Edgar Degas Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Edgar Degas

  Beauty, Dance, Art

  "The shop-talk of Edgar Degas".

  89 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

• 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

• 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.

  65 Copy quote

• The true traveler never arrives.

  Edgar Degas

  Traveler

  50 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

  58 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Artist, Doe

  37 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

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

  Edgar Degas

  Artist, Fifty, Twenties

  48 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

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

  Edgar Degas

  Black And White, Way, My Own

  Edgar Degas (1963). “Degas”

  35 Copy quote

• Muses work all day long and then at night get together and dance.

  Edgar Degas

  Night, Long, Together

  28 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

  3 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

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Beauty, Simple, Occupation

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Intelligent, Thinking

  17 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Want

  "Degas: Drawings".

  48 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Battle, Details, Lines

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

  0 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Memories, Imagination, Transformation

  44 Copy quote

• For those who don't know what they are doing, painting is easy.
  For those who do know what they are doing, painting is difficult.

  Edgar Degas

  Painting, Easy, Difficult

  20 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Drawing, Way, Form

  Edgar Degas, Jane Kinsman, Michael Pantazzi (2009). “Degas: The Uncontested Master”

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Moving, People, Tree

  14 Copy quote

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

  Edgar Degas

  Fun, Painting, Difficult

  17 Copy quote

• Art' is the same word as 'artifice,' that is to say, something deceitful. It must succeed in giving the impression of nature by false means.

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Mean, Giving

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  Edgar Degas

  Cutting, Artist, Winning

  Edgar Degas' notebook entry (circa 1860), as quoted in "Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century" edited by Robert Goldwater, 1945.

  37 Copy quote

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