"... knowing that if he liked them and fucked them a lot he would become cerebrally ill and hopeless at painting. Degas’s painting is virile and impersonal precisely because he has resigned himself to being personally no more than a little notary, with a horror of riotous living."
Wrote Vincent Van Gogh in a letter, in 1888, quoted in "A Compulsive Perfectionist/The intensely private Edgar Degas reveals himself intermittently in his voluminous correspondence, in moments of unexpected self-awareness and candor" (NYRB).
But the article is about Degas, not Van Gogh. We know Van Gogh is interesting. What about Degas? Okay, I scanned the article so you don't have to (and I even have a subscription to the NYRB). Here's a Degas quote for you:
"How can one chat with people like that? Let’s see, with a Jewish Belgian who is a naturalized Frenchman! It’s as if one wished to speak with a hyena, a boa. Such people do not belong to the same humanity as us."
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30 comments:
"Degas lives like a little notary and doesn’t like women knowing that if he liked them and fucked them a lot he would become cerebrally ill and hopeless at painting"
George Costanza's girlfriend went on sex-strike and he ended up learning Portuguese! Many such cases!
"God gave men penises and brains, but not enough blood to run both at the same time."
- Robin Williams
"Such people do not belong to the same humanity as us"
Because they are Jewish? Or just because they are Belgian?
Things not expected today: Reading something about Degas' tumescence (or inability to achieve it).
Life is a series of surprises!
I know. Belgian!
Speaking of iconic duels.
A few weeks ago, the TCM cable-TV channel broadcast the 1956 movie Lust for Life about Vincent Van Gough, played by the actor Kirk Douglas. I recorded the movie, and then my wife and I watched it a few days ago.
I was impressed that so much was known about Van Gough's life, since he was such an obscure person who did not become famous until long after his death. From the Internet, I learned that he and his brother Theo wrote many letters to each other, and much of that correspondence was saved. Later, the American writer Irving Stone came upon the correspondence and then used it to write his novel Lust for Life, which was published in 1934 and became a best-seller. I have not read the novel, but I think it must be a remarkable achievement of authorship.
The brother Theo is a major character in the movie. Their father was a pastor, and both of the brothers were very thoughtful, kind, caring men. Vincent himself tried to become a pastor, but was very inarticulate in his speech. Therefore he drifted away from that profession and eventually became a painter.
I wonder if there is some relationship among his inarticulate speech, his increasingly bizarre behavior and his obsession with painting.
Not sure I love starting out a book review with a spicy quote that's not even in the book you're supposed to be reviewing! It'd definitely a choice.
I found it interesting the translation chosen was "hard-on".
I remember being an adolescent, and wanting to have sex. I wanted to get that monkey off my back. I figured once was all I needed, and I'd be free of sexual desire.
Yeah......that's not how things worked out.
Anti-semitism in France in the 1880s and 1890s! I'm shocked, but Captain Alfred Dreyfus was not.
knowing that if he liked them and fucked them a lot he would become cerebrally ill and hopeless at painting.
Women uh.. women sense his power and they seek the life essence. He, uh.. He does not avoid women,
But He.. He does deny them his essence.”
I'm Jewish and I couldn't help but laugh at that quote (I guess that's the hyena in me).
At least he didn't say Degas had alopecia.
"It’s as if one wished to speak with a hyena, a boa. Such people do not belong to the same humanity as us."
Hmmm, the Jew hatred runs deep in this one. Was he a Muslim?
'I know. Belgian!'
Poirot weeps...
Degas had an interesting background in terms of historical crises he or his family lived through. His family and its influence upon him isn't much discussed. His mother came from a Creole family in New Orleans and this gave him a mixed lineage. Her family left Haiti in 1804 which means they lived in Haiti during the Haitian Revolution, a time noted for atrocities on all sides. His mother was born in New Orleans while Louisiana was a slave state and got part of her dowry by the sale of slave her family owned. That family made money as New Orleans bankers and cotton brokers before, during and after the Civil War which means they were involved with the riches from plantation slave system and then with the Confederate government. Degas' mother had married and moved to France and as a result Degas was in the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War which France lost. This war was marked by ghastly battles as well as defeat. Degas left the French Army during the war due to eyesight problems and went to New Orleans staying with his mother's relatives. There he gave up on historical painting and turned to the kind of painting he is known for - scenes from life as "modern" people live it. In this period, despite their mixed heritage, his relatives in New Orleans were resisting Reconstruction with all they had. Back in France, Degas himself became extremely anti-Semitic and made the ugliest kind of remarks about racial inheritance. Later his eyesight really failed and he became relatively poor. The last we know of him, he is semi-blind, wandering at night through the streets of Paris during World War I.
