with my dog painting and my ballet painting I am at risk of becoming burgeois! Must paint a lost souls or a cave fish and reclaim the high ground of artistc nobility. Subject matter is not everything but it is something which is more than nothing and that is something. If you swim in cheese you will die in cheese and no amount of money can wash off the cheese. On a side note I enjoyed both paintings and degas was a great genius and there was no cheese in the medium of his intellect or in his ballet paintings.