Art History Dvds

Choose a title above from the following Academic Success programs:

#8834 The Glory of Byzantine Art (Run Time 12 min.) DVD $49.95

Byzantium: spanning eleven centuries and a major portion of the Old World's landscape, its name stands for power and affluence. In this program, noted journalist Paul Solman discusses a magnificent display of Byzantine art garnered from 117 collections with Harvard professor and art expert Ioli Kalavrezou. Paintings, mosaics, carvings, and ceramics facilitate an exploration of Byzantine iconography as it evolved from Hellenistic and Roman themes to abstractions that go beyond classical representation. (12 minutes)

#35220 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Art Gets a Start in America (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $49.95

Founded when Jefferson was president and the Revolution was still a part of living memory, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, is home to more than two centuries of American artwork. This program goes behind the scenes at the nation's first art museum and art school to consider the evolution of painting in America. A viewable/printable educator's guide is available online. (28 minutes)

#35237 Morris Museum of Art: The Art of the South (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $49.95

The Morris Museum of Art, in Augusta, Georgia, is the first museum in the country dedicated to the regional art of the American South. Contrasting 19th-century portraits by William Edward West of Kentucky to modern paintings of Gullah life by Jonathan Green of South Carolina, this program makes it clear that the art of the South is as varied and diverse as its people. From antebellum portraiture to 20th-century folk painting and from American impressionism to narrative realism, this art has a power and presence that reveals the social, economic, and historical complexities of life in the American South. One 28-minute video.

#35238 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: Collective Vision (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $49.95

Isabella Stewart Gardner, an art lover with exquisite taste and a zest for life, firmly believed that art should be a transforming experience. This program goes behind the scenes at her palatial Boston museum to reveal the story behind a collection that has lost none of its ability to charm and amaze after more than a century on display. Paintings by Rembrandt and Sargent, architectural antiquities, medieval stained glass, tapestries, and rare books are only some of the many items on display. One 28-minute video.

#2731 The Jewish Historical Museum of Amsterdam (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $69.95

The first Jews arrived in the heart of old Amsterdam in 1600, fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal; shortly afterward, Jews fleeing Germany and Eastern Europe also arrived. Many of the buildings associated with the history of the Jews in Amsterdam were in use until World War II, and some are still standing. The Portuguese Synagogue, dating from 1675, houses the Jewish Historical Museum and its portrayal of 400 years of Jewish life in the Netherlands: religious objects and prayer books, ritual silver, a ritual bath, the gradual impoverishment of Amsterdam's ghetto in the 19th century, the birth of Zionism, and the arrival of the German occupation forces, which meant the end of nearly three-and-a-half centuries of Jewish life. The paintings of Charlotte Salomon, who perished in the Holocaust, are a visual analogue to the life of Anne Frank. (15 minutes)

#8822 Ancient Treasures: Imperial Art of China (Run Time 9 min.) DVD $69.95

Art appreciation requires an understanding of the medium, the subject matter, and the subtexts inherent in the artists' techniques. In this program, correspondent Paul Solman and art historian Wen Fong visit an exhibit that is emblematic of Imperial China from the 8th century to the 17th. Styles discussed include the Imperial "propaganda" of the Sung and Ming dynasties; the wild spontaneity of Qwai Su's calligraphy, akin to the action painting method of Jackson Pollock; the intensely personal works of Ni-Tsung; the bourgeois images of Chu Ying; and the subtly subversive imagery of Chu Ta, a prince who became a monk. To Wen Fong, art is the perfect bridge between cultures because everyone can respond to its mystical essence. All one needs to do is look deeply. (9 minutes)

#35218 The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A World of Art (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $69.95

The world-renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is a comprehensive 3-D encyclopedia of art history. This program introduces viewers to the history of art through the Met's vast assortment of treasures that spans 5,000 years of world culture and fills two million square feet of floor space. Featured European and American pieces are drawn from the Met's collections of ancient, Renaissance, 18th-century, 19th-century, and early modern art. Works from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Mesoamerica are highlighted as well. A viewable/printable educator's guide is available online. (52 minutes)

#133 Treasures of San Marco (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95

If no other cathedral remained standing to testify to the development of Western civilization, the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice could alone communicate the growth and flowering of European achievement over many centuries. This program, a work of art in itself, presents the artistic and architectural splendors of the basilica within the context of the opposing and evolving cultures that forged the city of Venice. (40 minutes)

#134 Peggy Guggenheim: Art in Venice (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95

Peggy Guggenheim acts as tour guide through her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on Venice's Grand Canal which houses a superb collection of 20th century art. This program, effectively a summary of the art of this century, presents some of the best examples of the work of Picasso, Arp, Ernst, Klee, Leger, Bracque, Miro, Dali, De Chirico, Kandinsky, Moore, Lipchitz, Giacometti, Matini, Brancusi, and others. (44 minutes)

#169 Goya: His Life and Art (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95

An introduction, not only to Goya's work, but to the critical period in Spanish history which he recorded. In a period largely bereft of major literary masterpieces, it is to Goya that we look to find out what Spain was like in the period spanning the decline of neoclassicism, the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of Romanticism and Impressionism. An RTVE production. (44 minutes)

#988 Keeping Your Words (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95

A tool for those who value books as books, who shudder when they are stained, dog-eared, highlighted, or written in. This guide to the respectful care and preservation of books was produced by the world's largest book repository, the British Library. It shows how to open a book without breaking its spine and how to store books properly on a shelf, as well as the intricate work of restoring and rebinding old and precious books damaged by time, fire, or water. (40 minutes)

#1617 Medieval Manuscripts (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95

This program looks at how medieval manuscripts came into being: how illuminations were accomplished and what materials were used, how scriptoria functioned, which titles were selected. The program also explains the combinations of artistic talent and imagination, religious devotion, and intellectual integrity that enabled the artists and artisans of the monasteries to play so crucial a part in the survival of Western culture. (30 minutes)

#2093 Guido Reni (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

This protrait of "the Divine Guido" considers his paintings in the light of his time, his teachers and rivals, and his belief that an artist's pictorial concept, style, and technical skills were the means by which a message of divine grace could be revealed. Magnificent photography illuminated by the search for both artistic and art historical themes is strengthened by scholarly narration. (28 minutes)

#2777 The British Museum: The House Itself (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95

