Degas Reproduction of
Absinthe

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Absinthe
By Degas

Absinthe

Oil on canvas, 1876
92 x 68 cm (36 x 26 ins)

You can now own a Degas reproduction of Absinthe hand-painted oil painting to museum quality and guaranteed for one year.

Absinthe is one of Degas’ best known paintings, perhaps because it looks more like an anecdotal or ‘message’ picture than most of his works.

The glass in front of the women certainly holds absinthe, a green ‘mother’s ruin’ liqueur whose ravages were so severe that it was eventually prohibited by the government.

In this picture Degas portrays a scene that is as familiar today – two lonely people, killing time over a drink, preoccupied with their own thoughts or observing other customers. The anonymity and lowly status of the woman might have been regarded by any other artist than Degas as the basis of some social comment, but he was far less concerned with the moral implications inherent in his work than with its composition.

He also deliberately painted women as he saw them, without any attempt to idealize or sentimentalise, for which he has often been called a misogynist. Degas’ cool colors emphasize that this is not a merry café scene, but the thrusting diagonal slabs of tabletops play a critical role in creating a sense of strength and vigour to balance the figures. As with his more familiar ballet paintings, Degas places his subjects off-centre and uses the broken angles described by the tables as a novel compositional device.

The woman was modelled by the actress Ellen Andrée and the man by engraver and painter Marcellin Desboutin, a bohemian artist friend of Degas and the other Impressionists.

Absinthe was probably shown at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876, after which it was purchased by Captain Henry Hill of Brighton, England, who was a great admirer of Degas’ work.

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