Carroll Moore

One of the greatest landscape painters of all time, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways. This documentary chronicles the rise of Turner, a barber's son who entered the Royal Academy art school at age fourteen to become, over the course of six decades, Britain's most renowned painter. It includes footage of locations important to Turner in Wales, England, Switzerland, and readings from writers and artists of the era, including John Ruskin and Lord Byron.

Hopper, one of America’s most admired artists, captured the shared realities of American life with poignancy and enigmatic beauty. His iconic images, set in unexceptional places, reveal the poetry of quiet, private moments. Hopper’s influences, which vary from French impressionism to the gangster films of the 1930s, are explored through archival photos, footage of locations he painted in New York and along the New England coast, and interviews with artists Eric Fischl and Red Grooms.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is renowned for his paintings and posters inspired by the rowdy, edgy spectacle of entertainment in late nineteenth–century Paris. He found his subjects in the dance halls, cabarets, circuses, and brothels of the Montmartre neighborhood, where middle-class visitors came for a whiff of excitement laced with danger. His images of performers at the Moulin Rouge, Chat Noir, and other fashionable nightspots transformed the poets, singers, and dancers of Montmartre — including Aristide Bruant, Jane Avril, and Yvette Guilbert — into celebrities. This film traces the relationship between the aristocratic painter and the avant-garde culture of Montmartre, using works of art by Lautrec and his colleagues, rare archival footage and sound recordings, period photographs, and interviews with contemporary scholars.