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".
Prostitution in Impressionist painting
Degas's initial interest in prostitutes, in the years 1876-1890, started with his interest in Edmond de Goncourt's novel "La Fille Elisa" (1877). In 1876-1877, Degas filled a sketchbook with illustrations from de Goncourt's novel depicting scenes of a girl who becomes a prostitute with her soldier lover. Following soon after, Degas began illustrating the monotypes of brothel scenes, drawing the same physical type as the illustrations in his sketchbook. Although Degas drew individual prostitutes in a notebook, his actual monotypes were entire brothel scenes. 
Several scholars have tried to identify a literary source of Degas' fifty-some brothel monotypes, but none have found a direct connection. However, there have been parallels to Huysman's "Marthe, histoire d'une fille" (1876), and in Émile Zola's "Nana" (1880). Although the prostitution themes of the novels and of Degas' monotypes have similarities, there is a difference between the treatment of the subject; while Degas' prostitutes are "earthy, ugly creatures", the novelists tend to depict their prostitutes as more "heroic and noble".