This program covers the origins and history of the British Museum: the Act of Parliament in 1753 that created a national repository; the private collections that constituted the first treasures; the architectural background and purpose of the Greek temple; and the philosophy of displays. The program also offers a guide to some of the museum's greatest treasures: the Egyptian collection, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Parthenon frieze, paintings of Blake and Turner, the manuscript of Alice in Wonderland, the Celtic gold torques from Ipswich-an introduction to what is arguably the greatest museum in the world. (26 minutes)

#2784 Prints and Drawings: The Image (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

A tour of the British Museum's extraordinary collections in the Department of Prints and Drawings is offered by the curator and by Michael Ayrton. From the end of the Middle Ages to the present, from Raphael to William Blake to Van Gogh to Degas, we examine the treasures stacked inside the myriad boxes; from Michelangelo to Rembrandt to Durer, we see how the artist constructs three-dimensional shapes out of flat lines. (27 minutes)

#2787 The Library of the British Museum (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

The largest library in the world, with the broadest collection of books and the most motley array of ghosts of those who once haunted its Reading Room: Dickens was here, and Thackeray; Ruskin called it his place of business; Karl Marx researched Das Kapital here. Of the 48 copies of the Bible printed by Gutenberg (36 on paper and 12 on vellum), one of each reside here-together with one copy of every book published in England since 1842 (and a large number published earlier). Immense and inefficient, its space and staff much too small for its task of serving readers, writers, researchers, and posterity, the British Library embraces all human effort, and seeks to catalogue whatever has been committed to print. (27 minutes)

#2788 The Study of Mankind (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

Why is the Parthenon frieze a centerpiece of the British Museum, and the Temple of Benin housed in the Department of Ethnography? This program examines the huge and spectacular exhibitions from Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, and Africa carried home by British collectors-bearers of the Imperial torch and the white man's burden as well as those who took to heart Pope's dictum that the proper study of mankind is man: a range of superb examples of tribal images, religious icons, and weapons of war; of masks, toys, totems, jewels, amulets, offerings, utensils, tools; in wood, clay, stone, bronze, gold and silver, mosaic, and jewels of all kinds; from the rudest to the most delicately ornate, from 6th-century West African bronzes to contemporary Javanese wood. (28 minutes)

#2790 The Workshop (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

The Manuscripts Department of the British Museum is indeed the historian's workshop: an extraordinary compilation of human history-23 centuries of documents written by the human hand in a Western European language. From Egyptian papyri to letters of George Bernard Shaw, from the Magna Carta to Gladstone's diaries, from "Sumer is icumen in" to Mozart quartets, from the illuminations of the Lindisfarne Gospels to Lewis Carroll's illustrations for Alice's Adventures Underground. The program captures the excitement of seeing and often working with the original, the problems of deciphering different scripts and making sense of a document and its context, the joy of reading history in the handwriting of those who made it. (27 minutes)

#3304 Dutch Art in Its Own Environment (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

From Rembrandt's drawings and etchings of landscapes near Amsterdam and van Gogh's people and places in southern Holland to Mondrian's stern lines of the Zeeland coast and a host of depictions in every medium of houses, churches, streets and street scenes, work places and working people, this program shows us the Holland of its artists. (25 minutes)

#3305 The Charming Illusion of Reality (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

A characteristic of Dutch painting is the skill with which texture is rendered; in the vanitas still lifes of the 17th century, the perfect expression of texture serves as a sober reminder of the transience of human life. This program covers the concern with textural expression from the masterworks of Gerard Dou to the modern "magical realists" like Carel Willink and Raoul Hynckes, to the contemporary concerns with texture as an end in itself and its ultimate expression in the sculptural use of scraps and garbage. (25 minutes)

#3306 Light and Shadow (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

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. (25 minutes)

#3307 Non-Existent Reality (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

From Rembrandt's biblical portraits to scenes of Arcadian bliss, from subconscious dreamscapes to nightmares of hellish retribution, artists have had to find models for executing their visions. This program compares the realistic environment with the artistic creations from a Lucas van Leyden triptych to Drupsteen's spectacle with modern video techniques. (25 minutes)

#3308 The Invisible Made Visible (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

Courage, loyalty, justice, to name a few, are some of the abstract concepts expressed through associative images: a pining dog lying on his master's tomb, the blindfolded Justitia with her scales and sword. This program looks at a wide range of symbols, at allegory, and at larger symbolic works like a monument commemorating the victims of World War II. (25 minutes)

#3309 The Impact of Dutch Art on Its Environment (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95

The influence of the Netherlands on its artists has been profound, but no more profound than the obverse. This program shows the role of city planners, architects, sculptors, and landscape designers in creating an environment that-much of the time, at least-makes the best of available options in our post-industrial age. (25 minutes)

#3362 Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (Run Time 64 min.) DVD $89.95

A look into the brief life (he died at age 37) of the explosive and tormented artist, whose personal alchemy combined wealth and a noble title with physical deformity and psychological degeneracy to create some of the best-known and most vibrant and flamboyant work in the history of French art. (French, 64 minutes)

#3710 Thomas Hart Benton: Tom Benton's Missouri (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

Painting America was his life's work, and Thomas Hart Benton was at the apex of his career when he painted Social History of the State of Missouri. This program explores this, the most ambitious mural by America's foremost muralist, and its depiction of Missouri's history from pioneer days to the Depression era. The program is narrated by Benton (using recorded interviews), with additional commentary by historian Bob Priddy. (28 minutes)

#3711 George Caleb Bingham (Run Time 24 min.) DVD $89.95

This program provides a portrait of one of America's foremost 19th-century painters, whose vivid work provides us with an unrivaled view of life along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. The program also covers Bingham's role as the creator of political genre painting. (24 minutes)

#4872 Rembrandt and His Paints (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

One of the principal characteristics that mark a Rembrandt is the artist's use of paint. Try to analyze that and you are thrown back on the paint itself. This program shows the results of decade-long work at the Rembrandt Research Project. In attempting to determine the chemical composition of Rembrandt's pigments and binders, the program uses modern electronic tools to identify Rembrandt's pigments layer by layer; uses recipes and instructions from Rembrandt's time to test quills and oils and gums; and seeks to reconstruct the skills needed to use these substances. This extraordinary analysis of the elements in Rembrandt's paintings teaches an enormous amount about how he worked. (27 minutes)

#5529 Preserving Works of Art (Run Time 23 min.) DVD $89.95

Over time, paintings, photographs, sculptures, even buildings gradually deteriorate. Fortunately, effective techniques have been developed to restore and preserve works of art. The recent discovery of a 40-million-year-old forest near the North Pole poses the problem of how to preserve its waterlogged timber. The program also introduces experts in painting who can verify the authenticity of works and perform astounding restorations. Thanks to special techniques, even old photographs and paper can be rejuvenated. (23 minutes)

