After a summer break, the estimable Exhibition on Screen series returns with David Bickerstaff's Degas: Passion for Perfection, which uses the show hosted by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to mark the centenary of Edgar Degas's death in September 1917. The selection of paintings, pastels, drawings, watercolours, prints, counterproofs and sculptures in both bronze and wax drew heavily on the museum's own collection. However, it also included works that were once owned by the economist John Maynard Keynes and boasted a number of items that had never previously been on public display. 

Despite having once spent an idyllic summer as a gallery invigilator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (hello Jackie Millard and Sally Barker, if you're still out there), the Fitzwilliam will always retain a special affection and it's good to see it looking so resplendent in this typically astute EOS offering. Now, all we need is the Ashmolean to step up to the mark and curate its own exhibition worthy of being immortalised on film.

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas was born in Paris on 19 July 1834 and, as we hear a passage from the 21 year-old's notebooks about the need for solitude and the impossibility of being a heartless artist, we are shown a couple of self-portraits dating from 1855 and c.1857-58. Jane Munro, Curator and Keeper of Paintings at the Fitzwilliam and the museum's outgoing director, Tim Knox, suggest that process mattered more to Degas than the end result and, as a consequence, many of his works were not exhibited during his lifetime, as he never intended them to find an audience. 

Artist Jeffrey Dennis opines that he used older pieces to research new ones, while Mary Morton, Head of French Paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, marvels at his spirit of experimentation and the diversity of his expertise. Art historian Flavie Durand-Ruel notes how intimate and alive his paintings are, as they draw the viewer into the scene. But they also took risks, as Degas (who is seen to imposing effect in Paul Paulin's 1907 bust) refused to be bound by the conventions of his day. 

Founded in 1816, the Fitzwilliam is an eclectic and encyclopaedic museum whose artefacts range from antiquities to Old Masters. Among its curios are collections of armour and fans and Knox declares it to be `a mini Louvre' that has been arranged to generate a country house feel and have a civilising influence on the university students and other visitors. Ironically, the museum's diversity contrasts with Degas's habit of revisiting the same themes, which was rooted in what dealer Ambroise Vollard called his `passion for perfection'. However, as we see `Three Women At the Races' (1885), Munro wonders whether his approach was sparked by a neurotic inability to satisfy himself or by an anticipation of the modernist concept of non finito. 

Historian Daniel Halévy recalls Degas being a reclusive hoarder, who only sold items in order to live. However, he had an infectious enthusiasm for his art that sometimes left him misunderstood. As we see `Self-Portrait With a White Collar' (c.1857) and `Male Nude' (1856), we hear an extract from an 1858 letter to Gustave Moreau, in which Degas describes his readiness to learn from the past. Indeed, he began studying art history as a young man. One of the five children born to banker Augustin De Gas and his Creole wife, Célestine, Degas attended the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand and worked as a copyist at the Louvre while contemplating a career in the law. However, he enrolled instead at the École des Beaux-Arts around the time he painted `Self-Portrait' (c.1855-56). 

He was greatly influenced in this period by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (who is seen in an 1864 self-portrait) and his fondness for copying the greats can be seen in `Woman At Her Toilette' (c.1890), which bears the influence of his idol's `The Valpinçon Bather' (1808). But, while he took to heart the advice Ingres gave him to draw lots of lines - in items like the drawing, `Self-Portrait Aged Around Twenty-One' (c.1855) - Degas only remained at art school for a couple of terms and spent three years travelling in Italy to study the Renaissance masters. On returning to Paris, he rented a studio and began producing historical pieces like `David and Goliath' (1859), `Young Spartans Exercising' (c.1860) and the unfinished `Alexander and Bucephalus' (1861-62),  which show the first inklings of his determination to break from established artistic traditions. 

He first attracted attention with `The Bellelli Family' (1858-67), a portrait of his Aunt Laura, her exiled journalist husband Gennaro and their daughters, Giulia and Giovanna. Anthea Callen, Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University in Canberra, points out the tensions within the group and reveals that such docu-frankness was unusual for portraiture at this time. In his notebook, Degas reminds himself that pictures like `Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli (c.1865) are not painted solely for the artist's satisfaction and Irish author George Moore notes the influence of Hans Holbein on `Portrait of Lorenzo Pagans and Auguste Degas' (c.1871-72), which shows the painter's father listening to the Spanish tenor singing along to his guitar.

