Degas and the Past
Thursday, November 5 | 7 p.m.

Learn from home! Cummer Beaches presents a three-part virtual lecture series with P. Scott Brown, PhD, Professor of Art History, University of North Florida. Experience this series of talks highlighting a selection of works in the Cummer Museum’s permanent collection. Registration is free but is required. A Zoom link for access will be sent to all registrants the week of the lecture.

A drawing by Edgar Degas in the Museum reveals a little-known artistic side of the famed French Impressionist: his interest in classical art and Greek antiquity. The drawing depicts a group of dancers—the artist’s most characteristic subject—juxtaposed with an image of the Greek Parthenon in the background. The Museum’s drawing has a companion, a painted sketch on wood of the same subject in the Dallas Museum of Art. Together these works draw attention to Degas’s distinctive interest in classical art and archaeology and to the influence of ancient Greek art on Degas’s Impressionist dancers.