#5589 Glass and Ceramics (Run Time 23 min.) DVD $89.95

Glass and ceramic are some of the oldest man-made materials. This program demonstrates two traditional glass-making techniques: glass blowing and the art of stained glass windows. It also follows the production of industrial ceramics, explaining that this material is constantly being used in new applications. Finally, we are shown the expanded use of glass in architecture, where it is increasingly replacing wood and stone. (23 minutes)

#5698 Latino Artists: Pushing Artistic Boundaries (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95

The first part of this program introduces the founding members of the visual artists/performance group Asco (Spanish for disgust). Formed as a reaction to the anger and despair they felt as Latin American outcasts in their own country, this group of young artists turned their nihilism into artistic activism with the production of paintings, magazines, videos, street performances, and photographs that mocked their despair. The second part of this program visits the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, founded by playwright Miguel Pinero and Professor Miguel Algarin, in the heart of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. On the Cafe's stage, poets on the cutting edge gather to read from their works. The program introduces the newest generation of writers who share their work and their vision of identity and cultural duality as Puerto Ricans living in New York. (30 minutes)

#6960 Paul Cezanne: A Life in Provence (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

The bucolic Provencal countryside provides the backdrop for this program which details the life of the French Impressionist deified posthumously as "nature's most sublime interpreter." Remembrances of family, friends, and Cezanne himself offer insights into his childhood in Aix, his lasting friendship with Emile Zola, and his association with numerous artists, including Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Picasso, Braque, and Dufy. Paintings from various periods of his life, including his final days at Sainte Victoire, appear throughout the program. Also available in French. (28 minutes)English

#6961 Paul Cezanne: A Life in Provence (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

The bucolic Provencal countryside provides the backdrop for this program which details the life of the French Impressionist deified posthumously as "nature's most sublime interpreter." Remembrances of family, friends, and Cezanne himself offer insights into his childhood in Aix, his lasting friendship with Emile Zola, and his association with numerous artists, including Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Picasso, Braque, and Dufy. Paintings from various periods of his life, including his final days at Sainte Victoire, appear throughout the program. Also available in English. (28 minutes)French

#7784 Paul Cezanne (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

After several years of traveling, Cezanne moved back to Aix-en-Provence. From that point, he barely left the area, and spent his days painting in his studio and outdoors. The majestic Mont Sainte-Victoire became his primary subject and motif, capturing the magnificent mountain from every angle of light, different points of view, styles, and changing seasons. In this program, we examine many of these paintings in oil, drawings, and watercolor, and probe the intention of Cezanne's apparent obsession with place. (31 minutes)English

#7785 Eugene Delacroix (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95

Alain Jaubert flushes out the details, interprets the symbols, and analyzes the composition of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Why such polemics when the painting was unveiled in 1831? Was it the nudity of the armed woman? Or was it the triumphant people in this realistic setting? Since the painting did not come to the Louvre until well after Delacroix's death, we will never know for certain. But this program makes some educated guesses from a firm, artistic standpoint. (29 minutes)English

#7786 Marcel Duchamp (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase is, with Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, an essential step in the 20th-century artistic revolution. But in spite of its worldwide reputation, the painting has never been commented on in-depth. This program is the first to completely dedicate itself to Duchamp's masterpiece. It asks what exactly the painting represents, and to what extent it is possible to analyze the work and dissect its symbolism. (32 minutes)English

#7787 Jan van Eyck (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

The setting of a Roman gallery brings together four characters in van Eyck's The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin. Nicolas Rolin, the Duke of Burgundy's minister of finance, is on his knees before the Madonna, who is being crowned by an angel. Rolin is being blessed by the infant Jesus. Outside, a rich landscape is peopled with a number of unknown characters. The work is analyzed as a complex painting, difficult to decipher. (28 minutes)

#7788 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

La Goulue, the celebrated cancan dancer and queen of late-night Paris during the Belle Epoque, asked her friend Toulouse-Lautrec to paint two panels to decorate her carnival booth. It is those canvases Decoration pour la baraque de La Goulue and their extraordinary destiny that are the subject of this program. (32 minutes)English

#7789 Leonardo da Vinci (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95

Leonardo da Vinci began his career around 1472 in Florence as a portrait painter. This program examines ten elements in da Vinci's The Virgin, the Infant Jesus, and Saint Anne: darkness and light, volume and color, figure and setting, distance, proximity, movement, and rest. In this painting, Saint Anne wears her hair braided. Her eyes are lowered and she is smiling. On her knees, the Virgin Mary is shown in a low-neck dress, leaning toward the infant Jesus. The program refers to the first sketches of this painting to explore its hidden meanings. (30 minutes)

#7790 Claude Monet (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

In his garden at Giverny, Monet created a vast canvas to research his landscape paintings. He had a Japanese bridge built over the pond, which he covered with water lilies. Anxious to render every variation of light over the bridge, water, foliage, and flowers consistent with the season and time of day, Monet worked simultaneously on several canvases and returned to them again and again. This program explores the 54 versions of Water Lilies from various viewpoints and harmonies of light. We see that behind the apparent spontaneity lies a very sophisticated work of composition. (32 minutes)English

#7791 Pablo Picasso (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $89.95

Crucifixion is a rather surprising painting coming from Picasso, a man who had little interest in religion or religious themes. This program explores the reasons why he might have placed a number of strange, indecipherable figures within this classical representation of Calvary. Many allusions found in the work's enigmatic composition seem to indicate that the painting may have been created during a personal crisis. (33 minutes)English

#7792 Piero della Francesca (Run Time 61 min.) DVD $89.95

The Flagellation is considered one of the most mysterious paintings in the history of art. Although approximately thirty hypotheses have been formulated to try to explain its political meaning, the painting by this scholarly Renaissance artist defies all attempts. This program makes one more attempt, and reveals its overall identity as a manifesto of a new school of art and Renaissance thought. (61 minutes)

#7793 Rembrandt van Rijn (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95

Even in his first paintings, Rembrandt positioned himself in the scene. In the following years, at least 100 times he used his face as the only subject in engravings, drawings, and paintings. Such single-mindedness, unique in the history of art, was very widely interpreted. This program explores his self-portraits and attempts to determine the secret meanings hidden in the various versions of Rembrandt's face. (30 minutes)

#7794 Peter Paul Rubens (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

At age 53, Rubens married the young Helene Fourment, who had already served as the model for several of his works. In the two paintings at the Louvre, she appears in superb apparel, which suggestively hides the splendor of her voluptuous figure. This program examines two portraits of Helene Fourment, and projects from the two paintings what the others, the nudes which she destroyed, might have looked like. (32 minutes)

