Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917), was a French painter, print-maker and sculptor. He was moreover an active organizer of several Impressionist exhibitions, but never painted 'plain air' himself.

Quotes of Edgar Degas

sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of Edgar Degas

1855 - 1875

I am busy on a portrait of my self and my aunt and my two cousins, I will show it to you when you get back. I am doing it as if I were doing a picture. I've got to do it well, because I want to leave it as a memento.... The older one is really a lovely thing, the younger one has the devil in her as well as the kindness of an angel. I am doing them with their black dresses and little white pinafores which suit them delightfully. I have ideas for the picture's background running through my head. I would like a certain gracefulness with a nobleness of feeling that I don't know how to describe.
- Quote in a letter (27 November, 1858) to Degas' friend and painter Gustave Moreau; as quoted in More unpublished Letters of Degas, Theodore Reff, Art Bulletin LI, No. 3., Sept. 1969, pp. 282-283

Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.
- Notebook entry (1858), The Notebooks of Edgar Degas, ed. Theodore Reff (1976)

It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.
- Quote from Degas' Notebook entry c. 1860's; as quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)

Make portraits of people in familiar and typical positions, above all give their faces the same choice of expression one gives their bodies. Thus if laughter is typical for a person, make him laugh – there are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render…
- Quote from Degas' Notebook of 1869; as quoted in Impressionism and Post Impressionism 1874 – 1904, 'Sources and Documents', Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, New Yersey, 1966, p. 62

villas with columns in different styles [in Louisiana, America] painted white, in gardens of magnolias, orange trees, banana trees, negroes in old clothes like characters from La Belle Jardiniere.. ..rosy white children in black [negro] arms.. ..a brilliant light which streams my eyes.. ..the Negresses of all shades, holding in their arms little white babies, so white, against white houses with columns of fluted wood and in gardens of orange trees. [quote on his journey through America during 1872]
- Quote from his letter, Louisiana, America 1872; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 113-114

ladies in muslin draped on porches at the fronts of their little houses.. ..shops bursting with fruit, and the contrast between the lively hum and the bustle of the offices with the immense black animal force.. .The black world I have not the time to explore; there are some real gifts of colour and drawing in these forests of ebony. It will seem amazing to live among white people when I get back to Paris. I love silhouettes so much, and these silhouettes walk. [quote on his journey through America during 1872]
- Quote in Degas' letter to his friend Tissot, Louisiana, America 1872; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 113-114

We also consider that Miss Berthe Morisot's [woman painter in French Impressionism who got later married with a brother of Eduard Manet] name and talent are too important to us to do without. [Degas is referring to her participation in the first Impressionist's show he was preparing, then; he was in strong opposition to Eduard Manet who wanted to exclude Berthe Morisot)
- Quote from Degas' letter to Cornelie Morisot (mother of Berthe Morisot), Spring 1873; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 119

J'ai vraiment, un vrai bagage dans la tête. S'il y avait pour cela, comme il y a partout ici, des compagnies d'assurance, voilà un ballot je ferais assurer de suite.
- I really have some luggage in my head. If only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things here, there's a bale I should insure at once.
- Quote from a letter to James Tissot, (New Orleans, 1873), as cited in Marilyn Brown, Degas and the Business of Art: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (Penn State Press, 1994)

In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed.] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2
- Quote in Gegas letter to his friend James Tissot, New Orleans, 18 February 1873; as quoted in 'Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition', Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
- Degas is referring to his painting 'Cotton Merchants in New Orleans' [Cotton Merchants in New Orleans [3], (1873)

I put it [a still life of a pear, made by Manet there [on the wall, next to Ingres' painting 'Jupiter'], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.
- remark in a conversation with the writer Moore, ca. 1875; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 117

1876 - 1895

Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.
- Quote in a letter of Degas to Jean-Baptiste Faure, 14 March 1877

He [ Corot ] is always the strongest, he has foreseen everything.
- Degas in 1883, as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 2
- Degas made this remark about Corot to Pissarro at the preview exhibition of the 'Jules Paton sale' in Paris, 24 April 1883 and overheard by Corot's biographer Alfred Robaut [4].

