Life and Work of Edgar Degas

The French painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is often associated with the Impressionists with whom he exhibited from the 1870s onwards, but his interest in human situations and his practice of studio-based painting set him apart. This video, directed by Ann Turner, presents the French painter Edgar Degas as a versatile and experimental artist. His work embodies the exploration of the relationship between images fixed in art and the instants they record such as the start of a horse race, and a woman stepping from the bath. He increasingly sought subjects outside the privileged milieu of his upbringing - in ordinary domestic and workplace Parisian interiors, backstage scenes from the ballet, laundries and brothels.