THE FRENCH CENTURY

PALETTES:

A series of films devoted to great works in painting history. Thanks to recent developments in video animation technique, secrets of these images are revealed like thrilling adventures of discovery.

GEORGES DE LA TOUR:

The Underside of the Cards -Three cards in hand, gold pieces, we are in the middle of a game of prime, a precursor of poker. The oeuvre of Georges de la Tour, that stayed in the background for two centuries, has been attributed to others during a long time. The painter was truly discovered in 1915, thanks to a German critic. Maybe some believe The Cheat to be false because it is an unlikely, extreme picture. Too much colour, too much light, too much improbability!

CLAUDE GELLEE DIT LE LORRAIN:

The Sun's Theatres - A port of an Italian style city lit by the setting sun. The colours, the spaces between objects, the skimming light and the visual angle of buildings, everything contributes to create a strong illusion of depth. Claude Gellee, called Le Lorrain, mounted numerous layers of glaze in his paintings, until he obtained the dim or opaline shade that characterises dusk.

NICOLAS POUSSIN:

The Splendid Tremor of Time - During his last years in Rome, Nicolas Poussin creates four paintings for the Duke of Richelieu, evoking the seasons. This series, looked upon as the artist's pictorial testament, is the outcome of a technically mastered skill, a true synthesis of all the elements in the painter's late style, but in which the symptoms of age and ailment become apparent in the trembling and minute stroke.

DVD Info

Region: 0
Running Time: 90 minutes