I listened to stories about how miserable artists' lives were and figured that in order to be an artist, I'd have to be miserable as well. Sort of like "you gotta pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues." It seems that for most artists, the creative expression is born out of angst. But I wonder how many of those artists, Degas included, saw their lives as sad. While many were undoubtedly unhappy with certain aspects, I think our ability to judge another's happiness is very small. I look at the photo of Degas' painting and see a man surrounded by reproductions of life instead of life.