Product Description
In the City of Lights, at the dawn of a new age, begins an unforgettable story of great love, great art—and the most painful choices of the heart.
 
With this fresh and vibrantly imagined portrait of the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas, readers are transported through the eyes of a young Parisian ballerina to an era of light and movement. An ambitious and enterprising farm girl, Alexandrie joins the prestigious Paris Opera ballet with hopes of securing not only her place in society but her family’s financial future. Her plan is soon derailed, however, when she falls in love with the enigmatic artist whose paintings of the offstage lives of the ballerinas scandalized society and revolutionized the art world. As Alexandrie is drawn deeper into Degas’s art and Paris’s secrets, will she risk everything for her dreams of love and of becoming the ballet’s star dancer? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

This was a gift
from a long-time friend. It's well-written. It has to compete with Joanna Trollope or Susan Vreeland novels in my collection.

Simplistic to say the least
Simplistic to say the least. Not only is the entire book not factual, the style of writing was so simplistic and dull to read I would not have bothered to finish it had I had anything else around to read. Her characters utter phrases like "thats so annyoing" in 19th century Paris? Please. It was written as if geared for tweens, but the subject matter would be highly inappropriate for that age. Don't waste your time on this book.

Best thing about it is the cover
I'm a fan -- a forgiving fan -- of historical fiction. I love Degas, Paris and ballet, and I'm all about the guilty pleasures of a romance novel.I figured this book couldn't disappoint.Did Paris Opera dancers really live this kind of life? I'm willing to accept the premise -- it's an intriguing idea and what should be a fool-proof setting for a good novel.

Unfortunately, this story is too ambitious for its narrator.We are stuck in the head of the soul-suckingly boring Alexandrie, a self-righteous show-off who sounds like a college student writing pretentious blog comments. Alexandrie's voice -- the multi-syllable words, the cliches, the affect -- rings false for a dancer raised as an illiterate (later tutored) farm girl.Alexandrie is principled about ballet as creating "art" (Where did this come from and why am I supposed to care?) She has secret romantic dreams of marriage -- but contempt for the idea of being a mistress (or worse). In the world of this book, it's not clear why these things are important to her, which makes it difficult to care about her story.

This book does have a promising premise and good structure.It just needs some likeable characters, a realistic historical voice, and that rich detail that h-fiction buffs lust for (what kind of coins do they spend? What kind of fabric do they wear? We want more than we can get on Wikipedia).And any 12-year-old knows that ballet is about drills, schedules, repetition and routine -- I wish we had more of a sense of the daily life in the Paris Opera ballet.

If you haven't read Memoirs of a Geisha, Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, Girl with a Pearl Earring, or Mansfield Park, go dig your teeth into those. We'll have to keep waiting for the great novel on Degas.

Degas and his Ballerina
Alexandrie is a typical country girl. She helps her family with their pepper farm and doesn't really expect much more than that. She shows an interest in taking dance lessons, which is a luxury - and that is where the conflict between her and her mother comes in. Alexandrie wants to be the best dancer she can, while her mother wants her to become a famous lorrette and send money home to her family. This tension really forms the heart of this story.

Alexandrie goes to Paris and becomes a part of the famous Paris Opera Ballet company there. The story primarily focuses on Alexandrie and the culture and daily life of the ballerinas. I expected there to be rehearsals, and practice and shows, but there was much more. I had never thought about ballerinas being anything other than dancers, but apparently they were. Men would come to the shows to meet with the dancers afterward and hope to engage in a "post performance" - if you get the meaning. Many of these women would become lorrettes or mistresses to these men. They would be able to leave the dance life and be put up and well cared for. This is what many of them hoped for - and what Alexandrie's mother wanted for her. But, Alexandrie wanted to be respected for her passion and dance expertise.

Edgar Degas is well known for his exceptional paintings showing ballerinas in various stages of the dance and he finally comes into play in this story around page 100. I kept waiting and waiting, thinking he would never come. He and Alexandrie form a bond and she becomes the subject of many of his paintings. During these sections you get a great feel for the character of Degas - he is a little reclusive, volatile, and compassionate for his work. I really found myself enjoying Degas personality, even though he is a brasher artist than some others I have read about lately. One thing I found interesting was the inclusion of other Impressionist artists - this reminded me very much of some scenes in Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell - which I loved. It helped set the story in the art world, not just isolated.

