Fallen Jockey (study for "Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey") is a powerful drawing created by Edgar Degas in 1866. Executed in black chalk and pastel on brown wove paper, this preparatory study captures the intense and often brutal reality of a fall during a horse race. Degas utilized drawings and preliminary sketches extensively to solve complex problems of anatomy, movement, and dynamic composition before committing to a final oil painting.
The subject of the steeplechase and horse racing was central to Degas's documentation of modern Parisian spectacle. Throughout the period 1851 to 1875, the artist documented the social rituals and leisure pursuits of the burgeoning middle class, often finding drama in the intersection of human and animal athleticism. This piece emphasizes the catastrophic angle of the rider hitting the ground, capturing the violent instant of impact with stark realism. Degas’s masterful ability to freeze high-speed action contrasts sharply with the static compositions favored by academic artists of the era. As a leading French artist, Degas employed unconventional cropping and angles, possibly influenced by photography and Japanese prints, to enhance the sense of sudden, unedited movement.
The technique of combining black chalk with pastel allows for both sharp definition and subtle suggestion. The chalk provides the structural line work and necessary shadows, while the light application of pastel adds hints of color and texture, suggesting the dusty track and the bright jockey’s silks. This piece functions as a crucial step leading directly to the finished oil, Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey. This pivotal drawing resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., offering insight into the development of Degas’s realist approach. Preliminary works such as this are often made available through public domain initiatives, providing invaluable resources for scholarly study of the artist's precise working method.
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