#7795 Georges Seurat (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

In 1886, at the last Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, an unknown painter, Georges Seurat, exhibited a large canvas which caused a scandal for its technical daring and lack of concern for the accepted conventions of painting. A multitude of small dots created an astonishing light, and "pointillism" was born. In this program, video graphics are used to focus on key elements of Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and to analyze its structure and composition. (32 minutes)English

#7796 Titian (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $89.95

Giorgione or Titian? The identity of the artist who painted one of the world's most famous paintings, Le Concert champetre, remains uncertain to this day. What does this pastoral scene represent? Why do two nude women appear next to two clothed men? What music are they playing? This program attempts to answer these and other questions by delving into 16th-century Venetian culture, and by examining its more recent counterparts, such as Manet's Partie de campagne. (33 minutes)

#7797 Jan Vermeer (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

Vermeer, born in 1632, lived in Delft all of his life and was influenced by Rembrandt. His work consisted of a series of variations on enigmatic interiors. Only 34 of his paintings are known to exist. In this program, video graphics are used to focus on the key elements of The Astronomer for the purpose of analyzing its structure and composition. (28 minutes)

#7798 Paul Cezanne (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

After several years of traveling, Cezanne moved back to Aix-en-Provence. From that point, he barely left the area, and spent his days painting in his studio and outdoors. The majestic Mont Sainte-Victoire became his primary subject and motif, capturing the magnificent mountain from every angle of light, different points of view, styles, and changing seasons. In this program, we examine many of these paintings in oil, drawings, and watercolor, and probe the intention of Cezanne's apparent obsession with place. (31 minutes)French

#7799 Eugene Delacroix (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95

Alain Jaubert flushes out the details, interprets the symbols, and analyzes the composition of Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Why such polemics when the painting was unveiled in 1831? Was it the nudity of the armed woman? Or was it the triumphant people in this realistic setting? Since the painting did not come to the Louvre until well after Delacroix's death, we will never know for certain. But this program makes some educated guesses from a firm, artistic standpoint. (29 minutes)French

#7800 Marcel Duchamp (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase is, with Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, an essential step in the 20th-century artistic revolution. But in spite of its worldwide reputation, the painting has never been commented on in-depth. This program is the first to completely dedicate itself to Duchamp's masterpiece. It asks what exactly the painting represents, and to what extent it is possible to analyze the work and dissect its symbolism. (32 minutes)French

#7801 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

La Goulue, the celebrated cancan dancer and queen of late-night Paris during the Belle Epoque, asked her friend Toulouse-Lautrec to paint two panels to decorate her carnival booth. It is those canvases Decoration pour la baraque de La Goulue and their extraordinary destiny that are the subject of this program. (32 minutes)French

#7802 Claude Monet (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

In his garden at Giverny, Monet created a vast canvas to research his landscape paintings. He had a Japanese bridge built over the pond, which he covered with water lilies. Anxious to render every variation of light over the bridge, water, foliage, and flowers consistent with the season and time of day, Monet worked simultaneously on several canvases and returned to them again and again. This program explores the 54 versions of Water Lilies from various viewpoints and harmonies of light. We see that behind the apparent spontaneity lies a very sophisticated work of composition. (32 minutes)French

#7803 Pablo Picasso (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $89.95

Crucifixion is a rather surprising painting coming from Picasso, a man who had little interest in religion or religious themes. This program explores the reasons why he might have placed a number of strange, indecipherable figures within this classical representation of Calvary. Many allusions found in the work's enigmatic composition seem to indicate that the painting may have been created during a personal crisis. (33 minutes)French

#7804 Georges Seurat (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

In 1886, at the last Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, an unknown painter, Georges Seurat, exhibited a large canvas which caused a scandal for its technical daring and lack of concern for the accepted conventions of painting. A multitude of small dots created an astonishing light, and "pointillism" was born. In this program, video graphics are used to focus on key elements of Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and to analyze its structure and composition. (32 minutes)French

#8612 African Art: Legacy of Oppression (Run Time 13 min.) DVD $89.95

Belgium's Tervuren Museum contains the world's largest collection of Central African art, which consists of approximately 250,000 pieces. Noted journalist Paul Solman discusses the power and the true price of this collection with art historian Ramona Austin and journalist/author Adam Hochschild. In the immense Congo region, there are more than 250 different cultures, so there is a broad range of artistic styles to be found there. Austin is particularly drawn to the emotionally riveting abstracts, with their modernistic qualities and generalized forms that influenced Picasso and other European masters. She also admires the intricate detailing lavished on everyday objects like combs. But how did the Tervuren collect this body of art? Hochschild says that when Belgium's King Leopold II colonized and brutally exploited this territory during the late 1800s, ivory and rubber were not the only things sent back to Europe. (13 minutes)

#8835 Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns: Modern Masters? (Run Time 14 min.) DVD $89.95

What is art? Correspondent Paul Solman attempts to define it through the huge, monochrome canvases of Ellsworth Kelly and the symbol-laden compositions of Jasper Johns. At the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Director Thomas Krens describes Kelly's works as the highest level of abstract precision, used to reduce the world to its most rudimentary elements. At New York's Museum of Modern Art, Chief Curator Kirk Varnedoe finds in Johns' representational works an inventiveness that derives from the meaning of each painting's constituent parts. But is this modern art really art? Art critic Hilton Kramer, a museum guide, and Solman's own camera crew have differing opinions. (14 minutes)

#8844 Bruegel the Elder: His Life and Art (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95

This program presents Bruegel's life and work, from his early landscapes in Italy to the great allegorical works that made him one of the most original and influential painters of the Flemish school. Often compared to Hieronymus Bosch, Bruegel's paintings expose human foibles and his landscapes remain unsurpassed for their majesty. Detailed analysis highlights the important points of Bruegel's most famous works, such as Peasant Wedding Feast, and provides insight into his 16th-century world. An indispensable resource for all students of Western art history. (28 minutes)

#8845 Auguste Rodin: The Life of a Sculptor (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

Rejected innumerable times, Rodin stubbornly pursued his artistic vision and eventually rose to controversial prominence. This program, in which many of his masterpieces are displayed, chronicles the life of this prolific artist who, in his effort to grasp what couldn't be seen, achieved remarkable levels of both realism and impressionism that evoked strong reactions from his public. Highlights include The Age of Bronze life cast scandal, the rejection of his sculpture of Balzac, the story of his unfinished Gates of Hell, and his struggle to have The Burghers of Calais displayed, along with examples of his drawings and paintings. (27 minutes)

