Edgar Degas: Trending quotes (page 4)

“Even working from nature you have to compose.”

Edgar Degas

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

Nature

“Work a great deal at evening effects, lamplight, candlelight, etc. The intriguing thing is not to show the source of the light but the effect of the lighting.”

Edgar Degas

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

Light

“I have been singularly hard with myself. I have had to be. You must realize that this is so, since you have, at times, reproached me for it, and were astonished because I had so little confidence in myself. 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. I ask your pardon, then, if, with this damned art as an excuse, I have wounded your noble and intelligent spirit; perhaps even your heart..”

Edgar Degas

"The Sensitive Artist" (p. 43)
quote from Degas' letter to a friend; but unknown because Vollard did not want to reveal the name
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Art , Confidence , Intelligence , Time

“In our beginnings, Fantin, Whistler and I were all on the same road, the road from Holland [Dutch 17th century painters]”

Edgar Degas

Quote of Degas, later recalled by Paul Poujaud (written in his letter to Marcel Guérin, 11 July 1936); 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. 54
Degas is recalling his early works of the 1860's
quotes, undated

“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

Quote in a letter of Degas to Jean-Baptiste Faure, 14 March 1877
1876 - 1895

Money , Time

“Vollard, please do not say anything against fashions. Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if there were no fashions? How would women spent their time? What would they have to talk about? Life would become unbearable for us men. Why, if women were to break away from the rules of fashion - fortunately there is no danger - the government would have to step in and take a hand.”

Edgar Degas

"Early Encounters" (p. 26)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

Life , Women , Men , Fashion

“It is true. There is someone who feels as I do.”

Edgar Degas

Feeling