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
Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Edgar Degas expresses frustration over the constraints of earning a living that delay his artistic work.
In this quote, Degas reflects on the challenge that artists often face: the necessity to engage in money-making activities which can detract from their creative pursuits. He implies that if financial survival were not a barrier, he would have completed more artworks by now, highlighting the tension between practical life and artistic ambition.
Themes
ArtMoneyCreativityTimeFrustration
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on the balance between work and creativity, this quote highlights the struggle many artists face.
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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