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Edgar Degas Quotes (1834-1917)
Painter
About 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.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Edgar Degas quotes.
“Je voudrais être illustre et inconnu.”
“We were created to look at one another, weren't we.”
“Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.”
“Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.”
“Je n'admets pas qu'une femme puisse dessiner comme ca.”
“He [ Corot ] is always the strongest, he has foreseen everything.”
“À vous il faut la vie naturelle, à moi la vie factice.”
“Comme nous avons mal fait de nous laisser appeler Impressionistes.”
“Le dessin n'est pas la forme, il est la manière de voir la forme.”
“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”
“Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.”
“Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.”
“I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.”
“Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.”
“What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.”
“A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.”
“Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.”
Edgar Degas Quotes by Topic
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Edgar Degas on Impressionism 5 quotes
“What a pity we allowed ourselves to be called Impressionists.”
Edgar Degas on Inspiration 2 quotes
“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.”
Edgar Degas on History of art
“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.”
What Edgar Degas Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Edgar Degas shared regarding contemporaries.
Edgar Degas on Édouard Manet 2 quotes
“I put it [a still life painting of a pear, made by Manet] there on the wall, next to Ingres' Jupiter; for a pear like that would overthrow any god.”
Edgar Degas on Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
“I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.”
Edgar Degas on Claude Monet
“I said to him [to Monet, when Degas saw in 1866 for the first time Monet's landscape paintings]: 'I am off, all these 'reflets d'eaux' are making my eyes hurt'.. ..It was full of draughts; a few more and I'd have pulled the collar of my jacket up.”
Quotes About Edgar Degas
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Edgar Degas from others.
Quote by on Edgar Degas 10 quotes
“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 Émile Zola on Edgar Degas
“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 of Édouard Manet on Edgar Degas
Joris-Karl Huysmans on Edgar Degas
“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 Camille Pissarro on Edgar Degas 3 quotes
“The ones [compliments] I value most came from Edgar Degas who said he was happy to see my work becoming more and more pure.”
Source on Edgar Degas
“Degas' comment, after having seen Pissarro's painting-show at Durand-Ruel 's gallery in Paris, May 1883”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Edgar Degas
“I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.”
About 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.
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