#9055 An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists has been the basis of art criticism since the 16th century. This dramatized program cleverly illustrates how each great master developed techniques by building upon the work of his predecessors. The lively discussion between Master Vasari and his apprentice reveals the innovations of Giotto, Ghiberti, Donatello, Uccello, Masaccio, della Francesca, Botticelli, Leonardo, Raffaello, and Michelangelo. Images of selected masterpieces illustrate the Roman influence on Renaissance art and reinforce the concepts of perspective, balance, chiaroscuro, composition, and realism. This charming guide to the Italian masters provides an excellent foundation for high school students. (29 minutes)

#9125 Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko: Icons of Abstract Expressionism (Run Time 23 min.) DVD $89.95

The power of color. The power of freedom. The power of an aesthetic coming into its own in post-war America. Section one of this program explores the work of the rebel painter dubbed "Jack the Dripper" by Time magazine and launched into the American imagination by Life. Archival photos and film clips of Pollock in action provide a compelling glimpse of an artistic vision that defined its own space between art and chaos. Section two traces the career of the dissident modernist born Marcus Rothkowitz, from obscurity to celebrity. Joseph Solman-89-year-old co-founder of "The Ten"-and art historian Dore Ashton shed light on the works of an artist for whom success was both a triumph and a defeat. (23 minutes)

#10353 The Italian Renaissance (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

The Italian Renaissance, which embraces both the Early Renaissance and the High Renaissance, stands as the central tradition in European art-and continues to be a powerful source of artistic influences.This program examines:• Masaccio's Profile Portrait of a Young Man (1425), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC• Andrea Mantegna's Crucifixion of Christ (1456-59), from the Musee du Louvre, Paris• Leonardo da Vinci's Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci (1474-76), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC• Raphael's Portrait of Bindo Altoviti (1515), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC• Titian's Bacchanal (1525), from the Museo del Prado, Madrid• Paolo Veronese's The Marriage at Cana (1562-63), from the Musee du Louvre, Paris(60 minutes)

#10354 The Northern Renaissance (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Goes' Adoration of the Magi (circa 1470), from the Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlino Albrecht Durer's Portrait of an Unknown Cleric (1516), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCo Hans Holbein the Younger's Portrait of the Artist's Wife with Katharina and Philipp (1523), from the Kunstmuseum, Baselo Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Triumph of Death (circa 1562), from the Museo del Prado, Madrid(60 minutes)

#10355 The Baroque Period (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Son (circa 1668), from The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburgo Peter Paul Rubens' The Garden of Love (circa 1633), from the Museo del Prado, Madrido Sir Anthony van Dyck's Samson and Delilah (between 1626 and 1632), from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Viennao Diego Velazquez' Las Meninas (1656), from the Museo del Prado, Madrido Jacob van Ruisdael's The Large Forest (circa 1655-60), from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna(60 minutes)

#10356 Expressionism (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

An outgrowth of Fauvism, Expressionism emphasized color's emotional properties while demonstrating far less concern than the Fauves had with the formal and structural composition of color. Contemporary Neo-Expressionism has further developed this artistic approach.This program examines:o Edvard Munch's Ashes (1894), from the National Gallery of Norway, Osloo Franz Marc's The Tiger (1912), from the Municipal Gallery, Lenbachhaus, Municho Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Five Women in the Street (1913), from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Museum Ludwig, Cologneo Max Beckmann's Actors (Triptych) (1941-42), from the Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridgeo Georg Baselitz's The Great Friends (1965), from the Museum Moderner Kunst, Viennao Anselm Kiefer's Interior (1981), from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam(60 minutes)

#10357 The Impact of Cubism (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

Influenced by the works of Cezanne, African tribal art, and the art of the Iberian peninsula, Cubism-the most influential style of the early 20th century-offered European artists unfamiliar, nonclassical ways to represent form and space.This program examines:o Juan Gris' The Breakfast Table (1915), from the Centre Pompidou, Pariso Marcel Duchamp's Sad Young Man on a Train (1911), from the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Veniceo Robert Delaunay's Champ de Mars (1911), from The Art Institute of Chicagoo Sonia Delaunay's Electric Prisms (1914), from the Centre Pompidou, Pariso Kazimir Malevich's An Englishman in Moscow (1913-14), from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdamo Umberto Boccioni's Farewells (1911), from the Museum of Modern Art, New York(60 minutes)

#10358 Dada and Surrealism (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

The Dada movement, born as a reaction to World War I, and its successor, Surrealism, opened new avenues for artistic creation by striving to bypass the reasoning process and tap directly into the unconscious mind. This program examines: • Kurt Schwitters' Merzbild 25 A (1920), from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf • Hanna Hoch's Cut with the Kitchen Knife (1919), from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin • George Grosz' Untitled (1920), from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf • Joan Miro's Dutch Interior I (1928), from the Museum of Modern Art, New York • Salvador Dali's The Burning Giraffe (1936), from the Kunstmuseum, Basel • Man Ray's La Fortune (1938), from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (60 minutes)

#10359 Realism in Twentieth-Century American Painting (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

Always a strong artistic current in the U.S., Realism has kept pace with the times, first as Regionalism and Social Realism-which defined early Modernism-and then reemerging as contemporary photo-realism.This program examines:o Grant Wood's American Gothic (1930), from The Art Institute of Chicagoo Georgia O'Keeffe's The White Calico Flower (1931), from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Yorko Reginald Marsh's Twenty Cent Movie (1931), from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Yorko Edward Hopper's Nighthawks (1942), from The Art Institute of Chicagoo Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World (1948), from the Museum of Modern Art, New Yorko Richard Estes' Ansonia (1977), from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York(60 minutes)

#10360 Abstract Expressionism and Pop: Art of the '50s and '60s (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95

Abstract Expressionism was born from a joining of attitudes in American art and European avant-garde art, but was later rejected for its nonfigurative and seemingly egocentric character in favor of the ultra-objective phenomenon known as Pop Art.This program examines:o Franz Kline's C & O (1958), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCo Helen Frankenthaler's Mountains and Sea (1952), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DCo Willem de Kooning's Morning: The Springs (1983), from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdamo Jasper Johns' Flag (1954), from the Museum of Modern Art, New Yorko Andy Warhol's The Texan: Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg (1963), from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Museum Ludwig, Cologneo Roy Lichtenstein's Girl with Hair Ribbon (1965), from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC(60 minutes)

