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Edgar Degas. The Bellelli Family. From
the Collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris The exhibition in the Winter Palace (Room 334) has been organized by the State Hermitage together with the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, with support from the Ministry of Culture of the French Republic. Family portraits remained a favorite genre of artists during the first half of the 19th century and during the age of Baroque. The Bellelli Family (1858-1867, 200õ250 cm) is almost disconnected from the rising Impressionist movement, though Edgar Degas soon became one of its leaders. Very likely it was this absence of bright formal novelty which led to the painting's remaining unnoticed when it appeared in 1867, and it was truly discovered only a half century later. Degas' group composition was scarcely a copy of old methods; on the contrary, it was an amazing development of these methods, drawing on the centuries-old tradition of figurative painting and combining them with the artistic investigations and insights which came following Impressionism, from Seurat to early Mondrian. The personages shown in the Family Portrait (the author's original title) are Degas' aunt Laura Belleli together with her daughters Giovanna and Giulia and her husband Gennaro. She has just returned from the funeral of her father, Ilera Degas. The young artist, who was a grandson of the successful banker, inserted in the general composition a portrait of his grandfather done in sanguine in the manner of the Old Masters. Laura Bellelli is seen as an individual with a strong character and this is set off by the daughters next to her. "The elder one," Degas wrote, "was in fact a little beauty. The younger one, on the other hand, was smart as can be and kind as an angel. I am painting them in mourning dress and small white aprons, which suit them very well…I would like to express a certain natural grace together with a nobility that I don't know how to define…" However, his initial idea of painting a mother and her children soon was pushed aside by another, more complex concept when the painter decided to present the whole family and to show it not only in the form of a combination of portraits of sitters, but as a painting in which ties of kinship unite different personages with their psychology. Degas in no way put the accent on the relations between the spouses, but one can guess that they were not cloudless. The character of Gennaro Bellelli at the time when the artist became acquainted with him was spoiled by involuntary inactivity. At the start of his career, Bellelli engaged in political journalism and backed the fight for Italy's independence. After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848, he was forced to flee from his native Naples and took refuge from Austrian persecution in Florence. The circumstances of his Florentine home are shown by Degas in the portrait, where Gennaro is in a squeezed space and looks somewhat dispirited. In making this large, ceremonial portrait, Degas did not deprive his sitters of naturalness and immediacy, finding for each personage the most expressive pose which matched his inner state. On no other composition did Degas work so long and so hard as on The Bellelli Family, as we can see from dozens of his preparatory studies. But the 19th century marched past one of its best works. At the 1867 Salon, the public simply paid no attention to the canvas. The real life of The Family began only after the artist's death when, in the beginning of 1918 the contents of his atelier were put up for sale. The painting was then seen to have not only evident artistic merit, but to embody the best qualities of French art. On the eve of the auction, Family Portrait was purchased by the Musee de Luxembourg. After it was closed in 1947, the painting was exhibited in the Musee d'Impressionisme (Jeu-de-Paumes), and then moved to the Musee d'Orsay, where it became one of the museum's treasures. The curator of the exhibition is A. G. Kostenevich, chief researcher of the Department of Western European Fine Art in the State Hermitage, doctor of art history, and author of a booklet on the exhibition issued by The State Hermitage Publishing House. |
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