image: 25.5 × 34.5 cm (10 1/16 × 13 5/8 in.); Sheet: 26.1 × 35 cm (10 5/16 × 13 13/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
185850
Art Historical Context
In the twilight of his illustrious career, Edgar Degas crafted *Landscape* in 1892, a rare departure from his iconic depictions of ballerinas and modern life. This intimate work on pink wove paper—subtly altered to tan—captures the artist's fascination with the Normandy countryside, a motif he explored during summer retreats. Measuring just 25.5 × 34.5 cm, it exemplifies Degas's late-period experimentation, blending Impressionist spontaneity with meticulous control. Degas pioneered the color monotype technique here, inking a metal plate with vibrant hues, printing it onto paper, and then wipi...
About the Artist
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas · 1834–1917
Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas, born on July 19, 1834, in Paris to a prosperous banking family, was the eldest of five children. His mother, Célestine Musson, a Creole from New Orleans whose father Germain Musson had roots in Haiti, died when Degas was thirteen, leaving his father Augustin and unmarried uncles to guide him. Educated at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he earned a baccalauréat in...