It is all well and good to copy what one sees, but it is much better to draw only what remains in one's memory. This is a transformation in which imagination and memory collaborate.
- Quote of Degas in 1883, as cited by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 30 note 10
- Degas confided this to Pierre-George Jeanniot

I always urged my contemporaries to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour.
- Quote of Degas, as cited by Walter Sickert, in 'Post-Impressionism and Cubism', Pall Mall Gazette (1914-03-11).
- According to Sickert, Degas had said this quote to him in 1885

Apart from my heart, I feel everything grows old in me. Even my heart has something artificial. It has been sewn by the dancers in a soft, pink satin purse like their shoes.
- Quote in Degas' letter to the sculptor Paul-Albert Bartolomé, January 1886; as cited in 'Performing Fine Arts: Dance as a Source of Inspiration in Impressionism, by Johannis Tsoumas

I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.
- Degas in 1883, as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 4
- note 5: 20 June 1887, - Corot’s biographer Alfred Robaut [5] told this story (1905. Vol. 1. P. 336)

An artist is a deception.. ..an artist is only an artist at certain times, by an effort of will.. ..the study of nature is a cliché; isn't Manet the living proof? For although he prided himself on slavishly copying nature, he was the most inadequate painter in the world, not making a single brushstroke without reference to the old masters; for instance, he refrained from drawing fingernails because Frans Hals did not draw them.
- Quote of Degas, in his talk with the visiting Mallarmé, 1880's; as cited in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism, by Margaret Sehnan; Sutton Publishing (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3), 1996, p. 234

À vous il faut la vie naturelle, à moi la vie factice.
- You need the natural life; I, the artificial.
- Degas, quoted by George Moore, Impressions and Opinions (1891)
- These words were spoken, Moore states, to 'a landscape painter'

I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament — temperament is the word — I know nothing.
- Quote of Degas in conversation with George Moore, later quoted by Moore in Impressions and Opinions (1891)

Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience; but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through a key-hole.
- Quoted by George Moore, in Impressions and Opinions (1891)

What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
- Quoted in Degas' letter to Daniel Halévy, 31 Jan 1892, from Degas Letters, ed. Marcel Guerin, trans. Marguerite Kay (1947)

1896 - 1917

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
- a remark to E. Rouart [son of Henri Rouart in 1904; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 274

Comme nous avons mal fait de nous laisser appeler Impressionistes.
- What a pity we allowed ourselves to be called Impressionists.
- Quoted by Walter Sickert in 'Post-Impressionists,' Fortnightly Review (January 1911)

posthumous quotes

'Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Quotes from: Degas: An Intimate Portrait (1927) - A memoir by Ambroise Vollard, translated by Randolph T. Weaver. Dover, 1986, ISBN 0-486-25131-4

Certainly, Vollard, but listen: will you have a special dish without butter prepared for me? Mind you, no flowers on the table, and you must have dinner at half past seven sharp. I know you won't have your cat around and please don't allow anybody to bring a dog. And if there are to be any women I hope they won't come reeking of perfume. How horrible all those odors are when there are so many things that really smell good, like toast - or even manure! Ah - (a short hesitation), and very few lights. My eyes, you know, my poor eyes!
- "Early Encounters" (p. 20)
- Quoted by Vollard who came to invite Degas for dinner, that evening

Vollard, please do not say anything against fashions. Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if there were no fashions? How would women spent their time? What would they have to talk about? Life would become unbearable for us men. Why, if women were to break away from the rules of fashion - fortunately there is no danger - the government would have to step in and take a hand.
- "Early Encounters" (p. 26)

I remember a story my father used to tell. As he was coming home one day, he ran across a group of men who were firing on the troops from an ambush. During the excitement a daring onlooker went up to one of the snipers who seemed to be a poor marksman. He took the man's gun and brought down a soldier, then handed it back to its owner who motioned as if to say, 'No, go on. You're a better shot than I am.' But the stranger said, 'No, I'm not interested in politics.'
- (p. 40)
- Vollard, Degas and others were talking about the revolution of 1847. Somebody remarked to Degas that he must have been quite young at that time. Than Degas start to quote his father.

