Osservando l’Etoile è difficile pensare che Il padre, che sperava di avviare Edgar alla carriera di magistrato, inizialmente osteggiò la sua vocazione artistica, ma in breve tempo mutò atteggiamento e l’assecondò con calore ed energia, a patto che vi si dedicasse con impegno. Degas non poteva sperare di meglio, e trascorreva lunghi pomeriggi al museo del Louvre per ammirare i maestri del Rinascimento italiano. Caso raro per gli artisti della sua generazione, Degas studiò infatti con attenzione i maestri del passato. Ingres, in particolare, fu oggetto di una vera e propria venerazione da parte del giovane, che ne ammirava la straordinaria purezza del disegno; arrivò infine a conoscerlo personalmente grazie all’intercessione di Valpinçon.
L’Etoile is one of the most representative paintings of the great artist, made in 1878, concentrating the attention on a single dancer making evident the clear impressionist matrix of the work. The protagonist emerges from a picture full of nuances and movement, almost as if she wanted to represent the girl’s rapid movement. Looking carefully one glimpses a dark figure that some interpret as the employer of the girl who observes her profits take body …
Observing the Etoile it is difficult to think that the father, who hoped to start Edgar for a career as a magistrate, initially opposed his artistic vocation, but soon changed his attitude and indulged him with warmth and energy, as long as he commitment. Degas could not hope for anything better, and spent long afternoons at the Louvre museum to admire the masters of the Italian Renaissance. A rare case for the artists of his generation, Degas carefully studied the masters of the past. Ingres, in particular, was the object of a real veneration by the young man, who admired the extraordinary purity of the design; he finally got to know him personally thanks to the Valpinçon intercession.
