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Strictly Degas: the painter obsessed with ballet

4 October 2017

As a major new exhibition of the work of Edgar Degas opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the artist's fascination with dance and his obsession with perfection is writ large. "It is essential," he said, "to do the same subject over again, ten times, one hundred times".

Female dancers in violet skirts, their arms raised, c.1900 © Fitzwilliam Museum
They call me the painter of dancers... They don't understand that the dancer has been for me a pretext for painting pretty fabrics and for rendering movement.
Edgar Degas

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Dancer with a fan, 1895 © Private Collection
The creation of a painting takes as much trickery and premeditation as the commitment of a crime.
Edgar Degas

The Dance Examination, 1880. Pastel on paper © Denver Art Museum
You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.
Edgar Degas

Three dancers in salmon skirts 1904-06 © Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas

Dancers in the Wings 1900-5 © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Everybody has talent at twenty-five. The difficult thing is to have it at fifty.
Edgar Degas

Little dancer aged fourteen France, 1880-1 / c. 1922 Bronze, fabric © Sainsbury Centre Visual Arts
To be survived by sculpture in bronze – what a responsibility.
Edgar Degas

Dancer with a fan, 1888, © Kings College Cambridge
We were created to look at one another, weren't we.
Edgar Degas

Young female dancer adjusting her tights, 1880, © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Make a drawing, begin it again, trace it; begin it again and trace it again.
Edgar Degas

X-ray of Arabesque wax model and Arabesque c.1882–95 © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Art is not what you see but what you make others see.
Edgar Degas

Degas: 'A Passion for Perfection' runs at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge until 14 January 2018.

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