Degas at the Races: Paintings and Drawings
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Battle of San Romano (after Uccello), 1859, graphite on white paper, Private collection |
Degas' drawing of The Battle of San Romano is a copy after a painting by Uccello, a Renaissance artist renowned for his explorations of foreshortening. The painting is a large, dramatic battle scene in the early Renaissance style--full of color, gilding, and elaborate detail. Degas had seen the work at the Uffizi in Florence.
In translating the painting into a drawing, Degas took a personal approach. He didn't copy Uccello detail for detail, and what he includes and excludes is telling. Little background is described; it is the horses that are of foremost interest. They are clearly outlined, clearly delineated. Great variety is seen in their poses: some are viewed from the side, others from the rear. In the right corner one horse kicks up its hind legs, in the foreground, another has fallen.
In drawings like this one, we can see Degas beginning to develop his visual vocabulary. Although such early studies after the Old Masters might seem to be simply the academic exercises of a young man, they are never rote. Degas was developing the approaches that he would use in later work, digesting an array of sources. This friezelike composition, common in early Renaissance painting, reappears in Degas' later paintings in a far more sophisticated way.
Another important early source for Degas was the Parthenon frieze, which, following the training prescribed by academic tradition, he had drawn many times. Although it is doubtful that Degas had seen the fragments of the Parthenon sculpture (the Elgin marbles) in London, he would have known them from plaster casts, which were common in schools of art. Degas focused on the frieze's procession of horses and riders, expressing his fascination with the horse. Degas' renditions of these stately, elegant creatures are full of power and intensity.