Quote by on 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.”

“..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.”

“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'.”

“I have often heard Degas say that in painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false.”

“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.”

“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' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Gervex#/media/File:Henri_Gervex_%22Rolla%22.jpg (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!'”

“[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.”

“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."”

“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.”

“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.'”