Drawing is the artist's most direct and spontaneous expression, a species of writing: it reveals, better than does painting, his true personality.
Edgar DegasRead
What is certain is that setting a piece of nature in place and drawing it are two very different things.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Capturing nature in art involves a different process than simply placing it in a physical space.
Edgar Degas emphasizes the distinction between simply setting a scene from nature and the artistic process of interpreting and rendering it through drawing. This highlights the complexity of artistic expression, suggesting that the act of creating art requires deeper insight and skill than mere observation or arrangement of natural elements.
Themes
NatureArtDrawingExpressionInterpretation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in an art class to discuss the differences between observation and artistic representation.
More from Edgar Degas
All quotes βNo art is less spontaneous than mine. What I do is the result of reflection and the study of the great masters.
Edgar DegasRead
Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.
Edgar DegasRead
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 DegasRead
The Dance instills in you something that sets you apart. Something heroic and remote.
Edgar DegasRead
You have to have a high conception, not of what you are doing, but of what you may do one day: without that, there's no point in working.
Edgar DegasRead
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