For those who don't know what they are doing, painting is easy. Edgar Degas More Quotes by Edgar Degas More Quotes From Edgar Degas I don't admit that a woman draws that well! Edgar Degas genderwellsdraws 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. Edgar Degas artistimaginationtwo Drawing is your understanding of form. Edgar Degas drawingformunderstanding Art is really a battle. Edgar Degas art-isbattleart One reproduces only that which is striking; that is to say, the necessary. Thus, one's recollections and inventions are liberated from the tyranny which nature exerts. Edgar Degas recollectioninventiontyranny What a horrible thing yellow is. Edgar Degas horrible-thingshorribleyellow There is too much talk and gossip; pictures are apparently made, like stock-market prices, by competition of people eager for profits... All this traffic sharpens our intelligence and falsifies our judgment. Edgar Degas gossipcompetitionpeople I frequently lock myself in my studio. I do not often see the people I love, and in the end I shall suffer for it... painting is one's private life. Edgar Degas solitudesufferingpeople Make people's portraits in familiar and typical attitudes. Edgar Degas typicalattitudepeople The air we see in the paintings of the old masters is never the air we breathe. Edgar Degas paintingbreatheair I should like to be famous and unknown. Edgar Degas artistshould 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. Edgar Degas keyholesdecentsimple I would like to be famous but unknown. Edgar Degas fame I always urged my contemporaries to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour. Edgar Degas drawinginspirationlooks Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature. Edgar Degas contemplatingboredomovercoming 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. Edgar Degas insurance-companiescompanystuff 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. Edgar Degas expressionattitudepeople the moods of sadness that come over anyone who takes up art... these dismal moods have very little compensation. Edgar Degas sadnesslittlesart 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. Edgar Degas wifelittlesmight I have been, or seemed, hard with everyone because I was carried away by a sort of brutality born of my distrust in myself and my ill-humor. I have felt so badly equipped, so soft, in spite of the fact that my attitude towards art seemed to me so just. I was disgusted with everyone, and especially myself. Edgar Degas brutalityattitudeart
