CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/26/2016

Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty

"More than any other body of Degas' work, the brothel monotypes are a conundrum," Raisa Rexer writes in MoMA's enlightening new exhibition catalog. "Unmentioned in Degas' personal writings, for the most part unremarked by contemporaries and unexhibited until after his death, this series of small-format images left few historical traces to illuminate why or for whom they were produced. With their often severe visual style and casual use of graphic nudity, they seem to lack the 'quasi-religious and chaste' quality that, for Pierre-Auguste Renoir, set Degas' prostitutes apart form those of other contemporary artists; indeed Degas' brother René allegedly destroyed another seventy monotypes upon the artist's death because they were too overtly obscene. Yet the monotypes also contain many of Degas' artistic trademarks, opening them to interpretation both as erotic fantasies and as studies in tonal contrast whose controversial content is incidental to their stylistic ingenuity. In the monotypes, subject matter and qualities of execution refuse to align: privilege the other and they look very much like artistic expression." Featured image is "Getting into Bed" c. 1880-85.