I have been singularly hard with myself. I have had to be. You must realize that this is so, since you have, at times, reproached me for it, and were astonished because I had so little confidence in myself. I have been, or seemed, hard with everyone because I was carried away by a sort of brutality born of my distrust in myself and my ill-humor. I have felt so badly equipped, so soft, in spite of the fact that my attitude towards art seemed to me so just. I was disgusted with everyone, and especially myself. I ask your pardon, then, if, with this damned art as an excuse, I have wounded your noble and intelligent spirit; perhaps even your heart..
- "The Sensitive Artist" (p. 43)
- quote from Degas' letter to a friend; but unknown because Vollard did not want to reveal the name

Visitor: Monsieur Degas, were there any of Monet's pictures at the Durand-Ruel exhibition?
Degas: Why, I met Monet himself there, and I said to him, 'Let me get out of here. Those reflections in the water hurt my eyes!' His pictures were always too draughty for me. If it had been any worse I should have had to turn up my coat collar.
- "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 46)

Another Visitor: How did you manage, Monsieur Degas, when you painted that plein air called 'Le Plage', the one Monsieur Rouart has?
Degas: It was quite simple. I spread my flannel vest on the floor of the studio, and had the model sit on it. You see, the air you breathe in a picture is not necessarily the same as the air out of doors.
- "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 47)

Poor Gauguin, 'way off there on his island! I'll wager he spends most of his time thinking of Rue Lafitte. I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home. Now if I should leave my house for more than two days...
- "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 48)

- She [ Mary Cassatt ] has infinite talent. I remember the time we started a little magazine called 'Le Jour et La Nuit' together. I was very much interested in processes then, and had made countless experiments [in printing; Degas mainly monotype - Cassatt mainly etchings].. ..You can get extraordinary results with copper; but the trouble is that there are never enough buyers to encourage you to go on with it.
- "The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 48)
- Degas's remark, when he visited one day the art-shop of Vollard and looked at a print of Mary Cassatt.

If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don't mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning.
- "Some of Degas' Views on Art" (p. 56)
- Degas hated to paint outdoor and even to see landscape-paintings, like for instance the 'draughty' ones of Monet

I, marry? Oh, I could never bring myself to do it. I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.
- "Methods of Work" (p. 64)

I'm glad to say I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death.
- "Technical Details" (p. 70)

People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.
- "As He Grows Old" (p. 87)

'Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)

Quotes from: Degas Danse Dessin by Paul Valéry, trans. David Paul; Princeton University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-691-01882-0

Il faut avoir une haute idée, non pas de ce qu'on fait, mais de ce qu'on pourra faire un jour; sans quoi ce n'est pas la peine de travailler.
- You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.
- "Mad About Drawing" (p. 64)

Le dessin n'est pas la forme, il est la manière de voir la forme.
- Drawing is not the same as form; it is a way of seeing form.
- "Drawing Is Not the Same As Form..." (p. 82)

A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.
- "Recollections of Degas by Berthe Morisot" (p. 84)

The study of nature is of no significance, for painting is a conventional art, and it is infinitely more worthwhile to learn to draw after w:Holbein.
- Quote from History of Impressionism, Rev. ed. John Rewald, Museum of Modern Art, 1961, p. 89

'The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas', (1961)

Quotes from: The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas, R. H. Ives Gammell, ed. University Press, Boston, 1961

The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.

A picture is a thing which requires as much knavery, as much malice, and as much vice as the perpetration of a crime. Make it untrue and add an accent of truth.

Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.

Even working from nature you have to compose.

Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.

Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.

You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental, even a movement.

Work a great deal at evening effects, lamplight, candlelight, etc. The intriguing thing is not to show the source of the light but the effect of the lighting.