I loved getting to learn about the dance and the experiences that these young women went through. Even though today many young girls take dance lessons, not many will become famous dancers and this story was a little like living out that dream. The one thing that I had a problem with was the ending - that seems to be where books have been losing it for me lately. The ending seemed very abrupt and the character had a change in motivation. All along Alexandrie was focusing on one thing, and then...it just went away. I really didn't see the ending coming and it didn't feel satisfying. Besides the ending, I really, really, enjoyed the book!

Boring book
I got through one third of this book and decided it wasn't worth my time. It feels that the author has done no research on Degas, and has simply created a character called Alexandrie (a ballet dancer) to reflect his work. The story seems more to be about Alexandrie than Degas. If you want true historical fiction, read 'Claude and Camille' whose author has done thorough research about her subject and that makes for good reading about Impressionism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

cool book
this book is really cool cause it shows pictures of ballerinas that edgar degas painted. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

worthwhile collection of Degas paintings and sculptures
Norton Simon (1907-1993) was a highly successful businessman, being associated with companies such as Canada Dry, Max Factor, McCalls Publishing and Avis Car Rental. He was also a voracious art collector amassing a huge assemblage of paintings, Asian art, sculptures and the like. This handsome volume documents his sizeable Degas collection; 30 paintings in oil and pastel as well as 72 sculptures.

The style of paintings, drawings and pastels would be familiar to those interested in Degas's oeuvre. The bulk of them are of good to high quality; there are many featuring dancing scenes, 4 uncharacteristic and almost abstract landscapes and somebathing women. The finest quality work would be the oil "Women Ironing". The revelation from my point of view are the many rarely seen bronze sculptures. While Degas's "Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen" seems omnipresent in virtually every major art gallery, the rest of his output in this field seems little known. On display are a number of horses in different states of movement, female nudes, dancers and women bathing. The sculptures, which have a wonderful sense of movement plus a simple vitality, are well worth examining.

The finest single volume on Degas that I have encountered is the broad ranging (though difficult to acquire) catalogue of the 1989 Metropolitan exhibition. That book gives scant coverage of the sculptures, the illustrations have slightly inferior color definition and are sometimes smaller in size. The Norton Simon catalog is luxuriously presented with additional comparative photographs. The printing quality is very high, the annotations are detailed as well as expert and, as mentioned, the illustrations are exceptional in standard of color reproduction. A must buy for Degas enthusiasts.

... Read more

Product Description
Through his representation of modern subjects such as ballet dancers and race horses, his constant questioning of traditional artistic practices, and his vital engagement with Parisian society, Edgar Degas (1834–1917) helped to define the beginnings of modernism in visual culture at the end of the nineteenth century. This engaging book yields new scholarship on works by Degas in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and provides in-depth discussion of works of art in every medium explored by this innovative artist. Extended entries by distinguished scholars including Richard Kendall and Edgar Munhall provide a complete review of the artist’s working methods. The book also introduces several important pieces by Degas that have rarely been available for view by the public, including a notable wax figure and several unique prints and works on paper. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

