Born in Paris, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas was the eldest of five children in a well-to-do banking family. After completing a secondary school, Degas enrolled in law school only to be overcome by his desires to  become a painter.  He then studied at Ecole des Beaux-Arts under the great French classicist Jean-Auguste-Dominque Ingres. Ingres urged Degas to “draw lines...many lines, from memory or from nature; it is in this way that you will become a good artist.” (p. 134, Vol. 3). From this instruction, Degas developed his great drawing ability that has made him “one of the world’s greatest draughtsmen.” (p. 153, Vol 3). Edgar Degas’s artistic contributions has made him one of the masters of modern art in the nineteenth-century.
     I agree with Degas’s statement that “no painting is less spontaneous than mine.”(p. 134, Vol. 3). His classical training  and practice has kept him apart for his fellow impressionists but that doesn’t mean his work was less spontaneous then theirs.  Degas believed these impressionists to be “slaves of the chance circumstances of nature and light.” (p. 146, Vol. 3). Instead of working from what was seen at that moment Degas worked with what he could remember. When he used a model for a portraiture he said the best way was to observe her on the ground floor and then run up to the attic to draw. As John Rewald states, “Degas’s realism consisted in expert mixture of acute observation, details stored in his memory, and a certain degree of imagination.” (p.146, Vol. 3). Uninterested with the study of light that captivated the impressionists, Degas was more attracted to theatrical subjects like horse racing, music halls, cafes and ballet.
     Within his subject interests, Edgar Degas sought out realism rather than idealism. As Keith Roberts states, “Degas wanted to capture an illusion of life without distorting it in the very process of giving it a memorable aesthetic form.” (p. 141, Vol. 3). I found it interesting to read about Degas’s theory on art.  He relates art to a battle, throwing around words like “courage” and “cowardice” and phrases like “launching a frontal attack.” Degas was able to see that the art done in his time was made for aesthetic purposes, or as he put it “like stock-market prices,” in order to make a profit. He believed that if one was serious about art then that individual would draw not only what he saw, “but what he must make others see. Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.” (p. 146, Vol. 3). Degas looked for the truth in art, to him, as Kenneth Clark states “nothing must be glossed over or smoothed out in the name of art.”(p. 136, Vol. 3).
     One of Degas’s special interest was with his desire to capture the female form in his art work.  Along with his crusade for the truth and his priority for depicting motion in art Degas’s women were not idealized.  This, back then, was uncalled for and Degas was ultimately labeled as being a misogynist. I disagree with this notion of Degas being a women hater. I believe his paintings of these women are realistic to where Degas is able to depict that individual’s expression.  As Norma Broude states, “Degas did not paint women as stereotyped feminine objects but as distinct human beings, emphasizing neither charm nor grace nor prettiness, but rather, individual character.”(p. 165, Vol. 3) For example in his famous painting The Absinthe Drinkers he shows the female model, Mlle Ellen Andree, as slumped down and discontent in front of a drink of absinthe. I don’t believe that he had hatred of woman in mind while doing this painting, I believe that Degas painted “with the intention of developing the expression of an absinthe drinker.”(p. 145, Vol. 3).
 Furthermore, Degas was known for his active role of introducing women to the art world. Mary Cassatt was among one of these women whom Degas invited to exhibit with the Impressionists. Mary Cassatt was also among Degas’s “small circle of friends” so to say that he hated women would be wrong. I agree with what Norma Broude states in her article about Degas’s Misogyny. She states that “the problem of Degas’s reputed misogyny may offer us a sobering example of how assumptions held by society at large can compromise scholarly objectivity...distorting our assessment of a significant aspect of his work.”(p.161, Vol. 3) Degas was a serious artist, always trying different angles and different mediums.
     From reading these several articles on Degas I would consider him to be a Renaissance man because of his revival of the classical forms and his concern with life. Degas also shows a desire for greater knowledge in the arts by being a well rounded painter as well as a poet, printmaker and sculptor. As Alfred Werner states, “he was the last of the Old Masters, yet also modern,”(p. 157, Vol. 3). It was fascinating to learn that Degas had done around sixty-six etchings and lithographs with his exploration of printmaking. Many when they hear the name Degas associate him with his paintings of ballerinas and never known how versatile an artist he was.
 I also was shocked to read that Degas, like Monet, struggled early in life with loosing his sight. Degas compensated for his shortsightedness by using pastels instead of oil. These later pastel works I find to be Degas’ best pieces, with their vibrant colors and movement.  Eric Newton puts it best by stating, “in his hands it (pastels) became capable of a monumentality of form combined with exquisite, shimmering colour.”(p. 151, Vol. 3). All in all Edgar Degas was an influential artist of his time. He may not of fit in with his fellow impressionists, or was depicted as a misogynist, but Degas will always be remembered for his contributions in the late nineteenth century.  At his funeral Degas insisted, “If there has to be one, you, Forain, get up and say ‘he greatly loved drawing’...”(p. 135, Vol. 3)