Analysis of Degas' Aux Courses en Province (At the Races in the Country)
Aux Courses en Province is an oil on canvas work, painted by Edgar Degas in 1872. Degas depicts a group of upper-class tourists attending the races in the French countryside. In the lower-right foreground resides a stationary horse carriage. The carriage’s passengers, comprised of a coachman, a small dog and two women - one cradling a baby while the other holds an parasol - appear to be wholly uninterested in the scene behind them, instead paying attention to the baby. In the distance, racehorses bolt across the green pasture as several onlookers, mounted upon their own horses, mill about. The azure sky above is vast, taking up more than half of the canvas, and is filled with feathery clouds. It can be assumed that the time of day is the early afternoon by looking at the small shadows the figures cast and the parasol being held by one of the women, suggesting that the sun is more or less directly overhead. The work follows Degas’ unorthodox style of arbitrarily cropping figures by placing the horse-carriage directly in the bottom right foreground of the painting. The result gives the viewer the feeling that the painting somehow extends beyond the borders of the canvas, making the field seem that much more expansive. This also el
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Edgar Degas, Aux Courses, azure sky, horse carriage, color patches, figures background, horizon line,
Approximate Word count = 1110
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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