CATERING TO THE GROUNDLINGS
"PIcasso never took much interest in Degas' paintings. He preferred the sculptures and above all the monotypes, some of which Vollard had used to illustrate LA MAISON TELLIER, Maupassant's novel about a brothel's holiday outing."
John Richardson, A LIFE OF PICASSO: THE TRIUMPHANT YEARS, 1917-1932
This exhibition and catalogue is based on a puerile interpretation of the nature and character of esthetic influence in the visual arts. Both center on a one-to-one comparison of paintings, drawings, sculpture, and prints by Picasso and Degas, and the notion that Picasso drew directly from the subjects by Degas in a wide assortment of his own works. It is a total distortion of the uses of the past employed in all forms of the arts, and in particular almost all of the works in the PICASSO LOOKS AT DEGAS exhibition. If one wanted to pursue this superficial endeavor a better choice could have been made with Toulouse Lautrec. For example, Lautrec's May Milton poster is on the wall in Picasso's BLUE ROOM (1901) and the composition of his portrait of JUNYIR I VIDAL (1903) is much closer to Lautrec's besotted friends depicted in A LA MIE (1891). Further, Gary Tinterow, the Metropolitan curator of Modern Art, pointed out that it was practically impossible that Picasso could have seen Degas' WOMAN IRONING (1876-87) when he painted the same theme in 1904. The Degas was in a private collection that a young, scruffy, penniless Spaniard could never have gained access to during his stay in Paris. And all should look at Lautrec's witty and familiar assessments in his numerous paintings, oils on cardboard, lithographs, and drawings of Parisian whores before leaping to the conclusion that this is another major link to Degas.
The Clark owns a cast of Degas' LITTLE DANCER AGED FOURTEEN (1879-81), which is one of the most unique works of 19th century sculpture. Earlier Kendall mounted an entire exhibit of Degas' drawings and sculptural studies for the LITTLE DANCER, which unfortunately was centered on his notion that the fabric tutu was wrong; replacing it with one that was longer and more full. In PICASSO LOOKS AT DEGAS the comparison of Picasso's STANDING NUDE (1907), a cubist figure with a baboon snout and hatchet knees, is nothing short of delusional. In a feat of loony, Looking Glass logic Kendall bases his argument on the fact that both the height of the Degas sculpture and the height of the figure in the Picasso painting are the same.
Richard Kendall and Elizabeth Cowling should be reminded that rather than aping Cezanne's card players, bathers, and still lifes, Picasso and Braque invented Cubism, and years later PIcasso would buy Cezanne's mountain. His assemblages and sculpture made from an assortment of materials strikes much closer to Degas' LITTLE DANCER, but Kendall and Cowling interpret influence as mimicry.
A truly remarkable exhibition could have been organized focusing on Picasso's hundreds of references and variations on the to the art of the past; which ranged from the Greeks and Romans, classical and mythological subjects, Cranach, Velazquez, Rembrandt, or the dozens of major canvases based on Delacroix's ALGERIAN WOMEN.
The exhibition ends with Degas whorehouse monotypes and an assortment of Picasso's 347 Suite etchings based on the same carnal themes. Three of the figures are identified as Degas, who looks similar to Picasso's father. But again, they have chosen to distort the facts:
"....Picasso coveted a small, sexually explicit [Degas] monotype...which I had acquired. He was so captivated by it that I [John Richardson] gave it to him; he went on to buy several more....which would inspire a series of brilliant brothel scenes."
"This voyeur is a curious hybrid: Picasso's painter father, who was addicted to whores, in the guise of Degas." Richardson, vol. III, page 455
The third volume of of Richardson's LIFE OF PICASSO was published in 2007. Without doubt the curators of PICASSO LOOKS AT DEGAS were familiar with this authoritative biography based on the author's close friendship with the artist. Apparently Kendall and Cowling chose to ignore it.
In the end, this catalogue is not an erudite probing of Picasso and Degas; it is a curatorial pissing contest sponsored by a museum that seems to gauge the importance and success of their annual summer blockbusters on how many cars are forced to park on the road rather than on the quality of the scholarship in their publications.
PICASSO LOOKS AT DEGAS should be placed next to David Hockney's preposterously silly SECRET KNOWLEDGE, then both put on a shelf with bad fiction such as the DI VINCI CODE and LUST FOR LIFE.
Rather they purchasing this tripe, one would do far better purchasing PICASSO AT THE METROPOLITAN by Gary Tinterow, and/or THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO (1955) which shows him doing many drawings and paintings on the backside of a frosted glass. It was directed by the legendary Clouzot. For a brilliant examination of Picasso's work and life LOVE, MAGIC, AND DEATH by John Richardson (the scholar mentioned above) which is also available on a CD. All are listed on Amazon.

you must see this!
If you are at all curious about Degas or Picasso.... or even better.... a look at how artists are inspired by other artists,you must look at "Picasso Looks at Degas". It's like being at the museum show but even better because you can look whenever you want, take the time to read the most informative catalog. A bargain, much cheaper than the flight to the Clark Art Institute! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Degas Pastels
Graphics are clear and show how each image was created.They also show how Degas progressed in his pastel work over time. ... Read more