Painting is not very difficult when you don't know how; but when you know, oh! then, it's another matter.

It requires courage to make a frontal attack on nature through the broad planes and the large lines and it is cowardly to do it by the facets and details. It is a battle.

Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.

quotes, undated

Je n'admets pas qu'une femme puisse dessiner comme ca.
- I will not admit that a woman can draw like that.
- Quoted in Forbes Watson, Mary Cassatt (1932)
- this quote is referring to some etchings by Cassatt, which Degas admired

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.
- quote from Georges Jeanniot, in Souvenirs sur Degas (Memories of Degas, 1933)

In our beginnings, Fantin, Whistler and I were all on the same road, the road from Holland [Dutch 17th century painters]
- Quote of Degas, later recalled by Paul Poujaud (written in his letter to Marcel Guérin, 11 July 1936); as quoted by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 54
- Degas is recalling his early works of the 1860's

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.
- Quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)

There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.
- Quoted by Daniel Halévy, Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964], p. 119

Une peinture, c'est d'abord un produit de l'imagination de l'artiste, ce ne doit jamais être une copie. Si, ensuite, on peut y ajouter deux ou trois accents de nature, evidemment ca ne fait pas de mal.
- A painting is above all a product of the artist's imagination, it must never be a copy. If, at a later stage, he wants to add two or three touches from nature, of course it doesn't spoil anything.
- Quoted by Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13

C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire. Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire.
- It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary.
- Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13

Je voudrais être illustre et inconnu.
- I should like to be famous and unknown.
- Degas said this to Henri Rouart, as cited by Antoine Terrasse, in Degas (Chartwell Books, 1982)

Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.
- Quoted by Julian Barnes, 'The Artist As Voyeur' (1996), from The Grove Book of Art Writing, ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright (Grove Press, 2000)

Oh! Women can never forgive me. They hate me, they can feel that I ‘m disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the states of animals cleaning themselves... ...I'm sure of it; they see me as the enemy. Fortunately, since if they did like me, that would be the end of me.
- In Degas by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, ed. Richard Kendall 2000, p. 299

pinkish and bluish draperies on neutral grey grounds and black cypresses... ...The red of Jeptha's dress... ...some reddish brown, some slightly pinkish... ...Graduated blue sky... ...the ground at the front a grey violet shadow... Look for some turquoise in the blue.(Degas' working note about choosing colors for his future painting 'The Daughter of Jeptha')
- Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34

..women... ...their way of observing, combining, sensing the way they dress. They compare a thousand of more visible things with one another than a man does.
- Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 53

Anyone would think paintings were made like speculations on the stock market, out of the frictions of ambitious young people... ...it sharpens the mind, but clouds your judgement.
- Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34

Draw all kind of everyday object placed, in such a way that they have in them the life of the man or woman – corsets that have just been removed, for example, and which retain the form of the body. Do a series in aquatint on mourning, different blacks – black veils of deep mourning floating on the face – black gloves – mourning carriages, undertaker’s vehicles – carriages like Venetian gondolas. On smoke – smoker’s smoke, pipes, cigarettes, cigars – smoke from locomotives, from tall factory chimneys, from steam boats, etc. On evening – infinite variety of subjects in cafes, different tones of glass robes reflected in the mirrors. On bakery, bread. Series of baker's boys, seen in the cellar itself or through the basement windows from the street – backs the colour of the pink flour – beautiful curves of dough – still-life's of different breads, large, oval, long, round, etc. Studies in color of the yellows, pinks, grays, whites of bread... ...Neither monuments nor houses have ever been done from below, close up as they appear when you walk down the street. [a working note in which Degas planned series of views of modern Paris, the same time when he sketched the backstreet brothels, making graphic unflinching and even his realistic 'pornographic' sketches he called his 'glimpses through the keyhole', in which he also experimented with perspectives]
- Quote from Degas' Notebooks; Clarendon Press, Oxford 1976, nos 30 & 34 circa 1877; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 182

