Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degaswas a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his renditions of dancers, racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable...
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth19 July 1834
CityParis, France
It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.
Muses work all day long and then at night get together and dance.
Make a drawing. Start it all over again, trace it. Start it and trace it again.
Taste! It doesn't exist. An artist makes beautiful things without being aware of it.
One must have a high opinion of a work of art - not the work one is creating at the moment, but of that which one desires to achieve one day. Without this it is not worthwhile working.
Art' is the same word as 'artifice,' that is to say, something deceitful. It must succeed in giving the impression of nature by false means.
Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.
There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.
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 the same as form, it is a way of seeing form.
One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.
What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
A picture is an artificial work, outside nature. It calls for as much cunning as the commission of a crime.