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".
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."