Olive Trees against a Mountainous Background 1893

Edgar Degas created this landscape, Olive Trees against a Mountainous Background, using pastel on paper. Degas, though most well known as a painter of dancers, came late to landscapes. The olive tree, central here, carries a symbolic weight, deeply entwined with themes of peace, resilience, and cultural identity, particularly in Mediterranean countries. Given Degas’s own sense of himself as a man of Mediterranean culture, how might we read this landscape? Degas's choice to depict olive trees against the backdrop of a mountainous terrain reflects an engagement with classical themes, yet subverts traditional landscape painting by employing the soft, somewhat hazy medium of pastels. This choice shifts our gaze away from the grandiosity often associated with landscape, and towards a more intimate, sensory experience. The pastel colors evoke a sense of the ephemeral, reminding us that landscapes, like identities, are always in flux. "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see," Degas once said. Perhaps here he asks us to see the understated beauty and complex histories embedded in the natural world.