At the Milliner's 1910

Curator: Stepping into the world of Parisian fashion, we're now face to face with Edgar Degas' "At the Milliner's," completed around 1910. It is a genre scene created in pastel. Editor: Ooh, the pastels lend such a soft, almost hazy quality. Like peeking into a dream where hats have personality! It feels like a backstage pass into a world of velvet and veiled ambitions. Curator: Exactly! This captures a specific slice of Parisian life, spotlighting the labor behind the luxurious items, especially concerning gendered roles and class. Consider the construction of hats and the hands that literally shape fashion for their clientele. Editor: Hands are right! They tell so much, don't they? Bent with precision and detail. It almost feels as though they are deep in secrets between the fingers. There's a quiet energy in them, both industrious and thoughtful. Curator: Notice also the vantage point Degas adopts here. Not a grand frontal perspective, but a more intimate, almost voyeuristic gaze. He consistently pushed to the margins, like the materiality of painting and society itself, refusing central dogma and high society. Editor: I get what you mean. The scene seems stolen, a fleeting moment. And the color! The muddy tones juxtapose with vibrant oranges, yellows, and blues strewn like petals—a bittersweet feeling. It is less of a romantic gesture and more of a hard realization about artmaking. Curator: Indeed, this pushes at the tensions in high and low culture. As art materials gain value within high society, consider that these pastel mediums are quite new in terms of paint creation, mixing fine art and manufacturing. Degas isn't just painting a scene; he's engaging with complex socio-economic hierarchies within that same context. Editor: Thinking of it, "At the Milliner's" suddenly turns less decorative, becoming this raw record, almost journalistic but steeped in sensation and intuition. These colors whisper about something untold! Curator: A compelling piece to meditate on process and gender. Thanks for diving deeper with me on this one! Editor: The pleasure was all mine! Definitely leaving with a refreshed perspective.