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: In 1848, a political revolution in France foreshadowed a revolution in art. In 1851, Gustave Courbet's A Burial at Ornans scandalized the public with its unembellished portrayal of an ordinary funeral. The shift toward Realism had begun. This program tells the sensational story of Courbet's Burial while analyzing the subtleties and surprises that underlie its deceptively innocent facade.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The first major documentary study of Winslow Homer, this program features over 180 images of Homer oil paintings, watercolors, etchings, and illustrations, combined with in-depth commentary from respected art scholars and historians. Viewers will learn about Homer's childhood, early work as an engraver, frontline Civil War experiences, European sojourns, and eventual renown as the reclusive...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: It is a creative impulse as old as humanity itself: to depict life faithfully, accurately, in words or images. This program shows how that impulse led to Realism—a widespread artistic movement, born in the latter half of the 19th century, which rejected pretense, distortion, and sentimentality. Incorporating interviews with art historians and literary scholars, the program explores the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: After the chaos of the French Revolution, the concept of liberty became associated with nature rather than political events. This program analyzes the Romantic fascination and identification with the power of the natural world. Shedding light on William Blake's early childhood experiences in the countryside, the film also explores the work of John Clare-conveying how both poets revered the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In his idealized yet deeply felt pastoral images, John Constable manifested a uniquely English identification with nature and rural life. This program, created from extensive Tate and National Gallery collections, explores both the aesthetic and subtly political aspects of Constable's work. Eschewing the approach of many art documentaries, the film presents detailed audio commentary from Tate...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1848, a political revolution in France foreshadowed a revolution in art. In 1851, Gustave Courbet's A Burial at Ornans scandalized the public with its unembellished portrayal of an ordinary funeral. The shift toward Realism had begun. This program tells the sensational story of Courbet's Burial while analyzing the subtleties and surprises that underlie its deceptively innocent facade.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using only the words of some of the great photographers, this program seeks to trace "the life-line of the species" (in the words of John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art, New York) Selecting their own favorite photos from contemporary works back to 1839, the producers of this program trace the lineage of photography as art and present a glorious parade of great photographs drawn from the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at the results achieved when photographers were commissioned to reflect the world or certain aspects of it. It focuses on the Farm Security Administration (whose archives are held by the Library of Congress, Washington) which set out to document America in the 1930s. The program also visits the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, where photography forms an integral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Renner, Rolf Günter.
Summary: "Hopper is simply a bad painter, but if he were a better one, he would probably not be such a great artist." Clement Greenberg.
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Taschen 2002
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 759.13 RENKoch, Maryjo.
Summary: The author, both a naturalist and artist, celebrates the plant world. A whimsical text informs as it entertains, reflecting the author's extensive field observations and research encompassing literature, scientific writings, and mythology. Fascinating facts and amusing trivia are presented. A glossary of terms is included.
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Smithmark Publishers 1998
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Oversize, Call number: OVS 580 KOCSummary: Industrialization in the 19th century, and the widespread human exploitation and personal alienation that characterized it, produced a crisis of faith and shook people's confidence in the very concept of civilization. In this program, Matthew Collings follows in the footsteps of John Ruskin, a social critic who interpreted the ills of his era and believed that art could salve, and perhaps even...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Viewing life in strictly corporeal terms was abhorrent to Romantic sensibility. This program examines attempts by Romantic poets to transcend the physical world and expand the limits of human imagination-presaging 20th-century notions of the unconscious. Illustrating how the idea of transcendence effectively became the religion of Romanticism, the film reflects on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: It's the revenge of power on those that dare to challenge it. So begins this program on Goya's haunting painting of defiance and despair, The Third of May 1808. The video keenly conveys the circumstances of the Spanish uprising against the French, relates Goya's deafness to his darkening artistic vision, examines Goya's painting technique, analyzes The Third of May's symbolism, illustrates the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Controversial is probably not the first word to come to mind when viewing Whistler's Mother, and yet as a harbinger of modernity and even abstraction in art, it was. To fully tell the story of the painting Whistler called Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, this program provides a broad view of the artist and his times. Topics include Whistler's unconventional...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Examining the birth of Romanticism through the lenses of art and uprising, this program illustrates the political and cultural roots of the movement. The film begins by describing the significance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his influence on the French Revolution, and his belief that civilization and governmental systems suppress the individual human spirit. Linking Rousseau's philosophy to the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Written and presented by Robert Hughes, one of the world's most prominent art commentators, this program explores the life and work of Francisco Goya-focusing on the painter's subversive, often gruesome outlook. The video provides in-depth visual and intellectual analysis of dark Goya masterpieces, including The Dream of Reason, Witches in the Air, and The Third of May, as well as examples of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: If the French Revolution had an official painter, it was Jacques-Louis David-although "official propagandist" is a much more accurate term. This program follows David's career from his early ambitions as a Prix de Rome scholar to the actions that defined him, morally and artistically, during the reigns of Robespierre and Napoleon. With The Death of Marat as its centerpiece, the program studies...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Sheppard, Joseph
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: North Light Books 1993
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 751.4543 SHESummary: A unique, powerful, first-rate painter overshadowed by her lionized painter-husband, a bisexual woman torn apart by her obsessive love for her faithless husband, Frida Kahlo lived a life of physical and spiritual torment. This program provides personal insights into her work and her torment; it offers a portrait of the woman and the roots of her work in the meaning of her gender.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006