Edgar Degas
Degas's work was controversial, but was generally admired for its draftsmanship. His "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", or "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", which he displayed at the sixth Impressionist exhibition in 1881, was probably his most controversial piece; some critics decried what they thought its "appalling ugliness" while others saw in it a "blossoming". In part Degas' originality consisted in disregarding the smooth, full surfaces and contours of classical sculpture ... [and] in garnishing his little statue with real hair and clothing made to scale like the accoutrements for a doll. These relatively "real" additions heightened the illusion, but they also posed searching questions, such as what can be referred to as "real" when art is concerned. The suite of pastels depicting nudes that Degas exhibited in the eighth Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist during his lifetime ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory".
Alexandre Falguière
Falguière's first bronze statue of importance was "Le Vainqueur au Combat de Coqs (Victor of the Cockfight)" (1864), and "Tarcisius the Christian Boy-Martyr" followed in 1867; both were exhibited in the Luxembourg Museum and are now in the Musée d'Orsay. His more important monuments are those to Admiral Courbet (1890) at Abbeville and the famous Joan of Arc. Other works include "Eve" (1880), "Diana" (1882 and 1891), "Woman and Peacock" (a. k. a. "Juno and The Peacock"), and "The Poet", astride his Pegasus spreading wings for flight. He sculpted "The Dancer", based on Cléo de Mérode which today is also in the Musée d'Orsay.
In 1870 he helped create the snow sculpture, "La statue de la Résistance".