Paintings of charming dancers and colorful theatre scenes are in the center of Degas’ creation since the mid-1860s. They belong to a group of everyday paintings showing the life of the great city. In many of his creations, Degas criticizes the new, modern world. By unusual details, he highlights the isolation of the single.

The French painter born in 1834, who, according to the wish of his affluent family, would have become a lawyer, studied the old masters in Louvre and in the Italian museums. Classical history paintings and portraits belonged once to his theme and form portfolio. Only after his encounter of Eduard Manet and the regular exhibitions after 1874 with the impressionists, he changed his painting style. However, he never saw himself as representative of this style and insisted on his independence.

In his works, there are no landscapes and he did not use impressionist color and form decomposition. For Degas, humans were the dominant theme of his creation. The connection between his works and the impressionists resided in his attempt to retain the moment. His skills of rendering movement is shown in the dynamic paintings of horse racings and ballet scenes. By fast brush strokes of pastel colors and delicate contour lines, he captures his theme. Degas’ artistic base was the drawing, containing important influences of Japanese xylographs. He transposes his themes in painting as well as in graphic works.

As Degas’ eyesight was weakening toward the end of his life, he switched from painting to sculpture. He modeled statuettes of riders and dancers, thus staying faithful to his familiar themes. Degas dined in 1917 in Paris.

Günter Dietz developed a revolutionary method for the authentic reproduction of images, where not the usual printing inks are used, but the same original colors used by the artist. Depending on the artist's painting technique, up to 180 (!) various paint applications need to be applied in order to achieve a perfect replica of the original that also sensationally reflects the "relief" and pastosity of colour composition.

Here are the examples of  'Couple at the Garden Table' by August Macke:

Similarly, the material of the original carrier, such as reproduction on canvas, paper, wood, copper, parchment is always used.

The result is a perfect, gridless reproduction that comes very close to the original in expressiveness and effect. Even museum specialists often can not distinguish the replica from the original. Therefore, a special security notice must be inserted, which is visible only under X-rays.

The circulation of most of the Dietz replicas is limited, usualy to 950 copies. Each canvas replica is stretched onto a frame as the original, so you can retighten the canvas according to variations in room temperature and humidity. High-quality solid wood strips round off the image of every Dietz replica.

Numerous masterpiece paintings of Rembrandt, Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt and various others have been recreated by the Dietz Offizin. Famous modern artists such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall used the method developed by Günter Dietz to have replicas of their works produced.

Press commentaries:

“The Dietz System provides images as good as the originals. What the electronics did with the invention of Hi-Fi and stereo for music playback - here the graphic technology made up for visual art.“ (Die Zeit)

“In theory there is no difference between the original and the Dietz replica. They should not be called reproductions, but facsimiles.“ (Newsweek)

“For art printers all over the world remains unrealizable to this day, what managed only Dietz with the help of printing technology: The perfect reproduction of painted works. “ (Der Spiegel)

Konrad Adenauer at the presentation of Dietz replica of the frieze "To the young St. Peter" (Bundeshaus Bonn)



Günter Dietz (on the left) and Marino Marini

Representation of typical scenes of daily life in painting, which can distinguish between peasant, bourgeois and courtly themes.

The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in the Dutch painting of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly and gallant painting comes to the fore while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.

The style of Impressionism that emerged in French painting in 1870 owes its name to the Claude Monet's landscape 'Impression, Soleil Levant'. After initial refusal it began a true triumphant advance.

Such painters as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and others created motifs from everyday life, urban and landscape scenes in a bright, natural light.

Impressionism can be seen as a reaction to the academic painting. The emphasis was not on content with its strict rules of painting structure, but on the object as it appears at any given moment, in an often random cut out. The reality was seen in its whole color variety in natural lighting. The studio painting was replaced by the open-air painting.

The brightening of the palette and the dissolution of firm contours was accompanied by a new way of handling with color. Often, the colors were no longer mixed on the palette but side by side on the canvas so that the final impression lies in the eye of the beholder with a certain distance. In "Pointillism", (with such painters as Georges Seurat or Paul Signac) this principle was carried to the extreme.

Outside France, Impressionism was taken up by such painters as Max Slevogt, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth in Germany, and by James A. M. Whistler in the United States.

In sculpture, the impressionism expressed itself only conditionally. In the works of Auguste Rodin, who is considered one of the main representatives, you can see a resolution of the surfaces in which the play of light and shadow is included in the artistic expression. Degas and Renoir created sculptures as well.