UNIT 4
The Bellelli Family
Edgar Degas was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. A superb draughtsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance, and over half his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his racehorse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and depiction of human isolation
Early in his career, his ambition was to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life. Technically, Degas differs from the Impressionists in that he "never adopted the Impressionist color fleck", Degas' style reflects his deep respect for the old masters.
The Bellelli Family, also known as Family Portrait, is an oil painting on canvas painted in 1858–1867. A masterwork of Degas' youth, the painting is a portrait of his aunt, her husband, and their two young daughters. It is in the Musée d'Orsay
Degas drew and painted his aunt Laura, her husband the baron Gennaro Bellelli and their daughters Giulia and Giovanna. Laura, his father's sister, is depicted in a dress which symbolizes mourning for her father, who had recently died and appears in the framed portrait behind her. The baron was an Italian patriot exiled from Naples, living in Florence.
Laura Bellelli's countenance is dignified and austere, her gesture connected with those of her daughters. Her husband, by contrast, appears to be separated from his family. His association with business and the outside world is implied by his position at his desk. Giovanna, the younger daughter, holds a livelier pose than that of her sister Giulia, whose restraint appears to underscore the familial tensions.
A picture, mirror, and doorway are used to expand the space of the interior. Any and all historical models were synthesized into a composition that was "unique in the painter's overview and unique among the works of his contemporaries." Taking his family and their living environment as his subject, the painting represented Degas' first attempt "to characterize a room in relation to the personalities and interests of the individuals who inhabit it."
The painting's uniqueness was due in large part to the composition, which presents a family portrait painted on the grand scale of a historical drama, and whose content has been interpreted as psychologically penetrating, with the placement of the figures suggestive of the parents' alienation from one another, and of the divided loyalties of their children. Laura Bellelli stands as if for an official portrait, her expression indicative of her unhappiness, one hand resting protectively on Giovanna's shoulder, the other balancing her pregnant body; Giulia, in the center of the painting and seated in a small chair, displays youthful restlessness as she faces, arms akimbo, in the direction of her father, and is the compositional link between her estranged parents. Gennaro appears indifferent, turned toward but seated apart from his family, his face mostly in shadow. The commanding figure of Laura is placed against a flat wall and a crisp picture frame, while Gennaro's more recessive figure is framed by a mantelpiece, bric-a-brac, and a reflective mirror.
The clarity of the former's surroundings and the ambiguity of the latter's have been interpreted as expressive of their emotional distance. Telling, also, is the physical distance between them, as well as the difference in their postures. Their opposition has been seen as a "breaking of the frame": "it is as if [Gennaro] were morosely watching his family as they pose for his painter nephew". The family dog glimpsed at the lower right corner is, according to Arthur Danto, sensibly "sneaking out of the picture before all hell breaks loose". One is reminded of Laura Bellelli's note to Degas after he had returned to Paris: "You must be very happy to be with your family again, instead of being in the presence of a sad face like mine and a disagreeable one like my husband's."
The drawing hung on the wall behind them is a portrait of the recently deceased Hilaire Degas, and was presumably a study for the portraits Degas made of his grandfather, drawn in the style of the Clouets. By placing it directly behind his aunt's head, Degas was connecting the generations of his family, and following a convention of portraiture used since the Renaissance, that of including ancestral effigies. By its very placement Degas was implicitly affirming his own presence and identifying with Laura, with whom, as their correspondence attests, he was unusually close.
Degas’s paintings poses much of a snapshot due to his thoroughfull study of the of human body and great mastery in the depiction of movement.