Sometimes frustrated by his own failings, Degas was consumed by obsessive principles and failing eye sight but his determination to capture everyday life was evident in every mark he made. Never fully satisfied, many of Degas’ drawings and sculptures were kept in private during his lifetime but, now through close examination, they can be seen as some of the most beautifully detailed and expressive works in the modern era. Using written accounts by friends and commentators, and the narration of letters written by Degas himself, this film reveals a more complex truth behind one of the most influential French artists of the late 19th-century and serves as an exploration of the complex workings of Degas’ artistic mind.
DirectorDavid Bickerstaff
Part of
Includes: Leonardo: From the National Gallery, London, Manet: Portraying Life, Munch 150, Vermeer and Music, Matisse, Girl with a Pearl Earring: And Other Treasures from the Mauritshuis, Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing, The Impressionists: And the Man Who Made Them, Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood, Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, Renoir: Reviled and Revered, The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch, I, Claude Monet, The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism, Michelangelo: Love and Death, Canaletto & the Art of Venice, David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts, Cézanne: Portraits of a Life, Degas: Passion for Perfection, Rembrandt: From the National Gallery, London and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Young Picasso, Van Gogh & Japan, Leonardo: The Works, Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait, Easter in Art, Frida Kahlo, Sunflowers, Raphael Revealed, The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin, Pissarro: Father of Impressionism, Hopper: An American Love Story, Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Woman, Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition, Tokyo Stories, Klimt & The Kiss, John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger, My National Gallery, London, Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, Dawn of Impressionism: Paris 1874