[make drawings of] series of instruments and players; their shapes, twisting of the hands, arms and neck of the violinist; for example, puffing out and hollowing of the cheeks of bassoonists, oboists, etc..
- Quote from Degas' Notebook (undated); as quoted in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, pp. 81-82

We were created to look at one another, weren't we.
- Quote of Degas, as cited in Walter Sickert The Complete writing on art ed Anna Robins OUP, Oxford 2002 ISBN 0199261695

Misattributed

I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.
- John Murray Gibbon, Pagan Love (1922), ch. xiv

Quotes about Edgar Degas

sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes about Edgar Degas

A strange fellow, this Degas — sickly, a bundle of nerves, with such weak eyes that he is afraid of going blind, yet for these very reasons extremely sensitive to the character of things. He is more skillful in capturing the essence of modern life than anyone I know.
- Quote by Edmond de Goncourt (1874), Journal (1874-02-13)

..while speaking to us [Degas, to the brothers Goncourt] with their language and explaining technically the stroke of the iron for pressing and the circular stroke, etc.. .And it is really very humorous to see him [Degas], up on his toes, and with his arms curved, blending the aesthetics of the dance master with the aesthetics of the painter.
- Quote by Edmond Goncourt (1874), a note in his Journal; as cited in The Technical aspects of Degas's art, by Theodore Reff, in Metropolitan Museum Journal 4, 1971, p. 143
- Degas, is imitating for the brothers Goncourt the gestures of dancers, and showing them the pictures he had made of the dancers

The best thing he [Degas] does are his sketches. As soon as he gets to polish a picture, his drawing [in the picture] grows weak and pitiable. The drawing in pictures like his 'Portraits in an office' [in New Orleans], results in something between a marine painting and an engraving for an illustrated newspaper.
- Quote by Émile Zola (1876); as cited in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
- Zola (1876) is referring to: 'Interior of the cotton buyers' office' in New Orleans (1873)

I was painting modern Paris while you were still painting Greek athletes [Manet to his friend Edgar Degas, [quoted by George Moore c. 1879]. [Later Degas reacted: 'That Manet, as soon as I started painting dancers, he did them.'
- Quote of Édouard Manet (c. 1879), as quoted in The Impressionists at first hand, by Bernard Denvir, Thames and Hudson, London 1991, p. 78

A painter of modern life had been born, moreover, a painter who derived from and resembled no other, who brought with him a totally new artistic flavor, as well as totally new skills.
- Quote of Joris-Karl Huysmans, in 'L'exposition des Independents' 1880, in Modern Art and Modernism, Franscina and Harrison, p. 45-50

The ones [compliments] I value most came from Edgar Degas who said he was happy to see my work becoming more and more pure.
- Quote of Camille Pissarro, Paris, 4 May 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, pp. 29-30
Degas' comment, after having seen Pissarro's painting-show at Durand-Ruel 's gallery in Paris, May 1883

You [Lucien Pissarro] will also be very pleased to find in reading the book [L'Art Moderne of Huysmans ] that you are not alone in your enthusiasm for Edgar Degas, who is without a doubt the greatest artist of the period.
- Quote of Camille Pissarro, Paris, 9 May 1883, in a letter to his son Lucien; from Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien, ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 31

As I admired it [a red pencil and chalk drawing by Degas of a young mother, nursing her child] he showed me a whole series done from the same model and with the same sort of rhythm. He is a draughtsman of the first order; it would be interesting to show all these preparatory studies for a painting to the public, which generally imagines that the impressionists work in a very casual way. I do not think it possible to go further in the rendering of form.
- Quote of Berthe Morisot (January 1886), note in her Journal, about her visit to Degas' studio; as quoted in The Private Lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, pp. 262-263

Degas is a hundred times more loyal [than other impressionist artists, then]. - I told Degas that Seurat's painting was very interesting. [Degas:] 'I would have noted that myself, Pissarro, except that the painting is so big!' Very well - if Degas sees nothing in it so much the worse for him. This simply means there is something precious that escapes him. We shall see.
- Quote of Camille Pissarro, in a letter, Paris, March 1886, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 80
- Seurat intended to show his large canvas 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte'

