Degas: Passion for Perfection
Directed by David Bickerstaff
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.
Duration
1h 25m
Released
April 29, 2018
Cast0
Part ofThe Exhibition on Screen Collection
Includes Sunflowers (2021), Young Picasso (2019), Raphael Revealed (2021), Hopper: An American Love Story (2022), Cézanne: Portraits of a Life (2018), Pissarro: Father of Impressionism (2022), Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Woman (2023), Vermeer: The Greatest Exhibition (2023), Tokyo Stories (2023), Easter in Art (2020), The Danish Collector: Delacroix to Gauguin (2021), Frida Kahlo (2020), Leonardo: The Works (2019), Lucian Freud: A Self Portrait (2019), Van Gogh & Japan (2019), Degas: Passion for Perfection (2018), David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts (2017), Canaletto & the Art of Venice (2017), Michelangelo: Love and Death (2017), The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism (2017), I, Claude Monet (2017), The Curious World of Hieronymus Bosch (2016), Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse (2016), Renoir: Reviled and Revered (2016), Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood (2016), The Impressionists: And the Man Who Made Them (2015), Rembrandt: From the National Gallery, London and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2018), Vincent Van Gogh: A New Way of Seeing (2015), Girl with a Pearl Earring: And Other Treasures from the Mauritshuis (2015), Matisse (2014), Leonardo: From the National Gallery, London (2012), Klimt & The Kiss (2023), My National Gallery, London (2024), John Singer Sargent: Fashion and Swagger (2024), Vermeer and Music (2013), Munch 150 (2013), Manet: Portraying Life (2013), Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers (2024), and Dawn of Impressionism: Paris 1874 (2025).
View the collection
