Edgar Degas
Degas's only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in a cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly. In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: "The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate whitenesses ... are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized the traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting."
The Child's Bath
Cassatt was heavily influenced by her fellow Impressionist peers, especially Edgar Degas. The first Impressionist painting to make it back to the United States was a pastel by Degas in 1875 that she purchased. Cassatt began to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1877, where she met other fellow Impressionists like Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot. In 1890, she was struck by the prints of the Japanese woodcuts at the Beaux-Arts Academy in Paris during the exhibition, three years prior to painting "The Child's Bath". Cassatt was drawn to the simplicity and clarity of the Japanese design, and the skillful use of blocks of color. The perspective of the painting was inspired by Japanese prints and Degas. "Japanese printmakers were more interested in decorative impact than precise perspective."