“The Fallen Jockey” is an artwork by Edgar Degas, created circa 1896 to 1898. This painting employs oil on canvas as its medium and belongs to the Impressionism art movement. It is considered a genre painting, capturing a scene from everyday life, specifically the world of horse racing which was a subject of fascination for Degas. The artwork is housed in the Kunstmuseum Basel in Basel, Switzerland.
The painting depicts a dramatic moment in a horse race, with a jockey having fallen to the ground, while the horse continues galloping away. The figure of the jockey is sprawled face down on the grassy foreground, conveying a sense of helplessness and sudden stillness, contrasted with the motion suggested by the horse’s extended legs and tense musculature. The jockey’s colors, a pale shirt, and golden-colored pants stand out against the green turf. Degas’s brushwork gives life to the scene through the impression of movement and the play of light and shadow, with the sky rendered in a series of expressive blue and white strokes that suggest the fleeting nature of the clouds—a hallmark of Impressionist painting.
