The practice of photographic register in Degas: a contribution toward a critique of the oeuvre of the artist

• Grant number: 14/21095-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2015
• End date: December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Plastic Arts
• Principal Investigator: Sônia Salzstein Goldberg
• Grantee: Marina Nunes D'Aiuto
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The goal of this undergraduate research is to undergo an investigation about the relevance of the use of photographic images in the compilation of the production of the French artist Hilaire-Germaine-Edgar Degas (Paris, 1834 - Paris, 1917). The focus of analysis shall be the collection of thirty-five photographs amidst the ones taken by the artist in the end of the XIX century. Such material along with textual and visual documents still poorly known in Brazil shall be systematized and analyzed in an interpretative and significative framework constructed with a rigorously selective bibliographical research about the artist as well as the study of his social, cultural and political context. Finally, I intend to provide a refined view on the particular way Degas reacted to the artistic challenges of his time, focusing on his relation with the emerging mechanical process of image production. The observation of his oeuvre in painting, sculpture and drawing, (all recurring practices throughout his entire activity as an artist) and subsequent description of his aesthetic interests and his work development shall shed some light on his photographic work without neglecting possible inflections, continuities and returns he may have experimented in his journey. Bearing all the aforementioned factors in mind, the final goal of the present study is to contribute to the collection of researches that has been assembled in the past decades about the intersections between art and photography by the means of the modernization process suffered by the fine arts in this period.