Interesting Latter Day Assessment

Degas to Manet (in the middle to last stages of their lives): Where does the time go? When I was young I stored up all my plans in a cupboard, locked away safely with a key, and now--

Manet (chuckling) to Degas: --You've lost the key.

--From Episode 2 of "The Impressionists," a BBC film.

That is a very worthwhile film, by the way. All movies about painting must necessarily be interesting, but this one is especially distinguished because in it quite often you see some painting actually being done, and in convincing ways. But that's just my way of judging all the films I see in that genre. Of course the interest of moviemakers and the public is much more concerned with the private lives and troubles of the painters, and I can never fault that.

The actual process of painting is almost too private and sacred a business to be filmed at all. In addition, seeing a painting being constructed is much like watching honeybees building a comb. All you really see is the bees scurrying here and there over the comb without appearing to be doing anything at all, so that quite soon your attention must stray elsewhere, where it stays for some time, and only later do you see, with astonishment, the beautiful, finished comb fully constructed in all its snowy white (for the first few hours), geometric perfection, as if having come about purely by magic.

That happens with paintings as well.