We tend to think of Degas as an Impressionist who painted lovely ballerinas and lively scenes at the racetrack. As Werner Hofmann so ably demonstrates in his magisterial new study, that viewpoint fails to do justice to the issues that Degas addressed in his art and to how innovative he truly was. Focusing on people in their social environment, on their relationships and their frequent isolation, Degas embraced many kinds of personal alienation in his work.
His early paintings depict members of the bourgeoisie mainly in the role of observers (as in The Bellelli Family of 1859). Degas shows them indulging in leisure pursuits, as art collectors and museum visitors, or as members of the public at the theater and the races, but they are self-involved and shrouded in silence.