Edgar Degas: Quotes about drawing

“Drawing is not what you see but what you must make others see.”

Edgar Degas

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

Drawing

“[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

“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

“ladies in muslin draped on porches at the fronts of their little houses.... shops bursting with fruit, and the contrast between the lively hum and the bustle of the offices with the immense black animal force... The black world I have not the time to explore; there are some real gifts of colour and drawing in these forests of ebony. It will seem amazing to live among white people when I get back to Paris. I love silhouettes so much, and these silhouettes walk.”

Edgar Degas

quote on his journey through America during 1872
Quote in Degas' letter to his friend Tissot, Lousiana, America 1872; as cited in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 113-114
1855 - 1875

Love , People , World , Quotes

“I will not admit that a woman can draw like that.”

Edgar Degas

Je n'admets pas qu'une femme puisse dessiner comme ca.
Quoted in Forbes Watson, Mary Cassatt (1932)
this quote is referring to some etchings by Cassatt, which Degas admired
quotes, undated

Drawing

“Draw all kind of everyday object placed, in such a way that they have in them the life of the man or woman – corsets that have just been removed, for example, and which retain the form of the body. Do a series in aquatint on mourning, different blacks – black veils of deep mourning floating on the face – black gloves – mourning carriages, undertaker’s vehicles – carriages like Venetian gondolas. On smoke – smoker’s smoke, pipes, cigarettes, cigars – smoke from locomotives, from tall factory chimneys, from steam boats, etc. On evening – infinite variety of subjects in cafes, different tones of glass robes reflected in the mirrors. On bakery, bread. Series of baker's boys, seen in the cellar itself or through the basement windows from the street – backs the colour of the pink flour – beautiful curves of dough – still-life's of different breads, large, oval, long, round, etc. Studies in color of the yellows, pinks, grays, whites of bread…… Neither monuments nor houses have ever been done from below, close up as they appear when you walk down the street. [a working note in which Degas planned series of views of modern Paris, the same time when he sketched the backstreet brothels, making graphic unflinching and even his realistic 'pornographic' sketches he called his 'glimpses through the keyhole', in which he also experimented with perspectives]”

Edgar Degas

Quote from Degas' Notebooks; Clarendon Press, Oxford 1976, nos 30 & 34 circa 1877; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 182
quotes, undated

Life , Beauty , Color , Way

“An artist is a deception.... an artist is only an artist at certain times, by an effort of will.... the study of nature is a cliché; isn't Manet the living proof? For although he prided himself on slavishly copying nature, he was the most inadequate painter in the world, not making a single brushstroke without reference to the old masters; for instance, he refrained from drawing fingernails because Frans Hals did not draw them.”

Edgar Degas

Quote of Degas, in his talk with the visiting Mallarmé, 1880's; as cited in Berthe Morisot, the first lady of Impressionism, by Margaret Sehnan; Sutton Publishing (ISBN 0 7509 2339 3), 1996, p. 234
1876 - 1895

World , Nature , Effort , Study

“Drawing is not the same as form; it is a way of seeing form.”

Edgar Degas

Le dessin n'est pas la forme, il est la manière de voir la forme.
"Drawing Is Not the Same As Form..." (p. 82)
posthumous quotes, Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)

Way , Drawing

“The study of nature is of no significance, for painting is a conventional art, and it is infinitely more worthwhile to learn to draw after w:Holbein.”

Edgar Degas

Quote from History of Impressionism, Rev. ed. John Rewald, Museum of Modern Art, 1961, p. 89
posthumous quotes, Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)

Art , Nature , Study , Learning

“It is all well and good to copy what one sees, but it is much better to draw only what remains in one's memory. This is a transformation in which imagination and memory collaborate.”

Edgar Degas

Quote of Degas in 1883, as cited by Colin B. Bailey, in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publish. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 30 note 10
Degas confided this to Pierre-George Jeanniot
1876 - 1895

Imagination , Memory , Drawing

“It is very good to copy what one sees; it is much better to draw what you can't see any more but is in your memory. It is a transformation in which imagination and memory work together. You only reproduce what struck you, that is to say the necessary.”

Edgar Degas

C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire. Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire.
Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
quotes, undated

Imagination , Memory , Drawing