Two Laundresses and a Horse 1902

Degas made this pastel drawing of two laundresses and a horse, no one knows when, but I can feel it coming into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I can imagine Degas thinking about his predecessors, the ways that painters like Rubens or Delacroix use the dynamism of the body to express the emotional and psychological states of the world. But here, with these ordinary working women, everything is muted. The colors are drab, a mix of browns, yellows and blues. The pastel is dry and powdery, and the strokes are loose and gestural. It looks like he is using these marks to build up the forms. I can see these women at work, their dresses creased and dirty, their bodies bent and tired. I think that Degas is in conversation with a whole tradition of artists looking at everyday life, finding beauty in the mundane, inspiring creativity in new ways. Painting is this embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.