Edgar Degas Woman wiping herself with a towel, painting description The painting “Woman wiping herself with a towel” belongs to Impressionist Edgar Degas. It is made in a rare technique of writing – pastel crayons. Thanks to the unusual properties of pastels, the work acquired an aged vintage picture.
The first impression of the image warps with blurry and loss of clarity. Pastel, despite the mass of ways to fix it, crumbles and reveals the white surface of the base. Modern art “pulls out” such drawings from the mass of old collections, paying tribute to the old times and the natural damage, like a patina on bronze vessels.
Pastel painting opens the viewer an unusual way to paint an image with a brittle rough material – chalk, while remaining transparent and fragile. Woman Degas, not looking at the technique of writing and pigment material, does not have fragility. She is, as they say, a lady “in the body,” and is no longer young, judging by the femininity that has developed. Her hips shine with love for delicious food. The pink skin is clean and hot from warm water.
The deliberately chosen foreshortening from the back hides delicious roundness, and tightly-shifted legs speak of her modesty and shame. A hard towel had already absorbed the remains of the water. We can assume that the short hair is still wet. The bathing process is completed. It’s a bathroom or a kitchen. To the right of the hostess there is a tin can. A ginger background opens an angle that is not processed by the pastel. But folds of a towel, or a textile attribute, can be seen with a clear sketch.
As a basis, Degas chose tracing paper as a rough material. Due to its fragility, work with time lost its even structure, multiple creases gave the image a fresco character. The picture is interesting and unusual in content. In a tandem with time, not sparing the structure of the paint, the plot becomes piquant and tasty. The household scene is very comfortable living on a tracing paper and can be used as an excellent supplement for a living room or a collection of paintings in the living room. Bright spot of the wall, brick – red color, contrasts with the body of the bather.
However, deliberately naturally looks like within the home scene and unsettled way of life. Along with not the comfort of the purity of the heroine and the whitish whiteness of the towels give out the cleanliness of the one that is ashamed of our presence.
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