• Producer(s):

    CINETEVE , ARTE FRANCE

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2013

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

"Throughout my existence, I have been looking through a window at life and not living life.” Félix Vallotton was a brilliant and subversive engraver and illustrator. He was also a prolific sketcher and portrait painter - of nudes, of mythological scenes and of landscapes. He had a plural nature, and was very different from one period to the next.

Quite exceptionally, or perhaps even uniquely in the history of art, he was also a man of letters who penned critiques, essays, stage plays and novels. Vallotton the polymorphous artist escaped all categorization. He was a rebellious anarchist yet was resolutely bourgeois; he was a member of the “Nabis” yet was an unrepentant loner; and he was humorous yet was somewhat depressive.
 
Both the man and his oeuvre are complex and mysterious. To understand them, the viewer is invited to take part in a form of treasure hunt. Through the different styles of the artist and to the very core of the writer, two clues emerge: a distance from the world and an obsession with water.