Comparative Styles of Degas and Michelangelo

When one thinks of Impressionist Era painters, most recall the river picnic scene by Seurat, or the water lilies of Manet. These light and lively paintings captured the imagination of their patrons, but out of this movement shone a rather remarkable artist who would come to leave his mark on the art scene of Paris by mixing classical demonstrations of line and form with Impressionist palettes and texture. Edgar Degas would reinvent a newly emerging style while it was still in its tentative phases. And he did so through his love of the ballet.
What truly sets Degas apart from other painters of his time is his respect for classical techniques and his desperation to achieve depth of emotion and a sense of movement through his use of color, space, and line, borrowing stylistic elements from classical masters such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. He studied them in his early years as an artist, and his love for them shown through throughout his works, particularly with his use of chiaroscuro and softened shadows. He enjoyed every aspect of his work, and took it upon himself to try to capture every detail of the scene before him. This attention to details, no matter how worn, was an interesting stray from the traditional Impressionists. With his love of the ballet, this was demonstrated through his remarkable ability to capture the beauty of a star dancer performing or receiving accolades as well as breaking in pointe shoes backstage or the old ballet instructor in a dimly lit studio helping his students.
“The Rehearsal ~ 1877” exemplifies the “other side” of the ballet that Degas so often painted. A far cry from the glitz and pageantry of the stage performances, this painting, while one his less popular, is one of the best examples of his obsession with displaying his subject matter truly as he saw it. It’s noted that it doesn’t show his grasp of motion as well as some of his other works; “The Rehearsal” is rather somber for an Impressionist piece and it’s this blunt dullness makes it of particular interest. It shows off Degas’s attention to detail to an almost gritty level, emphasizing the worn abused wood of the floor and the fading wallpaper. He made sure as much care and energy went into the portrayal of the surroundings as the dancers, to the point that the rehearsal floor itself seems to become the main subject. It’s this extreme attachment to the distinct mood and soul of the rooms in which he paints his favorite dancers that sets Degas apart from his Impressionist peers. While they more often focused on the airy lightness of pleasant outings and boating parties and mid-afternoon parties at the Parisian, he chose to highlight the accentuated shadows of dimly lit gallery spaces and aging ballet studios, all the while keeping the Impressionist aesthetic.
Much like Degas’s desire to paint his favorite pieces of the world with gorgeous accuracy, Michelangelo Buonarroti sought perfection not only in his own paintings, but in his unrivaled sculptures. From the massive undertaking of carving the largest block of marble in the world into the biblical David, to the almost sensual softness he managed to relay in the form of marble flesh, Michelangelo, while surrounded by some of the most talented artists of all time, managed to secure a place of his own in the history of great sculptors with his astounding profession of detail.
Michelangelo claimed that each block of stone had a soul, an image unique to that block that was desperate to be set free. And when viewing his sculptures, this belief seems justified. Subtractive sculpture with marble is one of the most labor intensive methods of artwork, and yet in his works the grace and beauty of the subjects seem effortless, almost with an ethereal air, and every piece is hewn with such detail that indentations in the flesh of his subjects and an illusion of transparency in gossamer fabrics can be seen. It’s these techniques that led