In 1865, Degas submitted `Scene of War in the Middle Ages' to the Académie des Beaux Arts and it was accepted for the Salon. As Munro reveals, however, this was a painting produced on paper with thinned oils to give it a mural or pastel effect and its formal precision seems at odds with its theme of rape, pillage and slaughter. He would keep this work in his studio for the rest of his life and it has almost been ignored by the critics, as Degas was about to change tack after he met Édouard Manet in the Louvre and he introduced him to such friends as Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. 

The latter recalls gatherings like the one depicted in Henri Fantin-Latour's `Studio At Batignolles' (1870) in an 1890 interview and Munro explains how they often discussed realist works like Gustave Courbet's `A Burial At Ornans' (1849-50) and Jean-François Millet's `The Gleaners' (1857), as well as peer pieces like Manet's Olympia (1863), which paved the way for Impressionism. However, as Callen highlights, Degas resisted becoming part of a movement and saw himself as an independent at the time he produced `Self-Portrait' (c.1862). As someone who rarely worked en plein air and often left pieces unfinished, he joked that he could never be considered spontaneous. But he recognised the marketable convenience of being associated with the Impressionists, as he shared their avant-garde radicalism. 

One of the few themes that could tempt Degas outdoor was horse racing and `Scene From the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey' (1866), `The Parade, or Race Horses in Front of the Stand' (c.1866-68),`The Races' (c.1871-72) and `The Riders' (1885) capture the beauty of the animals and the excitement of the events. Moreover, like `The Orchestra At the Opera' (c.1870), they documented their times and Degas felt obliged to capture the world around him. 

But this changed following the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), which saw Degas volunteer for action and serve in Normandy and Paris. Moreover, his time in uniform exposed the weakness of his eyesight. Jeffrey Dennis admits to being equally myopic and suggests that Degas sought to increase the sensual tactility of his works to compensate for his poor vision. He also avers that those who see clearly often miss the small details in a painting and focus too much on the image to appreciate the emotion of the story and the technique. 

Following the war, Degas travelled to Louisiana with his brother, René, and produced such items as `A Cotton Office in New Orleans' (1873), which included his uncle in the foreground. In 1874, however, Degas's father died while in debt and, with considerable reluctance, he signed to Paul Durand-Ruel's gallery in order to generate some income. As he wrote to James Tissot, he even agreed to show at the First Impressionist Exhibition at Nadar's in the Boulevard des Capucines in 1874, But he was never convinced by the landscapes produced by friends like Monet and once wrote that his views are so drafty that he almost feels the need to turn up the collar of his coat. 

Instead, he worked indoors on `In a Café (L'Absinthe)' (c.1875-76), `At the Café' (c.1875-77) and `Dance Examination' (1880). Like `The Lady With a Parasol' (1870-72), the former uses little colour and remained unfinished, unlike `The Conversation' (1885-95), which was finally signed off after a decade of refinement. He worked assiduously, but could be garrulous in company, as poet Paul Valéry complains in an amusing letter after being forced to spend an evening listening to Degas holding forth at the home of an adoring host. 

Degas also enjoyed watching the ballets at the Opéra and the original wax sculpture of `Little Dancer Aged Fourteen' was produced between 1878-81 and depicted a Belgian trainee named Marie Van Goethem. As Morton reveals, the copper alloy casts of this iconic piece were produced posthumously with the permission of the estate. Callen explains that the critics dismissed the sculpture because it had been done in wax, which was used at the time for medical modelling. Moreover, he was attacked for making the dancer's face seem simian. Yet, this blend of the classical and the populist (he dressed the sculpture in a real tutu and corset and put a ribbon in its ponytail) marked a real break with tradition and pointed Degas towards future canvases like `Dancers Ascending a Staircase' (c.1886-88).

As his sight faded, Degas began to concentrate on sculpture and Munro explains how he used wire armatures and odd items like corks and paintbrush handles to achieve the poses he sought to capture in the likes of `Dancer Looking At the Sole of Her Right Foot' (c.1900-03). However, many of the wax sculptures remained in his Montmartre studio and were only found in a dusty corner after his death. 

