Degas’s Father Listening to Lorenzo Pagans Playing the Guitar by Degas

The intimate and sensitive realist genre scene titled “Le père de Degas écoutant Lorenzo Pagans” was painted by the artist Degas Edgar, immortalizing a family musical moment. This major work belongs to the artist’s exploration of his circle and demonstrates his passion for music and opera. The painter delicately captures the bond between his music-loving father and the famous Spanish tenor in a cozy bourgeois salon.

In the foreground, the guitarist and singer Lorenzo Pagans is seated in profile, his mouth half-open in a passionate song, while his hands strum a light wood guitar. He wears an elegant black frock coat that stands out against the clarity of his open sheet music placed before him. Behind him, seated in a wide armchair, Auguste de Gas, the artist’s father, listens attentively, his head slightly tilted and pensive, a hand supporting his forehead in an attitude of deep contemplation. The warm color harmonies mix the browns of the instrument, the black of the clothes, and the ocher of the background woodwork. A soft, diffuse light envelops the scene, emphasizing the solemnity of the moment.

Degas Edgar deploys exceptional technical virtuosity in using oil on canvas to render the velvet of the fabrics and the vibration of the sound. His bold and spontaneous framing, worthy of a snapshot, reinforces the human truth and the psychological intensity of this suspended moment.