Edgar Degas Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Edgar Degas

  Art, People, Vagueness

  "Souvenirs sur Degas (Memories of Degas)". Book by Georges Jeanniot, 1933.

  67 Copy quote

• I'm glad I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death.

  Edgar Degas

  Bored, Style, Found

  "Degas: An Intimate Portrait (Technical Details)". Book by Ambroise Vollard (1927) translated by Randolph T. Weaver (p. 70), 1986.

  1 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Beauty, Dance, Art

  "The shop-talk of Edgar Degas".

  98 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Waste, Wasting Time

  Edgar Degas' remark to E. Rouart (1904), as quoted in Franois Fosca "Renoir: His Life and Work" (p. 274), 1961.

  68 Copy quote

• The true traveler never arrives.

  Edgar Degas

  Traveler

  52 Copy quote

• The fascinating thing, is not to show the source of light, but the effect of light.

  Edgar Degas

  Light, Source, Shows

  3 Copy quote

• I should like to be famous and unknown.

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Should

  Edgar Degas' remark to Henri Rouart, as quoted in Antoine Terrasse "Degas", 1973.

  0 Copy quote

• Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and overlapping talk. Why shouldn't painting be too?

  Edgar Degas

  Real, Communication, Half

  59 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Experience, Painting

  57 Copy quote

• People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement and painting pretty clothes.

  Edgar Degas

  Girl, Lying, Clothes

  Edgar Degas, Russell Ash (1992). “Degas' Ballet Dancers”, Universe Pub

  4 Copy quote

• If painting weren't so difficult, it wouldn't be fun.

  Edgar Degas

  Fun, Painting, Difficult

  17 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Fifty, Twenties

  48 Copy quote

• An artist must approach his work in the spirit of the criminal about to commit a crime.

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Criminals, Spirit

  4 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Artist, Doe

  39 Copy quote

• It seems to me that today if the artist wishes to be serious... he must once more sink himself in solitude.

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Solitude, Wish

  Trewin Copplestone, Edgar Degas (1998). “Edgar Degas”, Gramercy Books

  3 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Understanding, Charming, Conversation

  Edgar Degas (1948). “Letters”

  5 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Reflection, Study

  Ann Dumas, Edgar Degas (1996). “Degas As a Collector”

  49 Copy quote

• We were created to look at one another, weren't we?

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Looks

  "Walter Sickert: The Complete Writings on Art". Book edited by Anna Gruetzner Robins, December 2000.

  8 Copy quote

• 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?

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Stupid, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• Truth is never ugly when one can find in it what one needs.

  Edgar Degas

  Truth, Needs, Ugly

  Malcolm R. Daniel, Edgar Degas, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Bibliothèque nationale de France (1998). “Edgar Degas, Photographer”, p.29, Metropolitan Museum of Art

  14 Copy quote

• One does not marry art. One ravishes it.

  Edgar Degas

  Inspirational, Art, Doe

  2 Copy quote

• I feel as a horse must feel when the beautiful cup is given to the jockey.

  Edgar Degas

  Beautiful, Horse, Jockeys

  6 Copy quote

• C'est vrai. Voilá quelqu'un qui sent comme moi. (It is true. There is someone who feels as I do).

  Edgar Degas

  Feels

  11 Copy quote

• He once said that he wished to be famous, but unknown.

  Edgar Degas

  Want

  "Degas: Drawings".

  48 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Drawing

  Robert Hale Ives Gammell, Edgar Degas (1961). “The shop-talk of Edgar Degas”

  37 Copy quote

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