Edgar Degas Quotes

Nothing in art should seem accidental, not even movement

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

Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.

Drawing is not the same as form, it is a way of seeing form.

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.

What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.

There are some women who should barely be spoken to; they should only be caressed.

The Dance instills in you something that sets you apart. Something heroic and remote.

These women of mine are decent, simple human beings who have no other concern than that of their physical condition... it is as though one were watching through a keyhole.

There is no such thing as Intelligence; one has intelligence of this or that. One must have intelligence only for what one is doing.

I really have a lot of stuff in my head; if only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things.

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work?

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

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.

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.

Do portraits of people in familiar and typical attitudes, above all give to their face the same choice of expression that one gives to their body.

One does not marry art. One ravishes it.

If I could have had my own way, I would have confined myself to black and white.

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

I should like to be famous and unknown.

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.

It's easy to have talent at 20 but what is difficult is to have talent at 50.

Once they witnessed one of his painting sold at auction for $100,000. And asked how you do it, he said, 'I feel as a horse must feel when the beautiful cup is given to the jockey.'

In painting you must give the idea of the true by means of the false.

The true traveler never arrives.

Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes.

There is love, and there is work; and we have only one heart.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he has to make others see.

My art, what do you want to say about it? Do you think you can explain the merits of a picture to those who do not see them? . . . I can find the best and clearest words to explain my meaning, and I have spoken to the most intelligent people about art, and they have not understood; but among people who understand, words are not necessary, you say humph, he, ha and everything has been said.

Taste! It doesn't exist. An artist makes beautiful things without being aware of it.

The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things. A picture is first of all a product of the imagination of the artist; it must never be a copy. If then two or three natural accents can be added, obviously no harm is done. The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe.

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.

Hitherto the nude has always been represented in poses which presuppose an audience. But my women are simple, honest creatures who are concerned with nothing beyond their physical occupations... it is as if you were looking through a keyhole.

Realism is more important than the sentiment of the picture.

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.

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.

Daylight is too easy. What I want is difficult - the atmosphere of lamps and moonlight.

Instantaneity is photography.

Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.

Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.

I put it [picture "A still life of a pear" by Edouard Manet] there [on the wall, next to the picture "Jupiter and Thetis" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.

It is people's movement that consoles us. If the leaves of a tree did not move, how sad would be the tree - and so should we.

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

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.

No art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.

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.

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

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