Summary: The aim of these lectures is to make viewers feel welcome and comfortable in the company of paintings. By focusing on 65 masterpieces of Western painting, Professor William Kloss offers a vivid, visceral encounter with genius, shining light on the unique technical, stylistic, and expressive achievements of each painting. From the 14th century to the 20th, the images are examined for their...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Company 2010
Copies Available at Interlochen
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: Great DVD 759 World 2010Summary: The development of the arts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern era is an astonishing record of cultural achievement, from the breathtaking architecture of Gothic cathedrals to the daring visual experiments of the Cubist painters. We all have our favorite artists, periods, or styles from this immensely rich tradition, but how many of us truly know the full sweep of European art? How...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Co. 2005
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 709 HISSummary: A comprehensive record of the greatest achievements in the history of western art from the medieval era to the post-impressionist world, from Botticelli to Van Gogh.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Kultur 2006
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in E-TV DVDs, Call number: DVD E-TV LANSummary: This series of lectures introduces the greatest of universal museums. Its aim is not comprehensive. The focus is narrowed to the Department of Paintings, which is responsible for European paintings from the Middle Ages until the mid-19th century. These works of art form an encyclopedic summary of the achievements of painters that can be called the single most important such collection in the...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Teaching Co. 2006
Copies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 708.4 MUSCall number: DVD 708.4 MUS
Copies Available at Interlochen
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: Great 708.4 MuseumSummary: Art students can benefit greatly from comparing Michelangelo's preparatory drawings to his finished masterworks-but viewing them together is virtually impossible in a museum setting. This program solves that problem, closely juxtaposing the artist's pencil and charcoal works with the painting, sculpture, and architecture that grew out of them. Studying drawings at the British Museum, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The life of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is examined in this episode of Biography. The immortal Dutch master was a painter and etcher working during the Dutch Golden Age, is considered to be one of history’s greatest artists. He enjoyed financial success as an artist, teacher, and art dealer, but his personal life was filled with tragic episodes. Rembrandt's wife died at age 30, and only one...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
View online at AVOD
Summary: The idea of using art to explore the human condition rather than the divine was a significant departure from the predominantly religious artwork that preceded this secular revelation. In this program, Matthew Collings seeks the first glimmerings of humanist art in the Italian Renaissance-particularly in the works of Giotto and Leonardo da Vinci. He also contrasts two 18th-century artists who,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 13th- and 14th-century Tuscany, money became the new tool of power as industry, trade, and finance flourished. This program follows the remarkable rise of the great banking families whose groundbreaking innovations in finance led to the economics of international big business practiced today. Merchant bankers also supported the aims of the Catholic Church by using their extraordinary wealth...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why did paintings suddenly take on a nearly photographic realism around 1420? In this controversial program, noted artist and art critic David Hockney investigates how, 400 years before the invention of the photograph, painters were using simple cameras-the camera lucida, camera obscura, and convex mirror-to capture realistic images. Hockney visits Florence, Bruges, and Ghent, examining dozens...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program surveys the life and work of the perennially fascinating genius Leonardo da Vinci, from his birth in Tuscany to his final years in Cloux. Painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and student of anatomy, physiology, botany, architecture, hydrodynamics, aeronautics, and other disciplines, he was the quintessential "Renaissance man.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Is Botticelli's La Primavera an artistic allegory? A pageant of sexual permissiveness? An emblem of Renaissance humanism and Neoplatonism? This program offers multiple interpretations of one of the most hotly debated works in the history of Western art as it tracks La Primavera from its creation, to its decline into obscurity, to its sensational reemergence as an icon of the Pre-Raphaelites, to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Adapted from his book, The Pleasures of the Imagination, this lavish exploration of the arts in eighteenth-century London is presented by historian John Brewer. Illustrated with period prints and paintings, along with artful reenactments of London cultural life, the program considers the world of commerce and celebrity in which Georgian culture was created-a world with many parallels to today....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his travels from southern to northern Spain, revealing a stunning and informative array of artworks. In this program, he journeys to the provinces surrounding Madrid-where, during the 16th and 17th centuries, many of the world's great artists flourished against a backdrop of imperialism and fervent Catholicism. In Toledo, El Greco's mystical style is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Spurned and then nearly forgotten, El Greco went on to be hailed as one of Spain's greatest painters. This program describes the life of Domenikos Theotokopoulos, nicknamed "El Greco," and how his artistic legacy was rescued by a group of young Modernists who discovered his works in a museum in Barcelona. Emphasis is given to the revival of El Greco's reputation in the late 19th and 20th...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Backed by a Church struggling to connect with the faithful, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio painted images imbued with physical immediacy and in-your-face drama. As this program shows, there was a trade-off: Caravaggio's biblical scenes frequently eschew, in the words of presenter Simon Schama, "any vision of consolation or redemption." Exploring the artist's humble origins, penchant for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: A portrait of the extraordinary painter who chronicled the life and times of his friend King Philip the Fourth, who built the core of the Prado collection (which today houses almost all of his work), and who, with El Greco, Goya, and Picasso, comprises the quartet of the greatest painters of Spain.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although rendered in stone, the sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini convey a sense of weightlessness perhaps unequalled in the history of Western art. This program illustrates Bernini's nearly miraculous ability to turn marble into a vessel of rapture, both spiritual and sexual. With The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa as his principal focus, presenter Simon Schama examines numerous works by the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program focuses on the fierce competition between the newly wealthy merchant classes in Sienna and Florence throughout the 13th and 14th centuries over the creation of new buildings, services, and ways of governing. Leading art historians interpret this jarring 200-year conflict through detailed analysis of each city-state's stunning cathedrals and exquisite artworks. Their revealing...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Until 1348, people in Sienna and Florence enjoyed the richest, safest, and most comfortable lives in their history. But almost overnight, their certainty of life-and even any hope of a good death-was gone. This program assesses the aftermath of the ferocious damage unleashed by the bubonic plague on the two city-states. Historians Alexander Nagel and Nicholas Terpstra, from the University of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The leading painter of the Spanish Baroque period, Diego Velazquez covered a wide range of subjects, from royal portraits of King Philip IV and his family to perhaps the most celebrated of all self-portraits, Las Meninas. Filmed on location at The Escorial, The Prado, and in Velazquez's native Seville, this program chronicles the life of the artist through his work, examining his Classical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Italian Renaissance, which embraces both the Early Renaissance and the High Renaissance, stands as the central tradition in European art-and continues to be a powerful source of artistic influences.This program examines:&8226; Masaccio's Profile Portrait of a Young Man
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: St. Francis of Assisi revolutionized Christianity in 13th-century Tuscany with his down-to-earth belief that poverty, chastity, and obedience should shape an individual's relationship with God. By going back to Christ's original message, he played a pivotal role in the genesis of the Renaissance. This poignant program investigates how St. Francis's infusion of emotion and nature into the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Italian Renaissance's contributions to revolutions in architecture, art, religion, commerce, politics, and navigation are discussed in this program. The Signoria Tower, Ghiberti's Baptistry doors, and Giotto's Bell Tower exemplify innovative ideas in architecture and art; Martin Luther and John Calvin apply similar revolutionary thinking to religion; Portuguese seafarers boldly set out to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists has been the basis of art criticism since the 16th century. This dramatized program cleverly illustrates how each great master developed techniques by building upon the work of his predecessors. The lively discussion between Master Vasari and his apprentice reveals the innovations of Giotto, Ghiberti, Donatello, Uccello, Masaccio, della Francesca,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005