1892 (ca.), Edgar Degas, At the Races: Before the Start -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: This painting belongs to a series of horizontal compositions that Degas dedicated to the subject of horse racing. Multiple sketches for these works exist and allow a better understanding of the artist's creative process. The jockey and his mount in the center of this canvas likely derive from the small sketch Jockey in Blue on a Chestnut Horse, which is also on display in this gallery. The scene is a composite of distinct studies that Degas skillfully grafted into a coherent depiction of the start of a race. Rather than representing an actual moment in time, the artist displayed a diversity of equine postures and varied dynamics between horse and rider. Degas treated the landscape with a simplicity that verges on abstraction, emphasizing the vital aspect of the movements and interactions of these figures. Additional figures are visible beneath the retouched areas on the right side of the painting, and X-rays have revealed that he deliberately reduced the conspicuous features of the landscape by eliminating a fence that ran diagonally across the scene.
1892 (ca.), Edgar Degas, At the Races: Before the Start -- Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond)
From the museum label: This painting belongs to a series of horizontal compositions that Degas dedicated to the subject of horse racing. Multiple sketches for these works exist and allow a better understanding of the artist's creative process. The jockey and his mount in the center of this canvas likely derive from the small sketch Jockey in Blue on a Chestnut Horse, which is also on display in this gallery. The scene is a composite of distinct studies that Degas skillfully grafted into a coherent depiction of the start of a race. Rather than representing an actual moment in time, the artist displayed a diversity of equine postures and varied dynamics between horse and rider. Degas treated the landscape with a simplicity that verges on abstraction, emphasizing the vital aspect of the movements and interactions of these figures. Additional figures are visible beneath the retouched areas on the right side of the painting, and X-rays have revealed that he deliberately reduced the conspicuous features of the landscape by eliminating a fence that ran diagonally across the scene.