#10372 Diego Rivera: Art and Revolution (Run Time 12 min.) DVD $89.95

Although an ardent Marxist, Diego Rivera cared little if a communist or a capitalist sponsored his murals and easel paintings, as long as the finished pieces were true to his convictions. In this program, NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Kaye surveys the life and artwork of Diego Rivera, a larger-than-life figure and one of the 20th century's truly revolutionary artists-both creatively and politically. Topics include Rivera's success in melding the painting styles of European Modernism with the art of ancient Mexico; his belief in the dignity of everyday life; the notorious Rockefeller Center mural; and, underpinning all, his deep love of Mexico. (12 minutes)

#10505 The Evolution of Art (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $89.95

For thousands of years, artists were anonymous, yet today they are frequently honored as celebrities. How did this change in perspective come about? This program tracks the cultural evolution of art-from the ancient Greeks to the modern world, where art is big business-and addresses the technological changes that have fueled various artistic revolutions down through the centuries. Featured experts are sociologist Vera Zolberg, of the New School for Social Research; Catherine Millet, editor-in-chief of Art Press; and art historians Marylin Stokstad, of the University of Kansas, and Jean-Luc Chalumeau, of Verso arts et lettres. (53 minutes)

#10655 The State of the Arts in America's Schools (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95

As cuts in federal and state funding continue to erode support for public school fine arts programs and field trips, opportunities for children to experience the visual arts, music, dance, and theater are disappearing. In this documentary, Kerry Bennington, of the Krasl Art Center, and other concerned experts trace the evolution of the arts in America and enter into the debate over whether the fine arts are an educational asset or an elitist diversion of scarce resources from core curriculums. (29 minutes)

#10656 Alive and Well: The Arts in America (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95

Thanks to the efforts of dedicated visionaries, there is an intergenerational learning experience spreading across the country. This fine arts forum invites the creators and supporters of outstanding school and community programs to take center stage. Together they share the positive impact the programs are having on students and the public at large, promoting art education and helping to ensure that the nation's artistic reservoir will grow in vitality and diversity. (29 minutes)

#31226 Paolo Uccello: Capturing War (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

Giving free rein to his passion for perspective, Paolo Uccello immortalized a clash between Florentine and Sienese troops in his Battle of San Romano. This program uses that three-panel Early Renaissance masterpiece to gain insights into Uccello's fascination with three-dimensionality as well as his intense curiosity about geometrical forms, color, and movement. (31 minutes)

#31227 The Lady and the Unicorn: Making Sense of the Senses (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

The National Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris is the home of The Lady and the Unicorn, the exotic set of six medieval tapestries that illustrates the five senses-and the Lady's deepest desire. This program seeks to unravel the mysteries woven into these enchanting wall hangings as it explores their history and symbolism. (33 minutes)

#31228 Matthias Grunewald: The Sanctity of Suffering (Run Time 34 min.) DVD $89.95

His birth date is uncertain. His name entered the annals of art history misspelled. And his greatest work, the Isenheim Altarpiece, was for centuries attributed to Albrecht Durer. Who exactly was Matthias Grunewald, admired today as one of the geniuses of the Northern Renaissance? This program profiles Grunewald and his intensely expressive approach to subject matter as demonstrated by that altarpiece, designed for use in a hospital for patients being treated for St. Anthony's fire. (34 minutes)

#31229 Persian Miniature: The Gardens of Paradise (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

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. (31 minutes)

#31230 Gustave Courbet: The Place of Death (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

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. (32 minutes)

#31231 Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Bright Summer Sundays (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $89.95

This program studies Pierre-Auguste Renoir's charming composition The Moulin de la Galette, a marvelous interweaving of sunlight and soft, hazy blue-and a genial proclamation of the Impressionist school. The nuanced color, the subtly overlapping brushstrokes, the artful blurring of the figures, and other technical elements are considered. (32 minutes)

#31232 Wassily Kandinsky: Invisible Shapes (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $89.95

For Wassily Kandinsky, the father of abstract art, geometric form was the external expression of inner meaning. What sensibilities do art lovers need in order to decode the shapes behind the shapes in his colorful-and, in their day, controversial-paintings? This program introduces the subject of symbolism in abstract expressionism through a close examination of Kandinsky's Yellow-Red-Blue. (33 minutes)

#31233 Andy Warhol: Images of an Image (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

At once banal and provocative, the works of Andy Warhol sardonically comment on the ubiquity of mass media in modern America. This program takes a look at the Pop Art movement and the life of Warhol through a penetrating investigation of his deadpan Ten Lizes. The painting exemplifies his fascination with-and his indifference to-celebrities as objects no less commodified than a simple can of soup. (31 minutes)

#31291 Introduction to Modern Art (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $89.95

Segment one of this program presents Rodin's The Kiss, Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Picasso's The Three Dancers to chart the progression of distortion as a means of expressing more than what a figurative subject can represent. Segment two uses Kandinsky's Cossacks and Pollock's Summertime: Number 9A to illustrate how color, line, and shape communicate ideas and emotions without a recognizable subject. Segment three spotlights Sir William Nicholson's The Lowestoft Bowl, Cezanne's Still Life with Water Jug, and Picasso's Still Life to demonstrate how the still life, in moving from realistic to abstract, made possible the concept of mixed media. (15 minutes)

#31292 Objects (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $89.95

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 three features Damien Hirst's room-filling installation Pharmacy, the meaning of which is explained by the artist himself. (15 minutes)

#31293 Places (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Slate Circle installation, and Waterfall Wall Painting, created by finger painting with a white clay slurry on a large black wall. (15 minutes)

#31294 War (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Europe through Jean Fautrier's Large Tragic Head, Alberto Giacometti's Standing Woman, and Hannah Collins' In the Course of Time II, a chilling reminder of the Holocaust. (15 minutes)

#31295 People (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Fried Eggs. Segment three seeks to understand issues of identity and to discern the roots of cruelty with Louise Bourgeois' Cell (Eyes and Mirrors) and Annette Messager's The Pikes. (15 minutes)

#33420 Drawing: Perspectives on Line and Form (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 the 19th and 20th centuries. (27 minutes)

#33421 Pigments: From Lascaux to Picasso (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

This program explains how artists' colors are made and applied by charting the development of various families of pigments-and by demonstrating that the compounding of colors is always a mixture of tradition and technology, experience and innovation. Pigments prepared from natural sources and derived from industrial processes are closely studied, noting failures as well as successes. Decorative applications of color to cloth-making, glass staining, and printing are considered as well. (27 minutes)

