Editing Edgar Degas (section)

==Personality and politics==
[[File:At The Stock Exchange.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Portraits at the Stock Exchange]]'', 1879]]
[[File:Edgar Degas self portrait photograph.jpeg|thumb|left|''[[Self-portrait]]'' (photograph), c. 1895]]

Degas, who believed that "the artist must live alone, and his private life must remain unknown",<ref name="Werner11">Werner 1969, p. 11</ref> lived an outwardly uneventful life. In company he was known for his wit, which could often be cruel. He was characterized as an "old curmudgeon" by the novelist [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]],<ref name="Werner11" /> and he deliberately cultivated his reputation as a [[misanthropic]] bachelor.<ref name="Bade and Degas 1992, p. 6"/>

In the 1870s, Degas gravitated towards the [[Republicanism#France|republican]] circles of [[Léon Gambetta]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Nord |first=Philip G. |title=The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-century France |url=https://archive.org/details/republicanmoment0000nord |url-access=registration |date=1995 |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/republicanmoment0000nord/page/177 177-178]|isbn=9780674762718 }}</ref> However, his republicanism did not come untainted, and signs of the prejudice and irritability which would overtake him in old age were occasionally manifested. He fired a model upon learning she was [[Protestant]].<ref name="Werner11" /> Although Degas painted a number of Jewish subjects from 1865 to 1870, his 1879 painting ''[[Portraits at the Stock Exchange]]'' may be a watershed in his political opinions. The painting is a portrait of the Jewish banker Ernest May—who may have commissioned the work and was its first owner—and is widely regarded as anti-Semitic by modern experts. The facial features of the banker in profile have been directly compared to those in the [[anti-Semitic]] cartoons rampant in Paris at the time, while those of the background characters have drawn comparisons to Degas' earlier work ''Criminal Physiognomies''.<ref>[http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/f05/eharwood/insider_trading_degas_most_antisemitic_painting.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001011842/http://blogs.princeton.edu/wri152-3/f05/eharwood/insider_trading_degas_most_antisemitic_painting.html|date=1 October 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bernheimer |first1=Charles |last2=Armstrong |first2=Carol |last3=Kendall |first3=Richard |last4=Pollock |first4=Griselda |author-link4=Griselda Pollock |title=Odd Man Out: Readings of the Work and Reputation of Edgar Degas |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3045939 |journal=The Art Bulletin |volume=75 |issue=1 |pages=180 |date=March 1993 |jstor=3045939 |issn=0004-3079 |doi=10.2307/3045939}}</ref>

The [[Dreyfus Affair]], which divided opinion in Paris from the 1890s to the early 1900s, intensified his anti-Semitism. By the mid-1890s, he had broken off relations with all of his Jewish friends,<ref name="Guillaud and Guillaud, 1985, p. 56" /> publicly disavowed his previous friendships with Jewish artists, and refused to use models who he believed might be Jewish. He remained an outspoken anti-Semite and member of the anti-Semitic [[Dreyfus affair|"Anti-Dreyfusards"]] until his death.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nochlin |first=Linda |author-link=Linda Nochlin |title=Politics of Vision: Essays on 19th Century Art And Society |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HCwD6Kgp_d0C&q=pissarro+and+degas+%22anti-semitism%22&pg=PA141 |publisher=[[Harper & Row]] |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-06-430187-9 }}{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>