Cassatt vs Degas: should the eye adore or dissect?

I paint mothers cradling children because tenderness is a truth worth recording, Edgar, not a weakness to be ashamed of.

And I paint dancers backstage, exhausted and unglamorous, because the eye must observe, Mary, not flatter.

You observe from the shadows like a spy; I offer my women dignity by meeting their gaze.

Dignity is a pose. I catch people when they forget to arrange themselves, and that is the only honest portrait.