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00:00Edgard Deigar
00:27At the beginning of his career, Edgard Deigar wanted to be a history painter, a calling
00:32for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic
00:38art.
00:39In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a
00:44history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern
00:50life.
00:51He was intrigued by the human figure and in his many images of women, dancers, singers
00:57and laundresses, he strove to capture the body in unusual positions.
01:03While critics of Impressionists focused their attacks on their formal innovations, it was
01:09Deigar's lower-class subjects that brought him the most disapproval.
01:15The millinery shop was created in the period between 1879 and 1886.
01:22This canvas is Edgard Deigar's most ambitious statement on the theme of the millinery shop,
01:28although the young woman is presumably a hat-maker examining her handiwork, with her lips pursed
01:35perhaps around a pin.
01:37It has also been suggested that she could be a client about to try on a hat, since she
01:43wears inexpensive fur-trimmed dress and kid gloves.
01:47X-ray examination revealed that this figure originally represented a customer, but in his
01:54rethinking of the subject, Deigar withheld the information necessary to determine her identity.
02:01The view of the seam is at an angle from above, although Deigar created several paintings
02:08concerning milliners.
02:10This painting is his largest and only museum-scale work on this subject.
02:16At the moment, the picture is located in the Art Institute in Chicago, the United States.
02:23This picture has been dated to about 1876-1877, but it may have been painted as early as the
02:32late 1860s.
02:34It was exhibited at the Third Impressionist exhibition in 1877.
02:40It is almost certain that the central group of a young girl and maid was posed in the studio.
02:47In treatment, the painting is distinct from the open-air beach scenes of the artist's contemporaries
02:54– Claude Oscar Monet and Jeanne Baudin.
02:58Like many of the Impressionists, Deigar was significantly influenced by Japanese prints,
03:05which suggested novel approaches to composition.
03:08The prints had bold linear designs and a sense of flatness that was very different from the
03:15traditional Western picture with its perspective view of the world.
03:19The painting is housed in the National Gallery in London, the United Kingdom.
03:25Degar's The Dance Class was created in 1874.
03:30This work represents the most ambitious paintings.
03:34Degar devoted to the theme of the dance.
03:37Some 24 women, ballerinas and their mothers, wait while a dancer executes an attitude.
03:44Jules Perrault, a famous ballet master who was renowned throughout Europe at the time,
03:52conducts the class.
03:54In the background, several of the students' mothers are looking on.
03:58A large mirror on the wall reflects some other dances.
04:03In the left foreground, there is a wooden music stand with sheet music.
04:08Underneath the stand, a double bass is shown lying on the floor.
04:12The imaginary scene is set in a rehearsal room in the old Paris Opera, which had recently
04:19burned to the ground.
04:21On the wall beside the mirror, a poster for Rossini William Tell plays tribute to the singer
04:27Jean-Baptiste Four, who commissioned the picture and lent it to the 1876 Impressionist exhibition.
04:35The dance class is now in the possession of the Museum of Metropolitan Art in New York, the
04:41United States.
04:42The dance class is now in the house.
04:49The dance class is now in the House of Representatives.
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