Alone Together Then and Now

1708 Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 15, No. 10, October 2009 “Sickly, neurotic, and so myopic that he is afraid of losing his sight; but for this very reason an eminently receptive creature and sensitive to the character of things,” wrote French writer and art critic Edmond de Goncourt about Edgar Degas. The artist knew his own difficult nature. “[I have] one terrible, irreconcilable enemy,” he once admitted to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, “myself, of course.” From those who associated with him, Degas exacted an emotional toll. “There will be a dish cooked without butter for me. No flowers on the table, very little light .... You’ll shut up the cat, I know, and no one will bring a dog. And if there are women there, ask them not to put smells on themselves .... Scent, when there are things that smell so good! Such as toast, for example. And we shall sit down to table at exactly half-past seven.” “All his friends had to leave him,” Renoir reported, “I was one of the last to go, but even I couldn’t stay till the end.” Considered a misogynist by some, Degas counted among his friends Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, and leading opera divas and ballerinas of his day. Accused of being a recluse, he denied it. “I am not a misanthrope, far from it, but it is sad to live surrounded by scoundrels.” Despite his uncompromising persona, he was respected by his peers, who were afraid of him, and was popular with art critics and buyers. “I was, or appeared to be, hard with everyone, owing to a sort of tendency towards roughness that originated in my doubts and my bad temper.” Born in Paris during the same decade as Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, and Claude Monet, Degas had many opportunities. His early years were privileged, though tinged by the melancholy that followed him all his life. “I was sulky with the whole world and with myself.” Under pressure he agreed to study law but soon abandoned the effort and pursued art with a fervor that convinced his father to support him, first at the Atelier Lamothe and École des Beaux-Arts and then independently in Italy, “the most extraordinary period of my life.” Degas’ early works were historical paintings in the classical tradition. Early in his training, he absorbed the methods of Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, and Gustave Courbet and aspired to paint like Michelangelo and Raphael. But by the 1860s, he abandoned history for scenes of everyday life. While copying a Velásquez at the Louvre, he met Manet, who became his friend and brought him into the circle of impressionist painters. Though Degas exhibited with them often, he never identified himself with the movement. “What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters. Of inspiration, spontaneEdgar Degas (1834–1917) Absinthe (c. 1876) Oil on canvas (92 cm × 68 cm) Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, New York, NY, USA Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France