#33422 Brushstrokes: The Painter's Touch (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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. (27 minutes)

#33424 Painting on Portable Media (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 on portable media, giving equal attention to great wooden polyptychs of 30 to 40 panels and tiny canvases such as Vermeer's The Lacemaker. (27 minutes)

#33425 The Painter's Studio: Art Workshop, Art Laboratory (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 tools; the use of nude models; the hard-won success of women in gaining acceptance for female painters; and the continually evolving creative space known as the studio. (27 minutes)

#35060 Edouard Vuillard: The Pathways of Memory (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95

Beneath its apparent thematic simplicity, Edouard Vuillard's The Public Gardens raises numerous historic and technical questions that this program seeks to resolve. Entries from Vuillard's journal unify the narrative as it travels from his art education, to his painting technique, to the effects of symbolist theater on his work, to his practice of photography-all of which shed light on or are illumined by his nine-panel masterpiece. (30 minutes)

#36414 Hokusai: The Suspended Threat (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $89.95

This program takes a deep look into Hokusai's The Great Wave, interpreting the story it tells and scrutinizing formal aspects ranging from the perfect spiral that underpins the wave, to the spiritual balance between water and sky, to the fractal-like nature of the wavelets. Footage of artisans at work demonstrates how plates for The Great Wave were cut, inked, and successively impressed onto paper in vivid colors. Additional examples of Hokusai's work illustrate his use of geometric elements to frame key parts of scenes, his application of perspective, how he played with the plasticity of nature, and his foray into erotic images. (31 minutes)

#36453 Light, Shadow, and Reflection: Painting with Light (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 conveys Chardin's mastery of light in still life and the exquisite relationship between sunlight and color in the paintings of Bonnard and Monet. (27 minutes)

#36454 Landscape: The Invention of Nature (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 shows how awareness and mastery of perspective evolved, leading to magnificent works by Giorgione, Brueghel, da Vinci, and other masters of landscape. (27 minutes)

#36455 Portrait/Self-Portrait: The Conquest of the Human Figure (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 any other artist. Examining Modernist and Pop approaches, the program illustrates ways in which Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Warhol captured the features and emotions of the human countenance. (27 minutes)

#36457 The Scenario: Telling a Story Through Painting (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95

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 Scales, David's Coronation of Napoleon, and Manet's Luncheon on the Grass-these are a few of the masterpieces which, with the help of the film, reveal their author's insights into the human drama. (27 minutes)

#3287 J.M.W. Turner: The Sun Is God (Run Time 63 min.) DVD $99.95

This superb dramatization of the life and artistic development of the great painter shows a wide array of his works in the context of the time and place at which they were created. Using the writings of John Russell to provide commentary and artistic analysis, the program provides a delicate portrait of the painter whose experiments with light influenced a whole generation of Impressionists, who spent his life trying to capture in paint the power and brilliance of the sun, whose dying words were, "The sun is God." (63 minutes)

#7371 Whistler: An American in Europe (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $99.95

Some thought him a dandy, a publicity seeker with more avant-garde imagination than substantive artistic talent. Yet James Whistler's paintings stand as some of America's greatest contributions to the world of modern art. This program traces Whistler's career in 19th-century Paris through experiments with light and form, to his court battle with English art critic Ruskin. Ruskin countersued Whistler for libel after Whistler sued Ruskin over a bad review. The case is viewed as a first round in the ongoing battle for supremacy between realism and modern art. Many of Whistler's works are included: White Girl, Homage to Delacroix, Symphony in White, Harmony in Blue and Gold, and the famous Whistler's Mother. Later paintings illustrate Whistler's emerging impressionist style that culminates in the Nocturnes, a series of dark, dream-like works inspired by Japanese art. Whistler's relationships with Gustav Courbet, Claude Monet, and the pre-Raphaelites are also discussed. (27 minutes)

#2215 Velazquez (Run Time 36 min.) DVD $129.95

A portrait of the extraordinary painter who chronicled the life and times of his friend King Philip the Fourth, who built the core of the Prado collection (which today houses almost all of his work), and who, with El Greco, Goya, and Picasso, comprises the quartet of the greatest painters of Spain. (36 minutes)

#3191 Frida Kahlo: Portrait of a Woman (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95

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. (20 minutes)

#6642 The Pre-Raphaelite Revolt (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $129.95

Some of the most widely known paintings in the history of English art were produced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose work stands out as the most intensely romantic aspect of Victorian painting in England. Founded in 1848 to protest against the outmoded academic conventions of the day, the Brotherhood's influence lasted until the end of the century, affecting fashion, interior design, and literature. This program explores the early years of the group and examines the works of Millais, Ruskin, Ford Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Arthur Hughes, and Rossetti. Over thirty paintings and nearly fifty drawings are seen in the program. The commentary for the program includes the poetry of Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (30 minutes)

#8843 Greek Vases in the British Museum (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $129.95

The vases of ancient Greece-from the first handmade pottery to the characteristic black- and red-figure vases of Athens-provide important clues to Greek art and life. Drawing on the British Museum's world-famous collection, this program documents the history of Greek vases from 6000 BC to the 4th century BC and the techniques employed to create them; investigates the design and function of various vase shapes; and examines how myths, legends, and the themes of life, war, work, play, birth, and death were illustrated. (31 minutes)

#8854 Chinese Art: Treasures of the National Palace Museum (Run Time 41 min.) DVD $129.95

This program spotlights 33 works of Chinese art seldom ever seen outside of the National Palace Museum. Spanning approximately 5,000 years of history, this diverse collection of pieces includes a Neolithic pottery jar; bronze fangzun and fangyi vessels from the late Shang-early Zhou period; a bronze ding vessel from the Late Western Zhou period; a Tang figurine in sancai glaze; a Ming cup in doucai enamels; and a Qing cylindrical curio cabinet. Displayed in chronological order and shown from numerous angles, these cultural artifacts comprise an indispensable educational resource for art history and Asian studies curriculums. Access points, provided in index form, make locating each artifact easy. (41 minutes)

#9032 The Last Days in the Life of Vincent van Gogh (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95

A tormented genius, van Gogh was only 37 when he shot himself at the scene of his last painting. This captivating program focuses on the final period of Vincent van Gogh's life, from his relocation to Arles to his final move to Auvers-sur-Oise. By retracing his journey to southern France and back, in combination with readings from letters to his brother and interviews with van Gogh experts, this passionate artist's most fruitful period-tragically cut short-is illuminated, along with the landscapes that inspired him. A Deutsche Welle production. (26 minutes)

