Edgar Degas

Hello! My name is Edgar Degas, and I want to tell you about my life as an artist. I was born on July 19th, 1834, in the beautiful city of Paris, France. My family was well-off, and my father, who was a banker, loved art. He filled our home with beautiful paintings and encouraged my passion for drawing from a very young age. Instead of playing outside all the time, my favorite thing to do was to visit the famous Louvre museum. There, I would spend hours copying the paintings of the great masters. I learned so much by studying their work. By the time I was a young man in 1855, I was officially a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, the best art school in Paris, but I felt I learned the most by teaching myself and studying the classics on my own.

For a few years, starting in 1856, I traveled through Italy, sketching and painting everything I saw. When I returned to Paris, I thought I would be a history painter, creating grand scenes from the past. But soon, I realized I was much more interested in the world around me—the busy, modern life of Paris! I loved watching people at the horse races, listening to singers in cafes, and observing women working in laundries. My friends, like Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, were also painting modern life in a new style. People started calling us 'Impressionists.' In 1874, we held our very own art show, separate from the official ones. I helped organize it, but I always preferred to call myself a 'Realist.' That's because I was more interested in capturing the real, honest moments of life through careful drawing than just the 'impression' of light and color.

My most famous subject, and the one I loved most, was the ballet. I spent countless hours at the Paris Opéra, not just watching the beautiful performances from the audience, but also sketching backstage. I wanted to show the real life of a dancer—the hard work, the endless stretching at the barre, and the tired moments between rehearsals. I used bright, beautiful pastels to capture the vibrant colors of their costumes and the soft glow of the stage lights. Painting wasn't my only art form. As my eyesight began to fail me in my later years, I found it easier to work with my hands. I started making sculptures of dancers and horses out of wax, trying to capture their movement and energy in three dimensions.

I lived to be 83 years old, and I never stopped looking at the world with an artist's eye. Today, people remember me for showing that everyday life could be beautiful and interesting enough to be art. My paintings of dancers hang in the most famous museums around the world, reminding everyone to look for the grace and movement in the world all around us.