Renaissance

Travels with Vasari

Travels with Vasari

Travels with Vasari: Andrew Graham-Dixon searches for the shadowy figure who wrote one of the most important books on art and looks at some dazzling works, including masterpieces of the early Renaissance by Giotto, Masaccio and Donatello.   Travels with Vasari part 1     The first part of an exploration of the extraordinary achievement of the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari, author of the monumental Lives of the Artists.   Travels with Vasari part 2     Concluding the exploration of the extraordinary achievement of the chronicler of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari, author of the monumental […]

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The Mystic Nativity

The Mystic Nativity

The story of the Mystic Nativity – Sandro Botticelli’s beautiful image of hope in troubled times. This masterpiece was painted 500 years ago in Florence, at the height of the city’s fame & influence.     Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity is a painting that lovers of mystery fiction should like: a Renaissance masterpiece crammed with cryptic symbols disguising a dangerous message. But it is much more besides. Painted in 1500 by one of the most famous artists of all time, it is a supremely beautiful vision of maternal love, earthly harmony and heavenly ecstasy. But the painting also has a dark

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Civilisation episode 4 - Man - The Measure of all Things

Civilisation episode 4 – Man – The Measure of all Things

Civilisation episode 4 – Man – The Measure of all Things: Kenneth Clark continues his personal reflections on civilisation with a look at Renaissance man.     Clark visits Florence, where the resurrection of a classical past first gave a new impetus to European thought, and then journeys to the palaces of Urbino and Mantua, where the Renaissance manifested itself in glorious architecture. He talks of Humanism and of perspective, of Donatello, Botticelli and Van Eyck. Kenneth Clark’s classic 1969 series tracing the history of Western art and philosophy.   Civilisation episode 4 – Man – The Measure of all

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Renaissance Revolution episode 3

Renaissance Revolution episode 3 – Piero Della Francesca – Baptism of Christ

Renaissance Revolution episode 3 – Piero Della Francesca – Baptism of Christ: Matthew Collings concludes the series by looking at the invention of Renaissance painting.     The Baptism of Christ by Italian master Piero Della Francesca showed the household names of the High Renaissance how to use the big new trick of Renaissance painting – illusionism and perspective. Without him their achievements would have been impossible, but change came so rapidly in the Renaissance that the qualities that made Piero famous in his own time quickly went out of fashion. The Baptism was bought for the National Gallery in

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Renaissance Revolution episode 2

Renaissance Revolution episode 2 – Hieronymus Bosch – The Garden of Earthly Delights

In Renaissance Revolution episode 2, artist and writer Matthew Collings steps into the mysterious invented world of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, painted c.1505.     This imposing work, full of strange and fantastical details, contains one of the most famous images in all of art: a man with a tree for a body, who gazes out at us from the section of the painting representing hell. The tree-man’s face is generally thought to be the artist’s self-portrait but, like almost everything else about Hieronymus Bosch – including the meaning of this, his most famous painting –

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Piero-della-Francesca

Great Artists episode 2 – Piero della Francesca

Piero della Francesca This episode looks at the life and work of the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca. With only 26 surviving works Piero has been seen as one of the mystery men of western art. But his calm, monumental, often enigmatic images mark an important step in the development of Renaissance art. This fascinating film reveals the man behind the myth, an artist that paved the way for likes of Leonardo and Michelangelo.     In his typically enthusiastic and accessible manner Tim Marlow explores works such as the huge fresco cycle The Legend of the True

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Giotto

Great Artists episode 1 – Giotto

Giotto Giotto di Bondone, the son of a Tuscan shepherd. Born in 1267, Giotto began his apprenticeship at the age of 12, and with his naturalistic treatment of medieval Christian iconography, was recognised as the first in a line of great painters and architects who contributed to the Italian Renaissance.     Giotto’s contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was “the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature” and of his publicly recognized “talent and excellence”. In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters,

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Hieronymus Bosch

Hieronymus Bosch – The Devil with Angel’s Wings

An artist with an exuberant imagination, a painter of the most extraordinay gardens and terrifying hells, a respected public figures of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and a man of faith – Hieronymus Bosch is certainly the most fascinating and mysterious artist of the Renaissance.      This film sheds light on this forerunner of Surrealism and on his approach. The paintings are brought to life, to help us decipher the symbols and place them in the context of the time, based on the most recent historical research.   Hieronymus Bosch   Hieronymus Bosch – born Jheronimus van Aken; c. 1450 – 9

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