Video documentaries about all art forms
The Art Mysteries episode 4: The Card Players is one of Cezanne’s best-known pictures, but it is also one of his most mysterious. Why did the so-called father of modern art paint two old men hunched over a game of cards? What is the picture trying to tell us? By exploring Cezanne’s puzzling religious beliefs and his passion […]
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The Art Mysteries with Waldemar Januszczak episode 3: The Vision After the Sermon is a painting full of symbolism and mystery. But what does Gauguin’s famous work have to do with a 17-year-old girl called Madeleine, with Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and with sumo wrestlers? Waldemar Januszczak reveals all as he investigates Gauguin’s epic religious painting about good
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The Art Mysteries episode 2: Hanging in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Seurat’s Les Poseuses is probably his least-known painting. It is also a picture brimming with codes and hidden meanings. It shows three nudes in the artist’s studio, but included in the background is Seurat’s famous masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
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The Art Mysteries episode 1: Painted soon after he cut off his ear with a razor, Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear is one of his most celebrated works. But how much do we really know about it? In a far-ranging investigation, Waldemar Januszczak delves into the clues hidden in the painting. The result is a tale of
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Gaga for Dada: The Original Art Rebels – Jim Moir goes on an irreverent trip into the world of influential avant-garde art movement Dada. First broadcast in 2016 to coincide with the one-hundredth anniversary of the emergence of Dada.  Absurd, provocative and subversive, Dada began as a response to the madness of World War I. But its
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Nature and Us – A History through Art episode 3: In the concluding episode of the series, James explores how the art of the last hundred years reflects how we swapped nature for progress in the first half of the 20th century before rediscovering its beauty in the decades following the Second World War, and how today’s artists are re-imagining
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Nature and Us – A History through Art episode 2: James Fox uses art to explore how humans began to try to understand nature for the very first time. From the Song dynasty in China and the Islamic world, through to the Scientific Revolution and the advent of the industrial era, James shows the very different ways in which humans
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Nature and Us – A History through Art episode 1: In this ambitous series, art historian James Fox tells the story of our ever-changing relationship with nature through the lens of some of the world’s most extraordinary artwork. In this first episode, art historian James Fox explores the art of the ancient world to reveal the story of
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Inside America’s Treasure House: The Met episode 3: Autumn, 2020. The Met is open, but in a safe and very limited way. Visitor income helps keep the museum running, so times are hard. Since it was founded, like so many US arts institutions, the Metropolitan has largely been funded by benefactors. We visit Clyde B Jones III, the executive matching
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Inside America’s Treasure House: The Met episode 2: The outcry following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 has the Met, during lockdown, examining its record on inclusion and diversity, and realising it must change. The Met’s 150th anniversary year has been derailed by Covid-19. Then in May 2020, the murder of George Floyd, only the latest
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Inside America’s Treasure House: The Met episode 1 : The series begins in spring 2019, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art is in its pomp – the coffers full, visitor numbers are up and staff preparing to mark, in one year’s time, the museum’s 150th anniversary. The museum has long been planning a series of stand-out exhibitions and events. The
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Hemingway episode 6: Ernest Hemingway wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, but eventually is overcome by addiction, physical trauma and depression. Ernest Hemingway is considered to be one of the great American writers, with his work remaining influential around the world. This documentary series paints an intimate picture of Hemingway the writer, whilst also penetrating the myths surrounding
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