Set against the cultural turmoil of conflicting artistic movements in France in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Degas & Cassatt: A Solitary Dance is, in its way, a love story. A love of art, mostly, although also an unrequited love between two talented individuals who never reconciled their attraction.

Although the central figure of the story is the artist Edgar Degas, the tale is told from the perspective of Mary Cassatt, a Pennsylvania-born artist who thrived in the heady art culture of Paris in the 1870s and '80s. Although moving in circles that included the likes of Monet, Manet and Renoir, she found her closest soulmate in Degas, whose single-minded obsession with his craft kept him somewhat estranged from those around him. He rebelled against the strictures of the Salon, which for nearly 150 years was the official art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and he railed against divergent art styles such as Impressionism (with which he was most closely identified) and bohemianism.

He was strongly opinionated, sometimes controversially so, and argumentative, often offending those he considered friends. She, on the other hand, is presented as a milder, more patient person -- but then again, the story is told from her point of view, so there may be some bias there.

The graphic biography from NBM, written by Salva Rubio and illustrated by EFA (Ricard Fernandez), digs deeply into Degas' life, moving with him through his circles of peers, friends and influences. It presents a detailed look at Parisian society at the time, and lifts the curtain to give readers a peek into the passionate, turbulent artistic culture of the time.

It presents Degas as a vastly talented artist who was limited by his own ambitions and his inflexible dogma. At the same time he is pitiable, surrounded by life and beauty, able to capture it in art but unable to interact with it on a personal level -- tormented by the self-imposed restrictions on his life. Even Cassatt, his most like-minded of peers, was driven away in the end by his harsh and judgmental facade.

Rubio sketches for us a detailed and thoughtful examination of Degas, both as a person and an artist, and Cassatt, whose strong will and undeniable talent forged a path that wasn't open to many women of the day, as well as the Impressionist movement that spawned so many titans of art. EFA's illustrations bring it all to life with muted colors and expressive figures, artists and the subjects of their work mingling on the pages.

A Solitary Dance is a love story that could have been. It sticks to the reality of their lives but leaves readers with a glimmer of "what if" to ponder after the story is done.