# The Races. Before the Start [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DEGAS, Edgar]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cm ## Commentary The Races. Before the Start 1873 Oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington Degas, free of the need to sell pictures in order to live, pursued his interest in people, their characters and temperaments, their faces and body language. He painted uncommissioned portraits or had his acquaintances present situations that conveyed typical behaviour. Crowds at racetracks and the lean, diminutive jockeys on their delicate, nervy horses supplied him with open-air motifs. ## Related artworks - [A Ballet Dancer in Position]() - [Absinthe Drinkers]() - [After the Bath]() - [After the Bath. Woman Drying Herself]() - [At the Beach]() - [At the Café des Ambassadeurs]() - [At the Milliner's]() - [At the Milliner's]() - [At the Mirror]() - [At the Races in the Countryside]() - [Aux Ambassadeurs: Mademoiselle Bécat]() - [Ballerina with a Bouquet, Curtsying]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()