Morton notes his fondness for working women, whether they were ballerinas or prostitutes. Thus, there is an ambivalence about his portrait of fellow painter Mary Cassatt (c.1880-84) that is absent from his image of writer Edmond Duranty (1879). Callen also highlights his fascination with the fact that so many of the dancers at the Opéra came from poor backgrounds and he strove to convey the dichotomy between their humble origins and the elegance and sophistication of their chosen artform. She also notes his familiarity with brothel life, as depicted in an illustration for Guy De Maupassant's story `La Maison Tellier', which was engraved by Maurice Potin in 1933. 

In countering comparisons between Degas and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir alluded to pictures like `Waiting for a Client' (c.1879) in claiming the Degas painted all prostitutes, as he caught the reality of the trade, as well as the personality of the sitter. Callen notes that the majority of his relationships with women existed on a payment basis, whether they were models, prostitutes or his faithful housekeeper, Zoe Closier. But in drawings like `Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Etruscan Gallery' (1879-80), `Woman Combing Her Hair' (c.1887-90) and `Female Nude Drying Her Neck' (c.1903, there is the `through the keyhole' quality that he liked to capture, even though they were often the product (as artist Pam Smy reveals) of excruciatingly long sessions for his models.

In sketches like `Woman At Her Toilette' (c.1880-83) and `Avenue of Trees in the Bois du Boulogne' (c.1880), Callen and Smy point out the materiality of Degas's later works, as he seeks to display the craft involved in their creation and increase their textuality. This fixation with process becomes a key part of his later work and the Fitzwilliam's Richard Farleigh shows how photographs taken under different wavelengths have enabled us to understand more clearly the creative steps taken to achieve the pastel, `Female Dancers in Violet Skirts, Their Arms Raised' (c.1896-98).

Over `The Dance Class' (c.1873), `Study of Two Standing Dancers' (c.1889) and `Dancers in the Wings' (c.1900-05), Degas describes how he prefers to work from memory and the imagination and resist `the tyranny of nature'. However, his own socio-political ideas were hardly enlightened, as his anti-Semitism coloured his view of the infamous Dreyfus Case, while he was branded misogynist and misanthropic by those outside his charmed circle. In fact, political opinion varied across the Impressionist cadre and Degas was not the only right-winger. But he admitted himself that he had a sharp tongue and rarely kept his counsel when it might have been wiser to have so done.

Having driven many friends away, the ailing Degas refused the help of family members, as he was convinced they had ulterior motives. As his hearing began to fade, he shuffled around Paris and tried to work in spite of his failing sight. He died on 27 September 1917, leaving dozens of works unsigned and Flavie Durand-Ruel reveals how her great-great-great grandfather used a stamp to authenticate the works in order to sell them. Among the items unearthed were an 1865 copy of Veronese's `The Finding of Moses' and newer items like `Bather At the Water's Edge' (c.1903).

Callen reminds us to view Degas's achievement within the context of the times in which he lived. As we see `The Dance Class' (1874) and `Dancer With a Fan' (c.1895-1900), Knox proclaims him one of the greatest painters of his age. But Degas himself has the last word, as he declares, `Art is not a matter of what you see, but what you make other people see.'

Directed, photographed and edited by David Bickerstaff, who also scripted with producer Phil Grabsky, this enhances Exhibition on Screen's accessible, but authoritative introductions to the great artists. One always feels in good hands and there is a serenity to the camera glides through the galleries and the canvas close-ups that are always accompanied by a thoughtful Asa Bennett score. As is often the case, the emphasis is on technique and personality rather than context and biography and those not entirely au fait with Degas and his milieu may have to do a little background reading to fill in some of the gaps and link some of the pronouncements made by the erudite experts. 

What comes across readily, however, is how Degas changed as an artist over the years and how hard he had to work to create what often appeared to be instantaneous and effortless. A little more might have been said about the influence he has exerted over the last century, as it extends well beyond Howard Hodgkin's `After Degas' (1993), with the Fitzwilliam notes citing the likes of Walter Sickert, Pablo Picasso, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, RB Kitaj and Francis Bacon. But this is an honest appraisal of a bold and courageous painter whose legacy has not been besmirched by his regrettable shortcomings as a human being.