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Edgar Degas: Of Dandies Ballerinas & Women Ironing
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(DVD - Code 1) (US-Import)
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Inhalt: |
At the age of 36 his sight began to faiI. He couId no Ionger stand bright dayIight. ln onIy a few years he wouId go blind, this he knew.
Degas, the son of an ltaIian banker, had stopped studying Iaw to become a painter. He was a brilIiant portraitist, but even more than this he loved to paint the dynamics of movement in horse races, to sketch the milIiners on the boulevards, to depict with his paintbrush or pasteI crayons the young women who worked as laundresses and water-carriers.
Like no other artist, he captured the fleeting moment of movement. Due to his faiIing eyesight, he retreated increasingIy into the worId of artificiaI Iight, painting the female singers in the concert cafés on the Champs-ÉIysées, the balIerinas in the Paris Opera. He became a permanent guest in the Opera, studying meticuIousIy the ballerinas in training and at rehearsals, behind the scenes and on stage. Degas recorded every gesture with his paintbrush and pasteI crayon as in a photograph: unconventionaIIy composed "snapshots" of painting. His radiantly colorfuI pasteIs breathe the air of the stage, testify to the glory and the toiI, to the aesthetics and the effort of a dancer's everyday routine. In his Iifetime Degas' picture "Dancers at the Bar" was soId in an auction for the highest price ever reached for a painting by a living artist in France. The documentary follows the trail of the painter through nocturnal Paris at the turn of the century, in the Paris Opera and the concert cafés. |
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