DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51520#0039
of the “limes.” By the “Semiramis” hangs
a tale—Degas painted Semiramis at the head
of a group of women admiring the walls of
Babylon; there were hanging gardens in the
background. But one day he scratched half
the picture away, and his explanation was
that Semiramis would not surround herself
with women, she would walk surrounded by
men. His best pictures were painted before
he began to think, when he was merely inter-
ested in nature. Then he could tell the story
of a character in a face better than it has been
told since Holbein, and if any one of Degas’s
pictures is bought for this gallery I hope it
will be one of these early pictures, the red-
headed girl, for instance, an unfinished sketch,
exhibited some time ago at Knightsbridge, the
property, I believe, of Durand Ruel.
In the days of the Nouvelle Athdnes we
used to repeat Degas’s witticisms, how he once
said to Whistler, “Whistler, if you were not
a genius you would be the most ridiculous
man in Paris.” Leonardo made roads, Degas
makes witticisms. I remember his answer
when I confided to him one day that I did
not care for Daumier—the beautiful “ Don
Quixote and Sancho Pansa ” that hangs on
the wall I had not then seen ; that is my ex-
cuse—an insufficent one I admit. Degas
answered, “If you were to show Raphael a
Daumier he would admire it, he would take
off his hat; but if you were to show him a
Cabanel he would say with a sigh, ‘That is
29
a tale—Degas painted Semiramis at the head
of a group of women admiring the walls of
Babylon; there were hanging gardens in the
background. But one day he scratched half
the picture away, and his explanation was
that Semiramis would not surround herself
with women, she would walk surrounded by
men. His best pictures were painted before
he began to think, when he was merely inter-
ested in nature. Then he could tell the story
of a character in a face better than it has been
told since Holbein, and if any one of Degas’s
pictures is bought for this gallery I hope it
will be one of these early pictures, the red-
headed girl, for instance, an unfinished sketch,
exhibited some time ago at Knightsbridge, the
property, I believe, of Durand Ruel.
In the days of the Nouvelle Athdnes we
used to repeat Degas’s witticisms, how he once
said to Whistler, “Whistler, if you were not
a genius you would be the most ridiculous
man in Paris.” Leonardo made roads, Degas
makes witticisms. I remember his answer
when I confided to him one day that I did
not care for Daumier—the beautiful “ Don
Quixote and Sancho Pansa ” that hangs on
the wall I had not then seen ; that is my ex-
cuse—an insufficent one I admit. Degas
answered, “If you were to show Raphael a
Daumier he would admire it, he would take
off his hat; but if you were to show him a
Cabanel he would say with a sigh, ‘That is
29