Product Description
DEGAS BY HIMSELF is a milestone in published approaches to the work of this remarkable figure. No other book has illustrated so many of Degas' works in colour, including his best-known paintings and sketches, as well as many works that will be unfamiliar to most people. The book draws on a range of sources - the artist's own notebooks and letters, as well as anecdotes and memoirs from his intimate circle - to trace a vivid portrait of Degas and reveal intimate aspects of his life and personality. His notebooks and letters show him as a forceful and expressive writer; there are letters to friends and customers, urgent messages to exhibitors at the Impressionist exhibition and, finally, a number of short and sad letters from his last years. Degas was also known as a wit and conversationalist, provoking a number of his friends to write down his words for posterity. For the first time, reminiscences and reported remarks have been brought together, conjuring up an unexpected picture of the artist as a man of wisdom and good humour. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very personal glimpse into the mind of Degas
Reading this book, you can't help but feel a personal connection to Degas. Not only are some of his most exquisite paintings on display, but we are treated to countless personal letters and journal entries in which he details his thoughts and relays his travelling experiences. The quirkiness of his writings and sketches, with their melancholic undertones, will make Degas feel like a very real person to you.

Read it and see for yourself why he is considered among the greatest Impressionists of all time. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume celebrates the only visit by a FrenchImpressionist to the United States.When Edgar Degas arrived in NewOrleans, it was both a homecoming to the city where his mother'sfamily settled, and an exotic sojourn in the land of cotton andsteamboats.This book presents penetrating portraits of Degas'sfamily and paintings alongside family letters, documents, heirlooms,and vintage photographs to illuminate this unique era in art andhistory.Amazon.com Review
Readers who've already encountered Christopher Benfey's mesmerizing reverie about race, class, and the Degas family in Civil War-era New Orleans, Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable, may find some of the written material in this large art book repetitive. But the visual accompaniments to the fascinating story of Edgar Degas's New Orleans connections and the time he spent visiting that unique city in the early 1870s are all here. Readers will find an attic's worth of old mail and family photographs, as well as the sketches, drawings, portraits, and scenes Degas painted both while he was there and after he returned to Paris. The Degas family tale contains all the high drama of squandered fortunes, unpaid debts, wartime disarray, hardening racism, marital abandonment, blindness, death, divorce, and disgrace, now publicly aired in hundreds of letters and some old photographs that unwittingly reveal the sometimes pitiful effects of upper-crust insularity and inbreeding.

A caveat: all this may ultimately prove equally interesting to social historians as to art lovers. This big coffee-table book promises more visual treats than it ultimately delivers. There are some paintings of the New Orleans cotton exchange that are an important part of Degas's oeuvre and many portraits that are also well known, and the author's careful placement of these works into the context of their times and Degas's career is invaluable for art historians. But the family memorabilia that enriched the exhibition this book catalogs doesn't provide the kind of pictorial richness that made another thought-provoking Degas book, Richard Kendall's astonishing Degas and the Little Dancer, so satisfying on every level--ideally melding sumptuous imagery with enlightenment. More art, one murmurs; less life. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more

Product Description
This lavishly illustrated book is the first to deal with Degas' landscapes, relating them to his other work and to his evolving views of art. Features many previously unpublished works. Accompanies an exhibition of Degas' landscapes, opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 1994. 120 colorplates. 100 illus. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A misnomer?
Degas Landscapes was produced to accompany an exhibition of Degas' landscapes opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 1994 and at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in April 1994. If the title of this hefty volume comes as a surprise, it is unlikely the contents of the same will so much to change that view. It is however a fine book with a comprehensive text which discusses Degas' work in detail, and includes anecdotes and Degas' own words.

Yes, Degas did produce a few landscapes, most of which appear to be in pastel, and just a few paintings. The author negotiates this minor problem by including Degas' equestrian paintings, and anything else he can find which can be construed as containing a landscape in the background; and he bolsters the meagre number of images by including examples of other artists' landscapes.

The quality of the writing is not in question, it is intelligent, illuminating and extensive; and the images which illustrate the text are undoubtedly beautiful; subtle yet rich in colour and texture.

It includes a comprehensive bibliography, and details of the pictures included in the exhibition. There are about two hundred and thirty illustrations, almost all of which are in full colour, and include a few photographs of the scene depicted in the painting, and sometimes a map showing the location and the view point for the picture. The illustrations some of which are half page or even full page, appear along with the text, and refreshingly generally manage to appear on the same page in which they are discussed.

