Seeing Degas Through Wolohojian’s Eyes

The figures in the two frames face each other. One is a study of sullen little girl rendered in hasty brushstrokes. The other, a delicately sketched Renaissance noblewoman, is a copy of a drawing attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. At first glance, these two works seem to have little in common.

But Stephan Wolohojian, professor of history of art and architecture and a curator of the “Degas at Harvard” exhibit, can point out exactly why these two works are hanging side by side. It’s not simply that both were created by Edgar Degas during a trip to Italy in the 1850s.

“He reused the same pose,” Wolohojian explains. The proud posture of Degas’ young cousin Giulia Bellelli is the exact mirror of the disdainfully regal pose of the woman in the Renaissance portrait. Wolohjian hopes visitors will see these sorts of connections as they explore the exhibit, on display at the Sackler Museum now through Nov. 27. Unlike Wolohojian, who currently teaches History of Art and Architecture 171w: “Edgar Degas,” I don’t have an expert’s eye for detail, and I’m not used to making that kind of aesthetic leap.

But a private tour of the Degas collection with Wolohojian himself taught me how to begin looking at Degas —and the lessons I learned could inform anyone going into the exhibit tabula rasa.

In designing the exhibit, Wolohojian says that “the point was to offer a way to establish some kind of dialogue” between Degas’ varied works. The exhibit’s selection of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures drawn from Harvard collections spans most of Degas’ life. Iconic Degas images of ballet dancers and women bathing are paired with informal portraits of Degas’ family members and an abstract landscape he painted late in his career.

Wolohojian did not suggest a specific path viewers should take through the three modest-sized rooms of the exhibit; navigating the gallery chronologically or thematically is not necessary. What is important is that viewers appreciate Degas’ artistic fusion—the way images and techniques in his work recur, evolve, and interact.

The exhibit, Wolohojian explains, is arranged to make this fusion easier to see and appreciate. Degas’ statues of ballet dancers are placed at the same level as drawings of girls in the exact same poses, making the interplay of line and form more obvious.

Wolohojian particularly drew my attention to subtle considerations. The figures in “Dancers, Nude Study” occupy two sheets of paper joined together.

Degas was so interested in the composition, Wolohojian says, that “he got to the edge of the page and kept working.” Wolohojian also pointed out an arm at the center of the drawing that is attached to none of the dancers.

The elegantly extended hand springs out of nowhere, but it is crucial to the overall balance of the composition.

We moved next to examine a pair of pastels that demonstrated how Degas could utilize the same medium in very different ways. The use of the pastel in “Two Dancers Entering the Stage” was “so free, so energetic,” Wolohojian says, contrasting with its velvety, lusher application in “Chanteuse de Café.”

Wolohojian also describes how the background of “Chanteuse de Café” creates, for him, a visual representation of sound. The dark backdrop behind the café singer is a “cavern of black space” symbolic of the “deep belly of the singer.” Her song pours out of it, manifested in bright vertical sound-waves that double as the decorative paint on the wall behind her.

Most of the third room of the gallery is filled with depictions of women bathing. Degas’ obsession with repetition is obvious here. Wolohojian explained that Degas had a bathtub and a chaise lounge in his studio. In most of these drawings we saw, as Wolohojian says, women posing with these “same props, each time rethought and reconfigured.”

It’s possible to consider Degas’ depictions of women bathers in a historical context. Wolohojian says that it’s interesting to compare them to the classically languorous nudes of Ingres, whom Degas admired, or the confrontational ones of Manet. But it’s also impossible to contemplate these images without wondering about Degas’ relation to women. His bathers are beautiful, but they far from glamorous; sometimes their positions are awkward and unlovely. It’s an open question, Wolohojian says whether Degas’ depiction of the bathers is tender or something else—perhaps exploitative or cynical.

In thinking about Degas’ relation to women, Wolohojian believes that it is important to realize that all the ballet dancers he depicts are women. “There were men who danced. Where are they?” Wolohojian asks. There are no sketches in the exhibit of men and women dancing duets. In many images of dancers, Wolohojian notes, the only male presence is an unsettling one, whether it’s the top-hatted gentleman lurking in the wings behind the “Two Dancers Entering the Stage,” or the violin player whose music controls “The Rehearsal.” Wolohojian knows that most people love Degas’ dancers because they seem “innocent, full of grace and joy,” but Wolohojian suggests that Degas’ view of them is darker and more complicated.

Wolohojian spent the most time in front of “The Song Rehearsal,” the painting that greets visitors as they enter the exhibit. The painting shows two women rehearsing in an informal living room setting, with a man providing accompaniment at the piano. One of the women is singing, her hand outstretched in an imperious gesture. The potted plant behind her, Wolohojian explains, can also be seen as a pair of leafy green wings. This makes the scene iconic: the annunciation, the first visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary.

But Wolohojian insists that the painting might also be the depiction of a very personal family drama. The pianist is probably Degas’ brother Renee, the figure of Mary Renee’s wife, and the angel the wife of one of Renee’s neighbors. The pianist, with his strangely blurred face, is looking past the figure of Mary to the angel. His gaze is disturbingly prophetic: Renee would eventually desert his wife and run away with his neighbor’s wife.

The technical aspects of the painting are equally ambiguous. According to Wolohojian, the eye of the viewer is “immediately drawn to the pearl earring” in the angel’s ear. But that precise white dot is mirrored by the energetic but inexplicable white splotches of paint on and around the figure of Mary. In the foreground, some of the ruffles on the furniture are meticulously shaded, while an entire ottoman is only half-painted. Part of the white chair has been painted over the dramatic scarlet fabric that lies on it. In contrast, the door behind the piano is sharply outlined. Wolohojian emphasizes that these inconsistencies were deliberate not careless, and that the scarlet fabric in the foreground might be somehow symbolic of passion and betrayal.