It's as if he was involved by family, nation and prevailing ideas on race in too much history and he turned away into the personal where his internal pressure and his talents created great art.
Celebrities Gone Wild! - Episode 25: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Painters!
Edgar Degas
ED Degas
His initials are ED..... coincidence?
NYRB regarding the book being reviewed:
"The prurient reader will look in vain among the 1,240 letters transcribed, dated, annotated, and translated in Theodore Reff’s monumental edition of Degas’s correspondence for revelations about his sexuality and erotic life..."
NYRB lead paragraph in review of said book:
"Why do you say that Degas has trouble getting a hard-on? Degas lives like a little notary and doesn’t like women, knowing that if he liked them and fucked them a lot he would become cerebrally ill and hopeless at painting."
Seems manipulative, but whatever works, I guess.
It's best to know the art and ignore the artist. It's more enjoyable that way. So we can infer Degas was gay and an anti-semite. Anti-semitism in France is a common bond across all political, artistic, cultural and social strata in France both today and back then. Nothing new there.
"candor". As usual with people's private things, less candor might be better.
Who cares. His exquisite work speaks for itself. He's not Mohandas Gandi or the Deli Llama for Christ's sake.
Sometimes someone misspells two words in a row and makes a hilarious inadvertent pun. The Dalai Lama is a respected religious leader from Tibet. A 'Deli Llama' would be an exotic meat served in a South American delicatessen. I know they eat guinea pigs in Ecuador and Peru. Do they also eat llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and - there's a fourth kind I can't remember now and am too lazy to look up? If they don't, it's probably only because they're too valuable as beasts of burden. Now I'm hungry for a Bacon Cheese Llama Burger or Llama Gyro. Arabs do sometimes eat camels, so South American camelids should also be edible.
"It's best to know the art and ignore the artist. It's more enjoyable that way. So we can infer Degas was gay and an anti-semite."
There is no reason to infer Degas was gay, (though, of course, he could have been). There are men who fear women, or fear intimacy, or who simply lack sexual desire. Assuming Degas remained celibate, there are a variety of reasons that might apply.
As to his being anti-semitic, he gives the game away rather frankly.
Because they are Jewish? Or just because they are Belgian?
=========
?explains why Poirot retire to London?
stuffed camel
and recipe
Degas was lucky. Nowadays, "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer" and similar works might land him in prison.
The old, disabled, and socially isolated can bear intense grudges, and the Dreyfuss case really divided France. Degas would cross the road to avoid having to greet his former friend Pissarro, who was Jewish. Renoir had similar views to Degas, though the consensus is that he didn't go as far as Degas. Cezanne thought Dreyfus guilty. He apparently wasn't hostile to Jews as Jews, but he did fall out with his old friend Zola over the affair. Monet was strongly Dreyfusard. Toulouse-Lautrec was torn between his Anti-Dreyfusard family and his Dreyfusard friends.
I wasn't going to comment on this but found myself thinking about it later and how hatred towards others can be tolerated when their humanity is denied and they are characterized as animals. The Germans did that to develop hatred towards Jews and I guess so did Degas and others.
Now of course no one would ever tolerate anyone (no matter how rich or powerful) who referred to Blacks as violent and uncivilized animals -- such a comment would immediately result in immediate excommunication from society. In fact we are removing the accolades of many former slave owners and tearing down their monuments, regardless of the good things and excellent causes they supported. Even Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are edging towards the chopping block. Somehow it was a step too far to take them out.
What bothers me about comments like, "Who cares[?] His exquisite work speaks for itself." and "anti-semitism in France is a common bond... " is the placid acceptance of hatred towards Jews for being Jews. I don't know why anti-semitism is tolerated other than Jews are not violent and destructive so they are not feared.
Russian can substitute for Jew to explain Ukraine and the West?
edumacate me.
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