Edgar Degas Quotes
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In painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false.
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What a delightful thing is the conversation of specialists! One understands absolutely nothing and it's charming.
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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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Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.
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Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience; but these women of mine are honest, simple folk, unconcerned by any other interests than those involved in their physical condition. Here is another; she is washing her feet. It is as if you looked through a key-hole.
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I'm glad to say I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death.
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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..
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We were created to look at one another, weren't we.
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I put it a still life of a pear, made by Manet there on the wall, next to Ingres' painting 'Jupiter', for a pear like that would overthrow any god.
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No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.
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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.
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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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Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.
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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.
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I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.
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Apart from my heart, I feel everything grows old in me. Even my heart has something artificial. It has been sewn by the dancers in a soft, pink satin purse like their shoes.
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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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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.
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I believe Corot painted a tree better that any of us, but still I find him superior in his figures.
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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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One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.
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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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It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory.
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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…