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Artists
Brilliant Collection
OF Degas Drawings
And astels Shown
AT Phillips Gallery
By Florence 5. Berrymon

tof drawings and pastes, Is thu
theme Of an admirable exhibition
which opened at the Phillips Me-
mortal Gallery last Sunday. to re-
main through this month. Nearly
40 works on view are loans from
rs institutions, dealers and private
owners. The Art Institute OF Chi
cago. Fogg Museum. Harvard. Met
ropolitan, New York City, Boston
Brooklyn and Cleveland Museums
and that OF the Rhode Island School
Of Design, are among the lenders
Degas was an indomitable indi-
vidualist, consummate craftsman
q master Of the 10th century, whose
gifts and character would have as
sured his success In any period into
which he might have been born
For he was hard worker who never
ceased to develop the talent with
which he was endowed. He cared
nothing for renown, never rested
upon his fame or success, for as he
once said, his art was IAN absolute
necessity" to him; the one thing
that occupied all his energy and
interest.
Degas was associated with the
Impressionists because they hap
pened to be his friends. He exhib-
tied with them and shared the
public ridicuIe that greeted their
works. But he did not subscribe to
their theories. A number Of vivid
little anecdotes recounted in Am
broise Vollard's Intimate Portrait
of Degas," published about 20 years
ago, reveal what he really thought
of them. Painting in the open air,
to catch the effects of changing
light, apparently seemed to him
nonsense. He told Monet that his
pictures were too draughty and
made him want to turn up his
collar. On another occasion, Degas
said of the Impressionists, They
should be" and he raised his
cane to his shoulder as If 1t were
a gun.
With what, classical thoroughness
he worked is obvious from many
of the drawings and pastels at the
Phillips Memorial Gallery. Others,
mere sketches In a few lines, are
the result of his mastery Of me-
diums. They appear to have been
done with the utmost ease-but 1t
is the kind of ease that comes from
long sessions of hard work.
Dancers, Portraits, Nudes
The greater part OF the exhibi-
tion is composed Of three types OF
subject for which Degas is best
known: Ballet dancers, portraits
and studies of nudes in the seclu-
sion of their bedrooms and baths.
There are q few drawings of work.
ing women and others in the heavy,
awkward costumes of the period
also a few studies of horses and
Jockeys and a single landscape.
Degas was profoundly interested
in movement: hence his preoccu-
patton with the ballet and the race
course, neither Of which had been
previously exploited by an artist.
Indeed, no artist since has made
the ballet dancer so completely
mis- own. Degas studied these
pathetic, overworked young women,
not only in the glamour of foot
lights, but backstage, where their
fatigue, poverty and vulgarity came
to the surface.
He was too much the realist to
paint women as goddesses or figures
from classical mythology. Know
ing that the situations in which
a woman would remove her gar
ments would be while resting, bath
ing or making her toilette. he drew
and painted women thus, without
hattery. The Phillips Gallery
shows eight or nine such studies.
Degas' portraits are searching
revelations Of character: Earnest,
plain Mary Cassatt. looking at
paintings in the Louvre: his dour
old aunt. elegant Manet, and half
a dozen others. No art lover should
miss seeing this exhibition.