Woman Seated in Chair Wiping her Left Side 1891 - 1920

Edgar Degas made this bronze sculpture of a Woman Seated in a Chair, Wiping her Left Side. What I love is that it feels so exploratory and like a beginning. Imagine Degas’s hands on the malleable clay, building up the form bit by bit. He must have gone back and forth, adding and subtracting, until he arrived at this particular pose. She’s hunched over, caught in a moment of private ablution. The rawness of the form reminds us that the artwork is not an exercise in perfection, but rather a study of the human figure in motion. What was Degas thinking when he made this? Maybe he was interested in how the body contorts itself when we think no one is looking. Like a lot of us artists, Degas seems to have been concerned with how the body occupies space and what it means to be alive. I really see him in myself and I hope he sees himself in me.