Edgar Degas

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.

A painting requires a little mystery, some vagueness, and some fantasy. When you always make your meaning perfectly plain you end up boring everyone.

Drawing is not what one sees but what one can make others see.

The artist must see things as he would see them for the first time. He must see them as if he had never seen them before.

Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

It is much better to draw what you see, even if it is ugly, than to draw what you imagine, even if it is beautiful.

One must do the same subject over again ten times, a hundred times. In art, nothing must resemble an accident, not even movement.

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

The public needs to be educated. They need to be taught to see.

It is not enough to see, one must also feel.

I am a colorist with line.

The dance is a pretext for the drawing.

Even when I am painting a woman's portrait, I am thinking of her as a horse.

Photography is a process of observation and documentation, not a creative art.

I have tried to express the movement of things and people, not their static appearance.

The artist must live in the present, but his work must be for the future.

One must draw everything, draw unceasingly, draw from anything and everything.

I want to look through the keyhole.

The air that we breathe is not the same as the air that we paint.

To be an artist, you must be a solitary person.