The Unquiet spirit: the life and art of Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Episode of Series “Phaidon art collection”.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was one the great French artists of the 19th Century. Often associated with the French impressionists, Degas set himself apart, preferring a studio practice studying human nature as opposed to ‘plain air’ paintings of landscape done by other impressionists of the time. This documentary examines the reputation and paradoxical personality of Degas in relation to society, his art career and life’s work and seeks to readdress this complex personality that too often was misrepresented during his lifetime. The sheer versatility and scope as an artist was not fully known until close to his death when a life’s worth of sculptures were revealed. Included throughout are examples of his drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures and picturesque views of France that serve to inform the atmosphere of Degas’s cultural environment. Obsessed with the great classical tradition it was Degas who took the study of the human figure towards modernism, able to articulate an intimacy of life that was both penetrating and shrewd. Written and narrated by David Thompson