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The Bellelli family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

R. W. Shillitoe
R. W. Shillitoe*
Affiliation:
Airedale General Hospital Steeton, West Yorkshire BD20 6TD
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Edgar Degas (1834–1917) is perhaps best remembered for his pictures of women bathing and of ballet dancers. The awkward posing, the physical unattractiveness and the voyeuristic viewpoints that are characteristics of many of his later works have given him a reputation for misogyny. A lesser known aspect of Degas' work concerns portraiture. In the earlier part of his career he painted many portraits of his family and friends which are remarkable for their psychological insights as well as their technical and compositional mastery. One of the finest is the portrait of the Bellelli family which he started in Florence in 1858 and appears to have worked on intermittently until 1867. Its large size (200 x 250 cm), the length of time in execution and the number of preparatory studies all point to its significance in the artist's eyes. Despite this, scholars doubt that it was ever exhibited during Degas∗ lifetime and was discovered with considerable surprise in his studio following his death (Boggs, 1994).

Type
Psychiatry and Art
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 22 , Issue 5 , May 1998 , pp. 321 - 322
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

References

Boggs, J. S. (1994) Degas as a portraitist. In Degas Portraits (eds Baumann, F. & Karabelnik, M. K.), pp. 17–85. London: Merrell Holberton.Google Scholar
Nochlin, L. (1992) A house is not a home: Degas and the subversion of the family. In Dealing with Degas (eds Kendall, R. & Pollock, G.), pp. 43–65. New York: Universe.Google Scholar
Reff, T. (1969) More unpublished letters of Degas. Art Bulletin, 51, 283.Google Scholar
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