Impressionist Art Masters of Impressionism: Term Paper

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" In other words, this barmaid "is automatic and impersonal" and reflects the upper-class social nature of Paris with its drinkers and party-goers enjoying themselves immensely while the barmaid merely stares into oblivion as if bored to death with her surroundings and her life (Monan, 2006, 435).

In contrast to these two paintings by Manet, Edgar Degas' Ballet Rehearsal (1876, oil on canvas) presents "the infinite variety of particular movements that make up continuous motion" via a group of ballerinas practicing their moves in a spacious studio somewhere in Paris. Obviously, the ballerinas in this painting are part of the upper classes. Artistically, Degas used several devices to bring the viewer into the pictorial space. First, the frame cuts off the spiral staircase, the windows in the background and the group of ballerinas in the right foreground. Second, the rapid diagonals of the bases of the walls and the floorboards "carry the viewer into and along with the directional lines" of the dancers," and third, the large, off-center empty space in the foreground "creates the illusion of a continuous floor that extends almost into infinity" (Muller, 1974, 312).

Although similar to the two paintings by Manet, this rendering by Degas illustrates the various social levels of Paris in the 1870's by stressing the fact that a good number of French citizens lived in abject poverty while others enjoyed a lifestyle of wealth and privilege despite the successes of the French Revolution of 1789 which attempted to replace these differences with equality and liberty.

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Thus, the ballerinas represent the highest echelon of French society, while the barmaid in Bar at the Folies-Bergere and the nude woman in Dejeuner sur l'Herbe symbolize the exact opposite of French society, being the middle to lowest classes of French citizens stuck in a world of acute social discrimination and economic devaluation......

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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/impressionist-art-masters-impressionism-36560