I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his [Degas'] art. It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it.
- Quote of Mary Cassatt, memory c. 1890's; as quoted by Nancy Mowll in Mary Cassatt: A Life, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998 - ISBN 978-0-585-36794-1, p. 114
- Cassatt admired Degas, whose pastels had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an Paris' art dealer's window in 1875. She accepted Degas' invitation later with enthusiasm, to participate in the next Impressionist show, planned for 1878

With what is he [Degas] concerned? Drawing was at its lowest ebb; it had to be restored. Looking at these nudes, I exclaim, "Drawing has come back again!"
As a man and painter he sets an example. Degas is one of those rare masters who could have had anything he wanted, yet he scorned decorations, honors, fortune, without bitterness, without jealousy.
- quote of Paul Gauguin, from his book Avant et après (1903)

It isn't ideas I'm short of.. .I've got too many [on discussing poetry with Mallarmé, who replied]: Degas, you can't make a poem with ideas - you make it with words'.
- Quote by Paul Valery in Degas, Manet, Morisot,, (translation, David Paul) Pantheon, New York 1960

I have often heard Degas say that in painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false.
- Quote by Walter Sickert, 'The Royal Academy', in English Review (June 1912)

because of the many tracings that Degas did of his drawings, the public accused him of repeating himself. But his passion for perfection was responsible for this continual research.
- Quote of Ambroise Vollard, in Degas, George Allen and Unwin, 1928

I would ask him to give me his definition of drawing. 'You don't know a thing about it,' he would always end up saying. And without fail he would go on to this apologue: that the Muses do their work on their own, each apart from the others, and that they never talk shop. The day's work over, there are no discussions, no comparisons of their respective labors. 'They just dance,' he [Degas] would shout.
- Quote by Paul Valéry, in About Corot (Autour de Corot, 1932)

Forain s'était construit un hôtel, et fil installer le téléphone presque nouveau. Il voulut d'abord "épater" Degas. Il l'invite à dîner, previent un compere, qui, pendant le dîner, appelle Forain à l'appareil. Quelque mots échangé, Forain revient. Degas lui dit: "C'est ça le téléphone? On vous sonne et vous y allez."
- When Forain built himself a town house, he installed a telephone, which was still not in very wide use. Wanting above all to surprise Degas with it, he invited him to dinner, and forewarned a friend, who summoned Forain to the receiver during the meal. After exchanging a few words, Forain sits down at table again. "So that's the telephone?" says Degas. "They ring, and you run."
- Quote by Paul Valéry, in Degas Danse Dessin (1935): "More Obiter Dicta"

Indeed, Degas, immured in his Paris studio, was so little of this world that he became almost a legend. He was pictured as a sort of monster whose misanthropic furies against those who tried to force his friendship were unbounded. In the latter years of his life, there was a story current that an old friend, having obtained permission from Degas to visit his studio, was met by a bearded demon at the door and thrown bodily down the stairs.
- Quote of Harold L. Van Doren, in 'Introduction' of Degas, An Intimate Portrait, by Ambroise Vollard, - translation from the French by Randolph T. Weaver; Crown Publishers, New York, 1937, p. 17

When Gervex was at work on his [painting] 'Lesson in Anatomy' Degas said to him: 'Did you ever see a student taking notes while the professor is lecturing?.. ..He ought to be rolling a cigarette.' And it was this bit of advice which made the picture [because Gervex followed Degas's advice]. However, when Gervex was doing his 'Rolla' [6] (c. 1878), Degas happened to see the picture, and again made recommendations: 'You must make it plain that the woman is not a model. Where is the dress she has taken off. Put a pair of corsets on the floor near by." The canvas was refused by the Salon on grounds of indecency. 'You see', said Degas afterwards, 'nude models are all right at the Salon, but a woman undressing - never!'
- Quote by Ambroise Vollard, from his book Degas, An Intimate Portrait, - translation from the French by Randolph T. Weaver; Crown Publishers, New York, 1937, p. 47-48

