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
People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself.
There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profits... All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.
Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes.
Make portraits of people in typical, familiar poses, being sure above all to give their faces the same kind of expression as their bodies.
I frequently lock myself in my studio. I do not often see the people I love, and in the end I shall suffer for it... painting is one's private life.
Do portraits of people in familiar and typical attitudes, above all give to their face the same choice of expression that one gives to their body.
If I were in the government I would have a brigade of policemen assigned to keeping an eye on people who paint landscapes outdoors. Oh, I wouldn't want anyone killed. I'd be satisfied with just a little buckshot to begin with.
It is people's movement that consoles us. If the leaves of a tree did not move, how sad would be the tree - and so should we.
A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people
Monet's pictures are always too draughty for me.
It's easy to have talent at 20 but what is difficult is to have talent at 50.
One reproduces only that which is striking; that is to say, the necessary. Thus, one's recollections and inventions are liberated from the tyranny which nature exerts.
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.
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.