Degas Was A Raving Anti-Semite, And His Attitudes Infect His Art

He cut off his Jewish friends after the Dreyfus Affair, and he read a nationalist, anti-Semitic newspaper, and as the 21st century deals with the fact that we haven’t actually left murderous racism behind, “it also becomes harder to relegate Degas’ inhumanity to an artifact of a time when racism and bigotry were more acceptable. His cruelty becomes, instead, an indelible component of his artistry.”