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EDGAR DEGAS
The Bellilli Family/La Famille Bellilli (1859-1860)
Oil on pale primed canvas
200cm x 253cm/79in X 991/2in

Edgar Degas left France for Italy in June 1856 to make the traditional trip to study the Italian masters in situ. However, he had a more personal reason for his trip. since his paternal grandfather had been exiled to Naples, and his father had been born there. At that time. his relatives in Naples, his aunt Laure. his father's sister, and her Baron husband, were themselves in exile in Florence, because the Baron had been involved in the political upheavals of the struggle for the unification of Italy. After visits to cities including Venice. Assisi and Rome, Degas finally arrived in Florence to see his relations in August 1858. only to find his aunt away in Naples, caring for her sick father,Degas' grandfather, who died on 31 August. What was probably intended as a brief stay in the end lasted nine months. During that time, Degas began to plan a large portrait of his relatives, the Bellelli family, making drawn and painted studies which he took back with him to Paris, where the painting was executed in his Paris studio on the rue Madame.

This portrait is Degas' earliest large-scale work. and. while showing his debts to past art, it looks ahead to his innovative mature style. Scholars have likened the work to the portrait of the royal family. The Maids of Honour (1656) by the seventeenth century Spanish painter Velazquez (1599-1660). This also uses the subtle device of a background mirror to add depth to the composition. Degas' introduction of an apparently invented red chalk portrait drawing of his recently deceased grandfather, which can be seen on the rear wall behind his aunt's head, places the painting in a long Euro pean tradition of portraits which, since the Renaissance, have included a dead member of a family to link past and present. The French Renaissance style, medium and mounting of this drawing seem to confirm the traditional link which Degas intended to suggest. The precision with which he planned the painting included, among numerous preparatory drawings. one projecting how the finished work would look, with even its frame carefully set out in detail.

Old Master sources can be balanced against possible nineteenth century influences on this picture. Degas was a great admirer of Ingres(1780-1867). and had studied with a pupil of his at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the mid 1850s. Ingres' delicate group portrait drawings, done mainly in Rome in the 1810, showed a frieze-like distribution of figures across the picture surface in a shallow pictorial space,similar to that in Degas' portrait.

The soft. almost full-face lighting adopted by Degas for this painting is certainly reminiscent of the lighting commonly adopted by Ingres for his painted portraits. However, in a manner typical of Degas, the lighting serves more than just a flattering function in his painting of theBellelli family. The tensions between the morose and ill-tempered Baron and his wife were common knowledge in the Degas family, and the difficulties could hardly have passed unnoticed by Degas during his prolonged stay with them.The lighting accentuates the division already implied by the composition, separating the father from his wife and two daughters. The fall of light on the three females is clear but gentle, confirming Degas' allegiance to his aunt's side of the family. Documentary evidence suggests Degas had a close and affectionate relationship with her. By contrast, the father, whose back is turned unconventionally towards the spectator, is obscured by shadow, and his features are left ill defined. Mother and daughters are linked not only compositionally and by light, there is also physical contact between them a protective arm around one daughter, and a merging of black skirts with the other.

The black clothes of the women bear witness to their mourning for the aunt's father, a mark of respect strikingly absent in the casual clothes worn by the Baron. The clear black shapes of mother and daughter form a strong pyramid tothe left of the composition, the mother's head being linked directly with the hanging portrait other father. The crispness. echoed in the rather severe look of sorrow on the mother's face. is in marked contrast to the soft lack of definition surrounding the Baron, who is placed against a complex background. Behind him the geometry of the fireplace gives way to the fuss of ornaments and reflected details in the mirror.

Although less taut and unconventional in structure than Degas' later portrait compositions, the germ of his later methods is already clearly present. This can be seen particularly in his use of space and composition not simply to present his sitters, but to suggest the complex emotional and psychological characteristics. Of particular interest among the preparatory studies for his work is an oil study executed on lightweight etude canvas, made expressly for studies, for the hands of Laure Bellelli which, in the final picture, rests on the table. The paint layer in the final work is remarkably fine and thin, accentuating the classical draftsmanship which underlies the picture. Despite its thinness, the paint is generally opaque and as a result the color of the pale priming cannot be identified with accuracy, as it only glows through the thinly scumbled colors of the paint layer. In the tradition of Ingres, various degrees of finish are used, with a fairly high finish on the important areas and more loosely handled brushwork in wallpaper and carpet. The painting was in the possession of the Bellelli family until around 1900 when, because it had suffered some damage. Degas brought it back to Paris. Until Degas' death, it remained in his studio, a relatively unknown work despite its importance as a major early canvas.

This extremely large family group portrait ison a scale traditionally reserved for portraits of major pohtical or historical dignitaries. The canvas size is non-standard. Although it can be hnked back to compositional precedents, for example the early group portrait drawings of Ingres, Degas'painting contains a novel emphasis upon the deeper psychological aspects of his sitters' characters. Family tensions are echoed and reinforced by artistic devices which create pictorial tension. Thus,even in this early work, Degas'talent for fusing technical and aesthetic elements in his art can already be seen.

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