Description
In A Jockey on His Horse, Edgar Degas contrasts the rider’s dark jacket with the horse’s lightly indicated outline. The jockey sits with bent arms, his compact posture supplying the study with its most concentrated forms. Instead of describing an entire race, Degas brings attention to the rider and the animal beneath him. The contrast between developed and faint passages keeps the image open, revealing the differing degrees of attention within the sheet.
Degas made the study around 1868–70 using oil and graphite on paper. The combination of drawn and painted marks gives him more than one way to establish the figure and its support. The modest format keeps the subject direct, with little room for unnecessary incident. It is an image of concentrated observation, in which a racing motif becomes an investigation of proportion, posture and the connection between human and animal.
Read our guide to giclée prints, browse more Edgar Degas prints, or explore Race Horses.
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