© NCG Signature/Inscription: Signed lower right: Degas (stamp) Place of Origin: -- Type of work: Painting Iconography: Landscape Glossary of technical terms: see Dictionary MIN smk-4324 Degas, Edgar (Edgar-Hilaire-Germain De Gas) French, 1834-1917 Village Street, Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme Presumably 1896-98 Oil on canvas, 67.5 x 81 cm Landscapes play a very special part in Degas’s oeuvre, from the backdrops of his early racecourse pictures to the sequence of paintings made of the village of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme on the Channel coast, his last essays in the genre. The work shown here was made in the studio, based on plein-air sketches in charcoal and pastel and, perhaps, on photographs, Degas being a keen practitioner in that medium. It is enigmatic in its representation of a banal, nondescript village street, devoid of any human presence or narrative content. Here, the artist seems to have been exploring the relationship between perspective, mass and colour, grappling late in life with the basic components of a picture. It is possible that Degas might have been inspired by Cézanne’s similar struggle to express the essential structure of a given landscape. Degas collected paintings by the Provencal master, most being acquired between 1895 and 1898. Degas’s late landscapes might be seen in that context. FF Location: Room 61 Enlarged Photo Provenance NCG Catalogue references Exhibition History Shop   Luk