[Degas compared] to a writer striving to attain the utmost precision of form, drafting and redrafting, canceling, advancing by endless recapitulation, never admitting that his work has reached its final stage: from sheet to sheet, copy to copy, he continually revises his drawing, deepening, tightening, closing it up.
- Quote by Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 89

I am convinced that Degas felt a work could never be called finished, and that he could not conceive how an artist could look at one of his pictures after a time and not feel the need to retouch it.
- Quote of Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 89

Severely self-critical, he would take a certain pleasure in repeating what a critic had said about him in a review of an exhibition: Continually uncertain about proportions. Nothing, he [Degas] claimed, could better describe his state of mind while he was toiling and struggling over a work.
- Quote of Paul Valéry, in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 70

Whenever Degas came upon some more or less early work of his own, he always wanted to get it back on the easel and rework it. Thus, after seeing again and again at our house [of the art-buyer w:Henri Rouart ] a delightful pastel my father had bought and was very fond of, Degas.. ..would not let the matter alone, and in the end my father, from sheer weariness, let him take it away. It was never seen again.. ..in the end he had to confess his crime: the work entrusted to him for a few retouches had been completely destroyed.. ..It was then that Degas, to make it up to him for his loss, sent him one day the famous 'Danseuses a la barre'..
- Quote of Henri Rouart's son, as cited in Degas, Manet, Morisot, Princeton, Princeton University 1989; as quoted in Outside the Lines, David W. Galenson, Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 90

Degas isn't enough of a painter; he doesn't have enough of that! With a little bit of temperament one can manage to be a painter, It's enough to have a sense of art, and that sense is no doubt what the bourgeoisie fear most.. .For a painter, sensation is at the bottom of everything. I will go on repeating it forever. Procedures are not what I advocate.
- Paul Cézanne, quote from: 'What he told me – II. The Louvre', in Joachim Gasquet's Cézanne, - a Memoir with Conversations, (1897 - 1906); Thames and Hudson, London 1991 pp. 184-185

All Paris knew him as a fighter, a recluse, guarding his privacy with cruel, crushing words. The habitués of the Paris boulevards defended themselves against his scorn by accusing him of insincerity. "Degas," they said, "would like to see his reflection in a boulevard window in order to give himself the satisfaction of breaking the plate-glass with his cane."
- Quote by Daniel Halévy, in Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964]

To anyone who is not an artist it must seem rather strange that Degas who could do anything — for whom setting down what he saw presented no difficulties at all — should have continued to draw the same poses year after year — often, it would seem, with increasing difficulty. Just as a classical dancer repeats the same movements again and again, in order to achieve a greater perfection of line and balance, so Degas repeats the same motifs, it was one of the things that gave him so much sympathy with dancers. He was continually struggling to achieve an idea of perfect form, but this did not prevent him looking for the truth in what might seem an artificial situation.
- Quote by Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion (1973): 'Degas'

Lautrec was greatly influenced by the techniques, style and subject matter of Degas, who was a close neighbor between 1887 and 1891. ...Like Degas, Lautrec experimented with painting with turpentine which was called peinture à l'essence. In Degas' method, oil was drawn out of his colours by placing them on blotting paper. Then the chalky paint was diluted with turpentine and applied like a wash to his support. Because the turpentine spirit evaporated quickly, the colours dried rapidly, so that the paint surface could be reworked and built up without enormous delays. Unlike paint applied thinly in glazes, with this technique the colour dries mat, and has a chalky surface only thinly and sparely coloured.
- Anthea Callen, Techniques of the Impressionists (1982) p. 166.

He [Degas] was an avid collector of both old and new art; in his sixties he purchased two Gauguins, and when pushing eighty he remarked with some admiration of Cubism that: 'it seems even more difficult than painting.'
- Quote by Robert Hughes, Edgar Degas, as cited in Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists (Viking/Penguin, 1991)

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