Season 1

Manet is often cited as the father of Impressionism, and yet he stubbornly refused to show with them and was careful to maintain an aesthetic distance from Monet, Renoir and others. He looked down on them, preferring his own departure from the traditional art forms. British host Waldemar Januszczak tells the story of a complex and difficult man who started a revolution that continues to today.

Explore the life and works of the great painter Claude Monet, who is often described as the founding figure of the Impressionist movement. Tim Marlow discusses how the Impressionist movement was formed and how its members shocked the establishment.

Renoir was a key member of the Impressionists who loved to paint out of doors, famous in particular for his depiction of the joyful side of Parisian life. Later in his life, Renoir broke away from the Impressionist movement and adopted a classical style.

By looking at his artistic development Tim Marlow shows that although Degas was a central figure amongst the Impressionists, he differed stylistically from the other members of the group, refusing for instance to paint outdoors.

This program explores the life and works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who is most famous for his depiction of the darker side of Parisian life at the turn of the century from concert halls and cabarets to brothels.

Paul Cézanne has been called the artist's artist as his work was bought by most of the great artists of his time, as well as Picasso who described Cézanne as 'his only master'.

Tim Marlow looks at the painter Paul Gauguin, whose life was as colorful and varied as his painting. Through some of his most famous paintings we explore Gauguin's extraordinary life as well as his attempt to escape civilization.

In many ways Vincent Van Gogh has become the most celebrated, and certainly most mythologized artist in history, as the misunderstood genius who died unknown and unloved and sold only one painting in his lifetime.