While this is a fine work, I cannot help but think the reader will come away confirmed in the view that Degas and landscape are not words that readily sit together.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Interesting story idea, nice pictures.
We received this book as a gift for our 5-year old daughter.I thought it was a really interesting story idea.A little girl "switches" bags at her dance recital with Degas.She ends up with a bag of paints, and he ends up with her tutu.She travels through Paris, meeting other famous painters, trying to find Degas.Cute idea.What adds to the cuteness of the story is that each painter she encounters is painting one of their more famous paintings when the encounter the girl and each painting ties into the story.The illustrations are pretty and whimsical.My daughter, a dancer, asked at the end of the story if it really happened.On the last page of the book, following a brief explanation of each of the paintings, there is a short paragraph stating that although this story did not really happen, it could have.This was cute and a nice answer to my daughter's question!The reason I rated it as just average was that the story was a little "long winded" and although the story is aimed at 4-8 year olds, the content and the amount of French names in the story was a little much for this age group.I like the idea of introducing French painters to little ones, I just didn't think it worked out as good as it could have.

This is a beautiful sweeping book that will introduce the young reader to the world of Impressionism!
The little ballerina and her fellow dancers had just finished up their "last rehearsal before the recital."A little dachshund watched as some of the girls still worked at the bar while others were preparing to leave.They were well rehearsed and the little girl was anxious to wear her new tutu during the recital.She had packed it in her bag, but when she went to try it on the only thing she found were Monsieur Degas' paints.He had come to the opera house to paint them and had mistakenly taken her bag.She dashed into the street, ignoring the rain, in search of Monsieur Degas.She just had to find him before the show went on!

Gustave Caillebotte was painting a street scene, but when she asked after Degas, he quickly referred her to Claude Monet who was up on a hotel balcony.He "painted a dot on his canvas" before answering.Yes, he had seen Monsieur Degas, but he was not anywhere in sight.He suggested she try the Moulin de la Galette. By the time she got there, the sun was shining and she saw him next to another painter.She pirouetted quickly across the floor, but he was gone.Monsieur Renoir directed her to Père Tanguy's shop.No Degas there, nor at Madame Cassatt's.Was she ever going to find Monsieur Degas and her new tutu in time for the recital?

This is a beautiful sweeping book that will introduce the young reader to the world of Impressionism.I loved the swirling little search for Degas through the streets of Paris.The idea and theme for the little ballerina to peer at other Impressionist's works as she searched was ingenious.My favorite was when she met Mary Cassatt's model who threw herself in a chair, a session that culminated in the painting, "Girl in the Blue Chair."There was only one little detail that threw me and that was a typographical error in the sentence, "Excuse me, but have you see Monsieur Degas."It certainly does not take away from the beauty of this book, but some people may object.In the back of the book are reproductions of the original paintings and a brief discussion on Impressionist painters. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1995 the Getty Museum acquired a sketchbook by the prolific artist Edgar Degas (1834-1917). Its images, dating from approximately 1877, embrace a variety of themes from everyday Parisian life the café, concert, brothels, and ballet and were created during Degas's weekly visits to the home of writer Ludovic Halévy, the first owner of the sketchbook. They show Degas's remarkable powers of observation, as well as the sureness and economy of his line.

Reproduced here are twenty-eight pages from the sketchbook, along with a brilliant essay that places Degas within the contexts of both the cultivated salon of the Halévy family and the larger world of late-nineteenth-century Paris, which the notoriously difficult artist both celebrated and shunned. In addition, the book features a transcript of a lively conversation about the sketchbook among artist David Hockney, Getty Museum director John Walsh, and Lee Hendrix, curator of drawings for the Getty Museum. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I learned a great deal about using a minimum of markings
As a writer in mathematics and computer science, I am occasionally required to sketch diagrams describing my work. This is of course difficult, as I have no training in this area. To assist, I consult books on sketching, and this one is quite interesting. These are sketches in the true sense, with a minimum of markings. Mathematics is a field where a minimum of statements is generally the best strategy for explanation. Therefore, I learned a great deal about sketching for mathematics by looking over the diagrams in this book.
The sketches depict people in many different activities, from playing cards to dancing. Given this broad coverage of people living their lives, there is much that artists can learn from them as well. ... Read more