Degas In New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable

by Christopher E.G. Benfey

Book Overview

Edgar Degas traveled from Paris to New Orleans during the fall of 1872 to visit the American branch of his mother's family, the Mussons. This war-torn, diverse, and conflicted city elicited from Degas... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067943562X
• Release Date: November 1997
• Publisher: Knopf
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely original

Benfey's study is an elegant, exciting study with many facets. He truly evokes a vanished world. An interdisciplinary study which does not meander or bore. Highly recommended.

Great book!

This is one of the best books I have read. It's so fascinating, easy to read, and just interesting in general. I highly recommend it.

New Orleans Jazz....

Maybe the most important thing for you to know about this book is that it isn't just, or even mostly, about Edgar Degas. If you're in the market solely for an art book about Degas, you may not like this book. What this book is really about is 19th century New Orleans. Degas' 1872-1873 trip is the main theme which the author has used as his framework. Mr. Benfey "improvises" on this theme and goes off in interesting directions. He talks about what made New Orleans unique- the early Creole settlers vs. the "Americans" that arrived after the Louisiana Purchase; the free black population (pre-Civil War) vs. the slaves who became free because of the war; the rupture caused by the war- as New Orleans was occupied by Federal forces through almost all of the conflict. (Many of the local women proved to be fairly feisty in showing their contempt for the Yankees. One woman in the French Quarter supposedly downloaded the contents of a chamber pot onto Admiral Farragut's head. On another occasion, the soldier in charge of keeping order, General Benjamin "Beast" Butler, was riding by some women and they all turned their backs to him. Butler remarked, "those women evidently know which end of them looks best.") After the Civil War the economy, based almost solely on King Cotton, took a beating in the Depression of the 1870's. Yankee "carpetbaggers" were despised. Liberals who wanted integration of the races did battle, sometimes literally, with reactionary forces who yearned for a return to the days of slavery. Mr. Benfey works in some analysis of the writers Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable, who were interested in some of the above themes. The author does devote a fairly good portion of the book to discussing Degas' "Louisiana Connection," (his mother was born in New Orleans; he had relatives who were involved in the cotton trade; and his younger brother, Rene, left France to try to make his fortune in New Orleans). If you enjoy Degas' art, you will find Mr. Benfey's musings on the portraits and "genre scenes" that Degas did during this period to be interesting and informative. For example, from a purely painterly standpoint, Degas enjoyed the juxtaposition of black and white skin, as well as the white of cotton against the black suits and hats commonly worn by businessmen of the time. Mr. Benfey also, convincingly, shows that Degas' started to use, in these paintings, certain compositional effects- such as slanted floors, the arrangement of figures in interior spaces, and certain hand and head movements- that would shortly reappear in the more famous "ballet paintings." We also see Degas in transition from his early "realistic" phase to a looser, more "Impressionistic" style of painting. I also found it interesting that Degas was fascinated by many things he saw while walking around New Orleans, but he was limited mostly to painting interior scenes because the light of New Orleans was bothering his eyes. (He started to have problems with his vision wh

Wonderful

This book is a wonderful history of Degas and his family. Anyone who loves art and enjoys history of any kind about New Orleans will like this book.

Excellent Historical and Social Commentary

I learned alot about the life of some in a unique city in American history ..during that precarious time when slavery was ending and everyone was puzzling over how to deal with each other- black, white, mixed, rich, poor etc. I wasn't aware of the extent that some slaves intermingled on nearly equal footing or on the other hand were just plain raped by the upper echelon of society. Many of the slaves held power in their own way, and were the American aristocrat's closest friend and confidant. Light skinned blacks and the strange 'couplings'..fascinating. Also very informative about Degas and his life and his art. What a different book! Refreshing and thought provoking. I'm obviously not a reviewer..but I do read a lot and feel that I have pretty good judgement. Enjoy this one!