Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Edgar Degas
66 quotes
“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century, ed. Robert Goldwater (Pantheon, 1945)
“There is a kind of success that is indistinguishable from panic.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Daniel Halévy, Degas Parle (1960) [My Friend Degas, trans. and ed. Mina Curtiss, Wesleyan University Press, 1964], p. 119
“Une peinture, c'est d'abord un produit de l'imagination de l'artiste, ce ne doit jamais être une copie. Si, ensuite, on peut y ajouter deux ou trois accents de nature, evidemment ca ne fait pas de mal.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
“C'est très bien de copier ce qu'on voit, c'est beaucoup mieux de dessiner ce que l'on ne voit plus que dans son mémoire. C'est une transformation pendant laquelle l'ingéniosité collabore avec la mémoire. Vous ne reproduisez que ce qui vous a frappé, c'est-à-dire le nécessaire.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Maurice Sérullaz, L'univers de Degas (H. Scrépel, 1979), p. 13
“Je voudrais être illustre et inconnu.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Degas said this to Henri Rouart, as cited by Antoine Terrasse, in Degas (Chartwell Books, 1982)
“Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel I am disarming them. I show them without their coquetry.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Julian Barnes, 'The Artist As Voyeur' (1996), from The Grove Book of Art Writing, ed. Martin Gayford and Karen Wright (Grove Press, 2000)
“Oh! Women can never forgive me. They hate me, they can feel that I ‘m disarming them. I show them without their coquetry, in the states of animals cleaning themselves... ...I'm sure of it; they see me as the enemy. Fortunately, since if they did like me, that would be the end of me.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In Degas by Himself, Drawings, Paintings, Writings, ed. Richard Kendall 2000, p. 299
“pinkish and bluish draperies on neutral grey grounds and black cypresses... ...The red of Jeptha's dress... ...some reddish brown, some slightly pinkish... ...Graduated blue sky... ...the ground at the front a grey violet shadow... Look for some turquoise in the blue.(Degas' working note about choosing colors for his future painting 'The Daughter of Jeptha')”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Degas' working notes; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
“..women... ...their way of observing, combining, sensing the way they dress. They compare a thousand of more visible things with one another than a man does.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 53
“Anyone would think paintings were made like speculations on the stock market, out of the frictions of ambitious young people... ...it sharpens the mind, but clouds your judgement.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 34
“[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..”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Degas' Notebook (undated); as quoted in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition, Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New York, N.Y.) 1975, pp. 81-82
“We were created to look at one another, weren't we.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Degas, as cited in Walter Sickert The Complete writing on art ed Anna Robins OUP, Oxford 2002
“I always suspect an artist who is successful before he is dead.”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: John Murray Gibbon, Pagan Love (1922), ch. xiv
“In the office there are about fifteen people whose attention is directed toward a table covered with the costly fabric [raw cotton]; one man is bent over the table and another is sort of seating on it – the buyer and the broker are discussing a sample. A painting of a vernacular subject, if there is such a thing, and I think by a better hand than most others (a size 40 canvas, I think). I'm planning another less complicated and more surprising yet, better art, in which everyone is in summer dress, the walls white, and a sea of cotton on the tables. (translation based on M. Kay's, in M. Gérin [ed.] and M. Kay, transl. 'Degas letters', Oxford, 1947, pp. 29-30, no. 2”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) first seen 1873 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Gegas letter to his friend James Tissot, New Orleans, 18 February 1873; as quoted in 'Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition', Anne Distel, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (New Y…
“I have been singularly hard with myself. I have had to be. You must realize that this is so, since you have, at times, reproached me for it, and were astonished because I had so little confidence in myself. 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. I ask your pardon, then, if, with this damned art as an excuse, I have wounded your noble and intelligent spirit; perhaps even your heart..”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) said by 1917 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Draw all kind of everyday object placed, in such a way that they have in them the life of the man or woman – corsets that have just been removed, for example, and which retain the form of the body. Do a series in aquatint on mourning, different blacks – black veils of deep mourning floating on the face – black gloves – mourning carriages, undertaker’s vehicles – carriages like Venetian gondolas. On smoke – smoker’s smoke, pipes, cigarettes, cigars – smoke from locomotives, from tall factory chimneys, from steam boats, etc. On evening – infinite variety of subjects in cafes, different tones of glass robes reflected in the mirrors. On bakery, bread. Series of baker's boys, seen in the cellar itself or through the basement windows from the street – backs the colour of the pink flour – beautiful curves of dough – still-life's of different breads, large, oval, long, round, etc. Studies in color of the yellows, pinks, grays, whites of bread... ...Neither monuments nor houses have ever been done from below, close up as they appear when you walk down the street. [a working note in which Degas planned series of views of modern Paris, the same time when he sketched the backstreet brothels, making graphic unflinching and even his realistic 'pornographic' sketches he called his 'glimpses through the keyhole', in which he also experimented with perspectives]”
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Degas' Notebooks; Clarendon Press, Oxford 1976, nos 30 & 34 circa 1877; as quoted in The private lives of the Impressionists, Sue Roe, Harpen Collins Publishers, New York 2006, p. 182