Edgar Degas: Trending quotes

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 http://rupkatha.com/dance-in-impressionism/
1876 - 1895

Shoe , Feeling , Heart

“A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring people.”

Edgar Degas

quote from Georges Jeanniot, in Souvenirs sur Degas (Memories of Degas, 1933)
quotes, undated

People , Painting

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

Edgar Degas

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

Painting

“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')”

Edgar Degas

Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
quotes, undated

Color , Future , Painting , Daughters

“What a pity we allowed ourselves to be called Impressionists.”

Edgar Degas

Comme nous avons mal fait de nous laisser appeler Impressionistes.
Quoted by Walter Sickert in 'Post-Impressionists,' Fortnightly Review (January 1911)
1896 - 1917

“He [ Corot ] is always the strongest, he has foreseen everything.”

Edgar Degas

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 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robaut.
1876 - 1895

“[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..”

Edgar Degas

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
quotes, undated

Drawing

“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

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
1876 - 1895

Way , Study , Drawing

“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)”

Edgar Degas

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
1855 - 1875

Strong

“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.”

Edgar Degas

"As He Grows Old" (p. 87)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

People , Girl , Dance , Painting

“There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.”

Edgar Degas

Quoted by Daniel Halévy, Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964], p. 119
quotes, undated

Success

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

Edgar Degas

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

Drawing

“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.”

Edgar Degas

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.
Quoted by Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
quotes, undated

Imagination , Nature , Painting

“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.”

Edgar Degas

"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
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Nature , Bird , Painting

“.. 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.”

Edgar Degas

Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 53
quotes, undated

Women , Way , Sense