Edgar Degas, the member of the French Impressionist group who maintained traditional academic values more than the others, spent much of his career fascinated with the ballet dancers of the Paris Opera.

He drew and painted them again and again, in the process creating some of his most memorable works, including the strikingly innovative pieces in which, to the consternation of critics at the time, he shattered the traditional rules of artistic composition (two top images above). It’s difficult for us, in our jaded post-modernist position in time, to appreciate what a leap that was.

Degas used innovative divisions of the picture plane, in addition to the positions of the figure, to convey the motion of his dancers.

Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement is a new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London that traces the artist’s fascination with ballet dancers and movement over the course of his life and artistic development, along with the corresponding impact of the new visual technology of photography.

Aside from an introductory video, the Royal Academy’s site doesn’t do a very good job of picturing the exhibition. The Guardian comes through again with a review and slideshow that features works from the show.

Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement is on view until 11 December 2011. There is an exhibition catalogue and CD accompanying the exhibit.

Robert Tracy is an artist I have written about previously. Tracy had not updated his website for some time, but recently added a number of older works he has made available for purchase.

You can find even more of his work on his deviantART gallery, which contains an archive of pieces going back to 1965.

The deviantART galleries are more extensive (if you don’t mind the occasional intrusive ad, which is now deviantART’s policy if you are not logged in), but his website contains both older and more recent work that is available for sale. Navigation there is a bit disjointed, with links from various places on the homepage that are not accessible from the other pages.

Tracy is a self taught artist with an interest in traditional art, and his range of work chronicles his path in tackling a variety of subjects and media as he explores the possibilities of each.

You will find landscapes, portraits, still life, interiors, florals, animals, copies from the masters and narrative images in oil, watercolor, gouache, egg tempera, acrylic, colored pencil, pastel, graphite, charcoal and even silverpoint.

I find particular interest in seeing him tackle related subjects in different media; for example, painting similar still life arrangements in acrylic, watercolor and oil.

Laurel D. Austin is a concept artist, illustrator and sculptor originally from Canada, based for several years in the UK where she was Senior Concept Artist for Splash Damage, and now living in California where she will be working with Blizzard Entertainment.

Here website has galleries of illustration, concept art, sketches and 3D work. The latter showcases physical sculpture, though she also does some 3D computer modeling.

I particularly enjoy the way she utilizes suggestions of texture in her digital painting, while maintaining a loose, painterly feel in many pieces.

Her blog includes a video step through of her process on her illustration “The Egg Thief” (image above, top), as well as larger versions of some of the pieces in her portfolio.

The sketchbook section of her site contains some nicely handled life drawings done in conté and charcoal on toned paper.

There is also a gallery of her work on CGHub.

Landscapes is a group show currently at the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco that offers a wonderful selection of contemporary painters, as well as including a work by John Fabian Carlson.

Landscapes is on view until October 8, 2011.

(Images above: John F. Carlson, Travis Schlaht, John Morra, Bennett Vadnais, Steven J. Levin, Donald Jurney – links are to the artists’ websites, where available)

[Via Underpaintings]