Edgar Degas citations (77 citations, Page 2)

Quote in a letter (27 November, 1858) to Degas' friend and painter Gustave Moreau; as quoted in More unpublished Letters of Degas, Theodore Reff, Art Bulletin LI, No. 3., Sept. 1969, pp. 282-283
1855 - 1875

“Make portraits of people in familiar and typical positions, above all give their faces the same choice of expression one gives their bodies. Thus if laughter is typical for a person, make him laugh – there are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render…”

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Edgar Degas

Quote from Degas' Notebook of 1869; as quoted in Impressionism and Post Impressionism 1874 – 1904, 'Sources and Documents', Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, New Yersey, 1966, p. 62
1855 - 1875

“I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.”

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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. 4
note 5: 20 June 1887, - Corot’s biographer Alfred Robaut https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Robaut told this story (1905. Vol. 1. P. 336)
1876 - 1895

“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.”

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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

“You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.”

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Edgar Degas

Il faut avoir une haute idée, non pas de ce qu'on fait, mais de ce qu'on pourra faire un jour; sans quoi ce n'est pas la peine de travailler.
"Mad About Drawing" (p. 64)
posthumous quotes, Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)

“I really have some luggage in my head. If only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things here, there's a bale I should insure at once.”

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Edgar Degas

J'ai vraiment, un vrai bagage dans la tête. S'il y avait pour cela, comme il y a partout ici, des compagnies d'assurance, voilà un ballot je ferais assurer de suite.
Quote from a letter to James Tissot, (New Orleans, 1873), as cited in Marilyn Brown, Degas and the Business of Art: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (Penn State Press, 1994)
1855 - 1875

“A picture is a thing which requires as much knavery, as much malice, and as much vice as the perpetration of a crime. Make it untrue and add an accent of truth.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental, even a movement.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“I, marry? Oh, I could never bring myself to do it. I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, "That's a pretty little thing," after I had finished a picture.”

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Edgar Degas

"Methods of Work" (p. 64)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

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

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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)

“Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.”

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Edgar Degas

Quoted by Julian Barnes, 'The Artist As Voyeur' (1996), from The Grove Book of Art Writing, ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright (Grove Press, 2000)
quotes, undated

“villas with columns in different styles [in Louisiana, America] painted white, in gardens of magnolias, orange trees, banana trees, negroes in old clothes like characters from La Belle Jardiniere.... rosy white children in black [negro] arms.... a brilliant light which streams my eyes.... the Negresses of all shades, holding in their arms little white babies, so white, against white houses with columns of fluted wood and in gardens of orange trees.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.”

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Edgar Degas

Quoted in Degas' letter to Daniel Halévy, 31 Jan 1892, from Degas Letters, ed. Marcel Guerin, trans. Marguerite Kay (1947)
1876 - 1895

“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.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“Another Visitor: How did you manage, Monsieur Degas, when you painted that plein air called 'Le Plage', the one Monsieur Rouart has?
Degas: It was quite simple. I spread my flannel vest on the floor of the studio, and had the model sit on it. You see, the air you breathe in a picture is not necessarily the same as the air out of doors.”

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Edgar Degas

"The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 47)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

“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.”

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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

“You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.”

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Edgar Degas

a remark to E. Rouart [son of Henri Rouart in 1904; as quoted in Renoir – his life and work, Francois Fosca, Book Club Associates /Thames and Hudson Ltd, London 1975, p. 274
1896 - 1917

“We were created to look at one another, weren't we.”

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Edgar Degas

Quote of Degas, as cited in Walter Sickert The Complete writing on art ed Anna Robins OUP, Oxford 2002 ISBN 0199261695
quotes, undated

“I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament — temperament is the word — I know nothing.”

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Edgar Degas

Quote of Degas in conversation with George Moore, later quoted by Moore in Impressions and Opinions (1891)
1876 - 1895

“It requires courage to make a frontal attack on nature through the broad planes and the large lines and it is cowardly to do it by the facets and details. It is a battle.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“Poor Gauguin, 'way off there on his island! I'll wager he spends most of his time thinking of Rue Lafitte. I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home. Now if I should leave my house for more than two days…”

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Edgar Degas

"The Crime and the Punishment" (p. 48)
posthumous quotes, Degas: An Intimate Portrait' (1927)

“The museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well, for, if they stimulate in the weak a desire to imitate, they furnish the strong with the means of their emancipation.”

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Edgar Degas

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

“In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed. ] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2”

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Edgar Degas

Quote in Gegas letter to his friend James Tissot, New Orleans, 18 February 1873; as quoted in 'Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition', Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, p. 99
Degas is referring to his painting 'Cotton Merchants in New Orleans' [Cotton Merchants in New Orleans https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/art/299832, (1873)
1855 - 1875

“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.”

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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

“A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.”

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Edgar Degas

"Recollections of Degas by Berthe Morisot" (p. 84)
posthumous quotes, Degas Dance Drawing' (1935)

“It seems to me that today, if the artist wishes to be serious — to cut out a little original niche for himself, or at least preserve his own innocence of personality — he must once more sink himself in solitude. There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profit; in order to do anything at all we need (so to speak) the wit and ideas of our neighbors as much as the businessmen need the funds of others to win on the market. All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment.”

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Edgar Degas

Quote from Degas' Notebook entry c. 1860's; as quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)
1855 - 1875