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
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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
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Summary: His birth date is uncertain. His name entered the annals of art history misspelled. And his greatest work, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was for centuries attributed to Albrecht Durer. Who exactly was Matthias Grunewald, admired today as one of the geniuses of the Northern Renaissance? This program profiles Grunewald and his intensely expressive approach to subject matter as demonstrated by that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: The Mystery of Jan van Eyck tells the stories of some of the Flemish master's most significant paintings-The Ghent Altarpiece, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Dresden Triptych, Portrait of Cardinal Niccolo Albergati, and Portrait of Baudouin de Lannoy, to name only five-with quiet authority and deep respect. Composed of stills and highly detailed close-ups supported by informative analysis and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Summary: 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Summary: Albrecht Durer, arguably the greatest artist of the northern Renaissance, was the primary conduit through whom Italian Renaissance forms and ideas were introduced into a Germany still dominated by the Gothic tradition. This program examines the life and work of the peerless painter and printmaker, focusing on some of his most important pieces. The influence of his father, a goldsmith; Anthony...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Documenting two major museum exhibitions, this program ventures inside the frenzied world of Jeroen van Aken-otherwise known as Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th-century Dutch painter famous for his visions of sin, damnation, and inadvertent eroticism. The video examines numerous Bosch works, including Ecce Homo, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, The Haywain, The Garden of Earthly Delights, and The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: When Rembrandt painted Frans Banning Cocq's militia company, he imbued it with all the drama and gravity of a major moment in history. This program deftly deconstructs The Night Watch to understand the many conventions it broke through its suggestions of movement, dramatic use of light and perspective, and its very composition; appraises its value in the hearts of the Dutch; and reveals the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Giving free rein to his passion for perspective, Paolo Uccello immortalized a clash between Florentine and Sienese troops in his Battle of San Romano. This program uses that three-panel Early Renaissance masterpiece to gain insights into Uccello's fascination with three-dimensionality as well as his intense curiosity about geometrical forms, color, and movement.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Renaissance Venice was a society absorbed with appearance. But behind the facade of Venetian wealth was a city run on poverty and a credit system. In this program, reenactments of English Courtier Thomas Coryat's visit in 1608 are contrasted with archival research and commentary by Dr. Patricia Allerston of the University of Edinburgh, revealing a brisk secondhand and pawn trade. Professor...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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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
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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
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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