Read the excerpt from "Mary Cassatt: Artist and Trailblazer." Excerpt: One day, as Cassatt walked past a gallery window, she saw a pastel drawing by a boldly original French artist, Edgar Degas. She stopped in front of the window and stared at it. She could not tear herself away. The next day, she returned to look at Degas's work, and the next, and the next. "I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art," she wrote to a friend. "It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it." why does the author include this anecdote of Cassatt first seeing the work of Degas? She wants the reader to understand that Cassatt learned her technique from Degas. She wants to show how Degas's art changed the way Cassatt looked at art. She offers a connection to Cassatt's original idea of wanting to paint like the old masters. She is trying to prove that Degas was so bold and original that Cassatt had to copy his painting. Terms Use ​