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".
Désiré Dihau
He is best known for being the bassoonist of the Paris Opera, where he played from July 1, 1862 to December 31, 1889, immortalized by Edgar Degas in the 1870 painting, ', preceded by a sketch kept at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Degas also depicted him in other paintings in which were present the musicians of the Salle Le Peletier, ' in 1872 and both versions, of 1871 and 1876, of the ballet of "Robert le Diable". Degas probably met Dihau at the Mère Lefebvre, in Montmartre where artists and musicians gathered. It is Dihau who introduced Degas to the opera where the painter found his strongest inspiration in the spectacle of the dancers he so often painted.