-Now, Fred, you're a renaissance man.
You are a writer, an actor, a comedian, a musician.
But I think one thing people might not know about you
is you also have an art historian's knowledge
of every painting ever painted.
-Every painting, yes.
-Well, we thought we'd take advantage of that
because right now, of course, people cannot go to museums.
They cannot look at art in person.
But perhaps now we'll just put up a painting.
You do not know in advance what this painting is,
and then we will just allow you to fill us in,
because it's time once again
for "Fred Armisen: Art Aficionado."
♪♪
-All right, are you ready for your painting, Fred?
-Yes.
-This is Edgar Degas' 1872 painting
"Dance Class at the Opera."
-Oh, yes.
This is a tricky one.
So this is a painting -- it's one of the first ones
where the painter wanted to be in the painting.
Okay? -Oh.
-So you see that there's a chair there.
He was supposed to be facing the camera, or the canvas,
as it were... -[ Laughs ]
-...in that chair.
And so -- -Do a lot of --
Do a lot of art historians make that canvas/camera mistake?
-It's so common that we have an inside joke.
We call the canvas "the camera."
And we just all kind of laugh as historians.
Like, "I know what you mean." -Yeah, yeah.
-So we -- so the painter, Degas,
kept running to -- he kept running to that chair.
And he thought he'd run fast, you know, back fast enough
that he'd be able to paint himself.
And what's -- what's really nice about it is, first of all,
he drove the dancers crazy,
'cause they were like, "Are you ever going to get this?
We're in this position."
And he's like, "Just keep warming up
and we're going to get this."
So that's what you're seeing here is
he thought he would be able to do it.
Every time he sat back down he's like, "I'm not seeing myself."
So he just painted the chair.
-So he'd run back -- he'd run and sit, and his plan was
to run back to the canvas to see -- fast enough to see
how he looked sitting and draw it?
-Yes, but he was self-aware enough
that he kept asking the dancers.
And he was like, "Am I an idiot?
-[ Laughs ]
-How do people do self-portraits?"
And he laughed enough at himself to be just like,
"I guess I don't know how people do self-portraits,
but I'm going to try my best."
-Yeah. -But that's him making
his best attempt.
Another funny thing about --
-You mentioned the dancers were angry.
Did they -- like, I know this one in the back has to have
her sort of foot -- or leg up.
Was she doing that the whole time?
-She was doing it the whole time.
They're all supposed to be doing it.
That was supposed to be a choreographed move where all --
they're all in the same position, and the rest of them
were like, "I can physically not do this anymore.
We're just going to, like, crouch down."
And this was discovered at an antique shop.
And, um... -Oh, really?
-Yes. And it went for $4 million.
And then $8 million.
It kept going up and up and up.
And it was sort of unscrolled.
And that's where they found it.
-Wow. Where -- an antique shop where?
-In Danbury, Connecticut. -[ Laughs ]
-Well, Fred, this was -- what an education this was.
Thanks again. And stay safe and healthy.
This was "Fred Armisen: Art Aficionado."
♪♪