"In painting you must give the idea
of the true by the means of the false."
-Edgar Degas: French painter, sculptor, and printmaker (also considered founder of impressionism)
I'm going to analyze this quotation by replacing the "painting" with "art." What I believe Degas is saying is that in art you are expressing a solidified fact or opinion through a mean that is unrealistic or contrasting to the truth of said expression. For instance, in cubism, artists take subject matter and simplify them into basic lines and shapes. In doing this, the artist is taking the truth (the subject matter that really exists) and turning it into an abstraction which represents the "means of the false." Artists use abstraction, mood, color, mark-making, line, light, texture, shape, and a multitude of other techniques to make an expression of a truth.
Sampling of Degas' work:
Stage Rehearsal, oil on canvas. 1878-79.
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