Catalog Search Results
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English
Description
When artists worked in the service of the state, they glorified their cities and gave them imposing facades. But as the place of artists in society has matured over the centuries, artistic expression has became increasingly more penetrating. Beginning with the Renaissance, this program describes how visual artists have represented, deconstructed, and reconstructed the cityscape as they dealt with issues of spatial perspective, the delineation of public...
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English
Description
Physical metamorphosis as a theme in painting, sculpture, photography, and cinema reveals an ongoing fascination with all manner of transformations and distortions of the human form. Ranging from classical to modern times, this program presents zoomorphism; hybrids from mythology, the hells of Hieronymus Bosch, and the caricatures of Granville; "botanomorphism," people as plants; treatments of body as landscape and landscape as body; the personification...
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English
Description
Illumination, darkness, and the mysterious region in between-three basic components of the painted image. This program describes ways that artists have manipulated light over the centuries, and examines religious, psychological, and aesthetic reasons behind their innovations. Viewers will encounter medieval depictions of Biblical narratives and the luminous work of Renaissance and Baroque painters such as Jan van Eyck and Caravaggio. The program also...
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English
Description
Ten thousand years ago, Magdalenian artists carved expressive faces into slabs of limestone, creating a Paleolithic portrait gallery that required sophisticated drawing skills. This program shows how the art of portraiture has been refined and expanded through the ages. Examples of Egyptian sarcophagi portraits segue into discussions of paintings by Titian, Rafael, Durer, and other masters-including Rembrandt, who produced more self-portraits than...
5) The Window
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English
Description
If, since the beginning of the Renaissance, art has never stopped inventing new figurative scenarios based on the window, it is because the window is so closely associated with two fundamental elements of painting itself: light and the frame. This program contemplates the use of the window as a passage between the indoor and outdoor worlds. Topics include landscape, in the form of a veduta, or view; light, as illumination or metaphor; glass, transparent...
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English
Description
Beginning with the classical and biblical subjects of Diana, Susannah, and Bathsheba, this program discusses female nudity as it relates to the act of bathing. Depicted as a chaste ritual, a sensual invitation, and a terrifying opportunity for violence, the act of bathing is deconstructed and scrutinized from an artistic point of view. Topics include the inherent dramatic tension of nudity; the thematic provocation of the gaze, as when a character...
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English
Description
Throughout the history of painting and sculpture no muse has exerted more influence than the artist's model. This program studies the role of the human form in art, focusing on complex relationships between famous male artists and their female subjects. Works featuring the male figure are also examined. Discussing numerous artistic milestones-including classical Greek statuary, Masaccio's revival of human-centered themes, Botticelli's ethereal Primavera...
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English
Description
Some of the earliest landscape paintings are found on the walls of Egyptian tombs-demonstrating that, since ancient times, panoramic scenes of nature have held spiritual significance. This program guides viewers through the history of landscape art and its various emotional, symbolic, and sacred meanings. Progressing through ancient Greek and Roman villa paintings, Byzantine art, and the proto-Renaissance advances of Giotto and Lorenzetti, the program...
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English
Description
According to some, the concept of landscape originated with the painters of northern Europe and their use of light-a light that models objects and creates successive planes that draw the eye into the distance. This program traces the evolution of the landscape in art, from its function as a stylized setting to its employment as a realistic part of a scene, and the technical challenges of depicting a landscape's constituent parts. Paintings, film clips,...
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English
Description
British art critic Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists by venturing outdoors to some of their most famous painting sites. Although Impressionist pictures often look sunny and relaxed, achieving that sense of tranquility was hard work. Scrambling over coastal rocks or trudging through wind, rain, and knee-deep snow, Januszczak shows how the perceived spontaneity of Impressionism is thoroughly misleading - even as he...
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English
Description
Starting with the last exhibition the Impressionists organized as a group, this program examines the late years of the movement. British critic Waldemar Januszczak looks in depth at the work of Georges Seurat, taking into consideration Seurat's academic training at the Beaux-Arts School in Paris and the artists that influenced him, such as Piero della Francesca and Puvis de Chavannes. Meanwhile, Januszczak studies the fascinating intersection between...
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English
Description
Can a painting be read the way a play or movie is watched? What stories do the shapes and colors of the world's great pictures tell? This program encourages viewers to analyze the narratives in painted images, illustrating possible interpretations for a long procession of famous works. Piero della Francesca's The Flagellation, Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes, Rubens' Medici Cycle, Brueghel's Blind Leading the Blind, Vermeer's Woman at the...
13) Light and Shadow
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English
Description
The use of special light effects as a narrative element; the suggestion of an internal source of light in the work of Rembrandt and his followers; Vermeer's alternation of sunlight and shadow; the absence of shadow in Mondrian; the uses of light to relate interior to exterior space; the use of light as a material-this program looks at five centuries of light and shadow in Dutch art.
14) People
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English
Description
Segment one of this program examines the unidealized human form with Lucian Freud's nude Standing by the Rags, Arman's mixed-media sculpture Condition of Women I, and John Coplans' nude Frieze No. 2, 4 Panels. Segment two grapples with physical abuse and racial and sexual stereotyping through Nan Goldin's Nan One Month after Being Battered, Sonia Boyce's From Tarzan to Rambo Etc., and Sarah Lucas' Self-Portrait with Knickers and Self-Portrait with...
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English
Description
When setting up a shot, a photographer works with composition, lighting, and color to create a subliminal subtext that reinforces or even carries the meaning of his or her subject. This program illustrates how basic components of photography-line, shape, form, texture, balance, volume duality, point of view, depth of field, and perspective-contribute to an image's impact on the subconscious mind. Commentary is provided by Herb Zettl, author of the...
16) War
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English
Description
Segment one of this program addresses the anxiety and suffering surrounding World War I through Sir William Orpen's Zonnebeke, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Bird Swallowing a Fish, and Max Beckman's Carnival. Segment two reflects on the fear and anguish of World War II with Salvador Dali's Mountain Lake and Francis Bacon's triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Segment three captures the doubts and deep-seated grief of post-war...
17) Places
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English
Description
Segment one of this program uses four paintings by Mondrian to track his migration from impressionistic and abstract landscapes to the pure geometry of Neo-Plasticism. Segment two employs Brancusi's Fish, Dame Barbara Hepworth's Pelagos, and Joseph Beuys' The End of the Twentieth Century to analyze how abstract sculptors represent nature. Segment three explores Richard Long's fascination with organizing nature through his Line Made by Walking, Red...
18) Objects
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English
Description
Segment one of this program offers Marcel Duchamp's urinal-cum-readymade Fountain, Michael Craig-Martin's glass of water entitled Oak Tree, and Rebecca Horn's Concert for Anarchy, a grand piano suspended upside-down, as an invitation to look at everyday things in a new way. Segment two introduces minimalism through Carl Andre's brick pile Equivalent VIII and Cornelia Parker's Thirty Pieces of Silver, suspended pools of flattened metalware. Segment...
Language
English
Description
Museums and galleries offer one way to look at art. When a painting is taken off the wall and subjected to high-tech scrutiny, an entirely different view of it becomes possible. This program demonstrates the ability of laboratory researchers to venture beneath the finished surface of paintings, shedding light on previously hidden versions and designs. Techniques that use X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, and infrared light are examined, illustrating...
Language
Español
Description
Recognized from an early age as a poet of remarkable ability, the writer who was to become known as Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American woman to be awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize, in 1945. Composed of archival footage and commentary from scholars and friends who discuss the personal events that affected her life and infused her work with its themes of tragic love and unfulfilled maternal love, this program provides an in-depth portrait...