Degas - Composition

 At the Milliner's, Degas, Pastel, c. 1882

In this daring nuanced composition about modern life—the subject is the fleeting encounter rather than the women themselves—Degas heeded the advice of the critic Edmond Duranty, who, in his 1876 pamphlet, The New Painting—about the art that came to be known as Impressionism—wrote: "Let us take leave of the stylized human body, which is treated like a vase. What we need is the characteristic modern person in his clothes, in the midst of his social surroundings, at home or out in the street." - excerpted from MoMA Highlights, 1999, p 42.

Link Full text and image with zoom, MoMa