J.-K. Huysmans, the most brilliant and penetrating art critic of Degass time, recognized Degass revolutionary achievement and called his statue of The Little Dancer "the only really modern attempt that I know in sculpture. . . . All the ideas about sculpture, about cold, lifeless whiteness, about those memorable formulas copied again and again for centuries, are demolished. . . . M. Degas has knocked over the traditions of sculpture, just as he has for a long time been shaking up the conventions of painting."

Sculpture sustained Degass hopes and helped keep him alive. As early as 1870, when he was thirty-six, Degas lost the sight of his right eye. For the rest of his long life he suffered from myopia, an irregular field of vision, and an intolerance of bright light, and he was threatened with blindness, which finally extinguished his artistic career. In 1873 he fatalistically exclaimed: "I shall remain in the ranks of the infirm until I pa ...

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