"Degas seems to have found his own, virtually unpainted stretch of countryside. With an independence that verges on the perverse, Degas chose to base his most important sequence of landscapes on one of the least admired areas of inland France." - Richard Kendall, in Degas Landscapes, Yale University Press, 1993.
"I have wanted for so long to make a series of monotypes." - Edgar Degas to Pierre Jeanniot
Dienay, a tiny town in the departement of La Cote d'Or in southern France has never been a tourist destination but in October of 1890, the artist Pierre-Georges Jeanniot invited his friend, Edgar Degas, to visit him at home. The week in Burgundy was no quiet vacation, rather an outburst of creativity that began on the very first day.
In Jeanniot's studio, Degas created a series comprising some twenty monotypes on lead plates. He worked the oils with both brush and fingers on a pad, then pressed them onto the plate and the image was ready to be printed on a roll press. Afterward, he applied pastels when the papers dried. 
As Jeanniot described it: "(H)e would ask for some pastels to finish the monotypes, and it was there, even more than in the making of the proof, that I admired his taste, his imagination, and the freshness of his recollections. He remembered the variety forms, the structure of the terrain, the unexpected oppositions and contrasts; it was delightful!"
Although the Burgundian landscape was not considered dramatic by connoisseurs, Degas was charmed by the meandering roads and rolling hills. He captured passing moments of drama, as you can see in Squall In The Mountains. Images like Path Leading to A Copse Of Trees and Pathway In A Field seem to invite the viewer to re-photograph their locations, but Degas was also creating works of daring ambiguity, verging on abstraction. 
We respond to Autumn Landscape At L'Esterel as the artist intended, by experiencing the emotions a striking vista evokes through its vaguely horizontal layers. In a letter to his sister Marguerite, Degas describes his new works as "imaginary landscapes."
Two years later, at the late age of fifty-eight, Edgar Degas chose from these monotypes for his first solo exhibition, held at Galerie Durnad-Ruel in Paris. Images:
1. Path Leading To A Copse Of Trees, 1890, Thaw Collection, J. P. Morgan Library, NYC.
2. Pathway In A Field, 1890, Yale University Museum of Art, New Haven, CT.
3. Landscape With Smokestacks, 1890, Art Institute of Chicago.
4. Squall In The Mountains, 1890, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA.
5. Burgundian Landscape, 1890, Louvre Museum, Paris.6. Autumn Landscape at L'Esterel, 1890, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
7. A Tiny Isle In The Sea, 1890, Louvre Museum, Paris.
8. Cape Near Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, 1890. British Museum, London.
8 comments:
I see more in these landscapes that I never knew about our Degas. What a vision he had, and the medium of pastel over monotype is wonderful. Now I want to get a copy of that catalog.
I don't know much about Pierre-Georges Jeanniot except that he created Belle Epoquish images of pretty young things. So it is interesting that a] he would be excited about Degas coming to his studio and b] that Degas would choose to do landscapes (and empty landscapes at that).
Clearly Degas loved them too :)
Casey, Degas did 200+ monotypes in the 1870s, including landscapes. According to Richard Kendall, the landscapes were overlooked when the artist's figural works brought him fame. The landscapes consistently veer toward abstraction, or maybe it is just less noticeable in the human figures because of our fellow feeling for them.
Hels, the Jeanniot letter I quoted from goes on at length and shows informed artistic admiration for what he watched Degas do in that small country studio. From what I've read, it seems there were few people around Dienay, even if Degas had wanted to feature them. Perhaps that's what hes needed at that moment?
I haven't visited in a while, but I see you are still introducing and refreshing memories on artists and their work. Lovely Degas paintings/monotypes.
Jeanne, I'm so happy to hear from you. When I don't hear from people, I worry that I'm getting stale. Looking at Degas' monotypes and sculpture makes him seem like our contemporary.
Hauntingly beautiful & so different for Degas...a real feeling of the abstract. Might I ask where I could find the letters you quoted from, both those of Jeanniot &
Degas as well as the letter to his sister in which he described these works as "imaginary landscapes." Thanks.
The quotes are all from Richard Kendall's "Degas Landscapes" published by Yale University Press, 1993.
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