Catalog Search Results
1) Van Gogh
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English
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Vincent van Gogh is perhaps the most mythologized artist in the history of art and his tragic life is ingrained in the popular imagination. Active as an artist for only ten years he completed 1250 paintings, before succumbing to mental illness and taking his own life in July of 1890. Van Gogh was a deeply spiritual man and began painting after witnessing the desperate poverty of the agricultural communities of Holland and Belgium. He developed a highly...
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While Italians looked to Florence as their artistic center, northern Europeans looked to Flanders and Germany, where a distinctive Renaissance style was created, based on an exploration of visual realism.This program examines:o Rogier van der Weyden's St. John Altarpiece (after 1450), from the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlino Rogier van der Weyden's Portrait of a Young Woman (circa 1455), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCo Hugo van der...
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English
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Andrew Graham-Dixon shows how the art of Renaissance Flanders evolved from the craft of precious tapestries within the Duchy of Burgundy into a leading painting school in its own right. Starting his journey at the magnificent altarpiece of Ghent Cathedral created by the Van Eyck brothers, Andrew explains their groundbreaking innovation in oil painting and marvels at how the colors they obtained can still remain so vibrant today. Andrew describes how,...
4) Portrait
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English
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It seems appropriate for a portrait to be a fair representation of its subject. However, problems can arise when the sitter does not perceive himself or herself in the same way the painter does. In this program, Tai-Shan Schierenberg paints a portrait of a wealthy English gentleman in two 3-hour sittings, under the intimidating stare of portraits by Holbein, Reynolds, Rembrandt, and Van Dyck. As an artist, Schierenberg is drawn to his subject's natural...
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English
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1000 Masterpieces from the Great Museums of the World takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of art and provides a deeper insight into the masterpieces of painting. This film explores Master of Female Half-Lengths' "Portrait of a Young Woman," completed circa 1550 and housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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English
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The technological innovations pioneered by chemists and engineers during the 1940s and 1950s soon began to be used in other industries. Art historians, for example, began to use x-ray techniques and chemical compounds to restore the work of master painters or to repair artwork that had been damaged.
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English
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Although often associated with landscape painting, the Impressionists were determined to portray people with the same energy and immediacy they applied to fields, forests, and architecture. Contemporaries of Monet and Renoir, while perhaps less widely known than those two artists, were superb practitioners of this socially minded, humanist aspect of Impressionism. Looking closely at the career of Edgar Degas, British critic Waldemar Januszczak shows...
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English
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The 17th century was a time of religious conflicts, political struggles, and great scientific advances. This upheaval contributed to the Baroque period's relatively unrestrained, overtly emotional, and more energetic style that is reflected, to varying degrees, in paintings from all across Europe.This program examines:o Caravaggio's The Young Lute Player (circa 1596), from The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburgo Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal...
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English
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While they allow the viewer into the artist's workshop, paintings of the painter's studio are always a stylized portrayal where what is not shown is just as important as what is. This program surveys a number of examples of this classic theme, drawing attention to some of the different approaches artists have used to convey the space in which they work.
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English
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The centuries-long era of painting on wooden panels culminated in magnificent works such as Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece and van der Weyden's Beaune Altarpiece. But then canvas finally came into its own: light in weight, low in cost, easy to prepare, and an ideal replacement for frescoes where climatic conditions did not easily permit mural painting, over time it became the artist's medium of choice. This program traces the evolution of painting...
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English
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This program concentrates on the importance of drawing to the different artistic disciplines as it addresses ongoing debates surrounding the representation of space. Drawing tools and materials are presented, and special attention is given to the application of geometry, the principal science of image construction. Classical and Renaissance theories of perspective are considered, as is the progressive disintegration of these theories by artists of...
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The painter's studio: at once an open forum for exchanging skills with other artists and a private retreat for experimenting with technique. Beginning with the Renaissance and concluding with the 20th century, this program covers an assortment of studio-related topics, including life as a painter's apprentice; the birth and growth of art schools and academies; the progress of the painter's status in society; the development and proliferation of art...
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Should brushstrokes be allowed to show-or even be shown off, like a signature-or should they be carefully effaced whenever possible, leaving the surface of a painting smooth? This program looks at both the mechanical side of the question-the influence of pigments and brush types on the traces of a brush's passage-as well as the long-running doctrinal tension between exponents of visible and hidden brushstrokes.
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This program travels to four locales to examine technical aspects of how frescoes have been painted: a villa in Pompeii, where walls saturated with figures, dense colors, and ornamental motifs functioned both decoratively and ritually; the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, home of della Francesca's Legend of the True Cross; the Salle des Saisons at the Louvre, to view Romanelli's frescoes combined with richly gilded stuccowork; and the Residenz...
15) Brushstrokes
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English
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John Virtue is painting an impressionist landscape on an enormous canvas laid out in a field. While he paints, he discusses how he expresses himself artistically through creative brushstrokes rather than through realistic imagery. Through Virtue we learn how the elevated social status of artists in general, and physical changes in the composition of paints, have allowed for more artistic experimentation with a wider variety of mediums and techniques....
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This richly detailed film journeys through the epic history of still life painting, featuring a range of delights from the earliest existing mural paintings discovered at Pompeii to the cubist masterpieces of Picasso. Awash with rich imagery of fruit and flowers as well as humble domestic objects, this lively take on the story of still life encompasses the work of some of the genre's greatest artists, from Caravaggio to Cezanne. Still Life is also...
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Filmed at the Bibliotheque Nationale, this program spotlights an outstanding representative work of Persian miniature: Five Poems by the 12th-century poet Nezami, as interpreted in the 17th century by Haydar Qoli Naqqash, a painter of the Safavide School, and calligrapher Abd al Djabbar. A marriage of artistic and poetic languages, this masterpiece serves as a dual entry point into Persian art and culture.
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English
Description
Leonardo da Vinci's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne had already been disfigured by attempts at repairs when the controversial decision was made in 2009 to once again attempt a clean-up and refurbishing. Complicating the decision was the fact that da Vinci had never finished the painting, but returned to it year after year to modify it. Could a restoration remain true to da Vinci's intentions? Might the masterpiece be further damaged by trying to...
19) El Greco
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English
Description
El Greco's paintings marked a radical departure from the naturalism and careful modeling of the Renaissance, and as result were ignored for close to 300 years. Domenicos Theotocopolous, dubbed by the Spaniards 'El Greco', was born in the Greek Island of Crete and was trained to paint in the Byzantine style. Throughout the course of his artistic career El Greco's style varied enormously. The result was a highly individualistic style of painting. Though...
20) Raphael
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English
Description
Raffaello Santi earned a level of admiration equal to that of his older contemporaries. Raphael is renowned for the beauty of his portraits and the perfectly balanced composition of his larger historical paintings. Known for his numerous paintings of the Madonna and Child, Raphael became a favorite of the papal court, undertaking commissions from popes Julius II and Leo X. In his short life Raphael achieved an unprecedented level of artistic maturity....