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Edgar Degas1834–1917

I assure you no art was ever less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters; of inspiration, spontaneity, temperament — temperament is the word — I know nothing.

Edgar Degas on art

Quote of Degas in conversation with George Moore, later quoted by Moore in Impressions and Opinions (1891)

Quote and source from Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

More from Edgar Degas

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.
‘The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas’, (1961)
- Art
If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don’t mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning.
As quoted in Ambroise Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait (1927), p. 56
- Art
- Comedy
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.
Ambroise Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait (1927), “As He Grows Old”, p. 87
- Art
- Dancing

All 4 quotes from Edgar Degas

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