#10362 Sculptors at Storm King: Shaping American Art (Run Time 47 min.) DVD $129.95

The 400-acre Storm King Art Center is America's premier outdoor museum of post-1945 sculpture-and home to the works of more than a hundred of the world's top talents. Through interviews, archival footage, and film clips of sculptors in action, this program offers a glimpse into the creative process of some of the century's most influential artists while presenting a magnificent visual survey of the encyclopedic Storm King collection. Featured sculptors include the late David Smith, whose work forms the nucleus of the collection; deceased artists Louise Nevelson, Alexander Calder, and Isamu Noguchi; and Kenneth Snelson, Mark di Suvero, and Richard Serra. (47 minutes)

#10365 Albrecht Durer: Image of a Master (Run Time 21 min.) DVD $129.95

Albrecht Durer, arguably the greatest artist of the northern Renaissance, was the primary conduit through whom Italian Renaissance forms and ideas were introduced into a Germany still dominated by the Gothic tradition. This program examines the life and work of the peerless painter and printmaker, focusing on some of his most important pieces. The influence of his father, a goldsmith; Anthony Koberger, Durer's godfather and one of Germany's finest printers and publishers; painter and illustrator Michael Wolgemut; and the humanist Wilibald Pirckheimer is considered as well. (21 minutes)

#10367 The Coca-Cola Bottle and the Red and Blue Chair (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95

Section one of this program features probably the most celebrated American package of all time: the Coca-Cola bottle, which has retained its essential shape-as easily recognizable to the touch as to the eye-since 1916. In section two, artisan Gerrit Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair, a furniture style debuted in 1919 in the pages of the influential Dutch magazine De Stijl and symbolic of 20th-century Modernism, is spotlighted. (20 minutes)

#10368 The London Transport Underground Map and the Volkswagen Beetle (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95

In section one of this program, London's massive subway system is described in conjunction with the stylized map-the brainchild of an electric circuit diagram designer-that since 1933 has made sense of it. Section two focuses on Ferdinand Porsche's people's automobile: the Volkswagen Beetle, an emblem of industrial Modernism supported by Adolf Hitler and adored by drivers on both sides of the Atlantic since the mid-1950s. (20 minutes)

#10369 Composition Cutlery and the Swatch (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95

Section one of this program examines the prodigious volume of products created by Tapio Wirkkala, including the 1963 cutlery set called Composition-a testimonial to the artist's love of nature, knowledge of ergonomics, and refined sense of taste. In section two, the sensational Swatch-a pop culture phenomenon-is featured, showing how its styling has helped the Swiss watch industry fight Japanese competition while keeping pace with the times. (20 minutes)

#10949 The Last Supper in New York (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $129.95

"One of you will betray me." In The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci broke with tradition and seated Judas amidst the other disciples, and in so doing added many layers of meaning and mystery to that masterpiece. In this captivating program, art historian Amelia Arenas uses a full-scale digital replica of the painting to stimulate discussion among a group of high school students. Together, they express their impressions and insights, analyzing the painting's content and composition while attempting to identify which figure is the traitor. Computer graphics and footage of the original undergoing restoration enhance this engaging educational resource. (53 minutes)

#11092 Albert Paley: Man of Steel (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $129.95

Albert Paley is world-renowned for his metal work in jewelry and large-scale sculpture. This program provides a comprehensive overview of his life and work, including his studies at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, his early work in jewelry design, and more contemporary works such as the Renwick Gates and his decorative architectural sculpture for Bausch & Lomb. Commentary from Elizabeth Broun, director of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, and an examination of Paley's technique complete the detailed survey of this 20th-century luminary. (58 minutes)

#29447 Chagall (Run Time 44 min.) DVD $129.95

Completed just a month after his death in 1985, this program presents the most authoritative film biography of Marc Chagall. Weaving his paintings with archival footage and numerous interviews with the artist, it chronicles the long, creative arc of Chagall's life, from his birth in Czarist Russia in 1887 through almost the entirety of the 20th century. A natural Surrealist long before its theory was established, Chagall passed in and out of notoriety, both in Paris and New York. As this program shows, despite his friendship with Andre Breton and other greats, Chagall pursued his own unique artistic vision. (43 minutes)

#30593 Jean-Simeon Chardin: The Great Magician (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

In pre-Revolutionary France, the still life was considered merely a minor genre of painting. How then did the still life artist and portraitist Jean-Simeon Chardin, the ultimate outsider in an age of frivolity, rise to become a court favorite of Louis XV? This program captures the essence of the artist dubbed the "Great Magician" by Diderot for his uncannily realistic portrayal of domestic scenes. Using slow pans and close-ups, the program closely examines the painter's technique as it profiles the man behind the brush-so very out of tune with his times, yet supremely successful in his art. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (27 minutes)

#30598 Henri Rousseau: The Secret of the Customs Officer (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

A self-taught painter, Henri Rousseau insinuated himself into art history with an oeuvre that reveals an astonishing sensibility behind a naivete that was both personal and artistic. This captivating program traces the life of "Customs Officer Rousseau," as he was mockingly called, separating the facts from the artist's fantasies and self-deceptions. Many of his canvases-primitives that reverberate with a darkly powerful emotion-are examined. Both admired and the butt of jokes, Rousseau prefigured the Surrealists' ideal of the untaught genius whose eyes could see farther than those of a trained artist. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (27 minutes)

#30682 The Dead and the Dying (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95

"Expressing a dead body," wrote Leon Baptista Alberti, in 1435, "is one of the most difficult things in the world." This program examines the portrayal of death in art, from ancient times to the post-World War II era. Sarcophagi, paintings, sculptures, funerary statuary, news photos, cinema, mixed media, and a living pieta reveal the intricacies and nuances of rendering incidents of natural, accidental, and violent death, including Jesus' crucifixion. The impacts of Christianity on modern figurative painting and of historical watersheds such as the First World War and the Holocaust on old notions of death are explored as well. (27 minutes)

#30683 Slumber (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95

What is it about slumber that has beguiled artists and viewers alike, down through the centuries? This program focuses mainly on depictions of sleeping women-clothed, partially bared, and totally nude-in paintings, sculptures, engravings, art photos, and film, from the medieval period to mid-20th century. Topics include the latent eroticism and voyeurism inherent in such subject matter, symbolism such as entanglement in bedding, the use of veils as backdrops and of curtains as dividers, the concept of sleep as a form of betrayal, and the technical challenge of depicting a dreamer and a dream within the same artistic space. (27 minutes)

#30684 Double Vision (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

From the multiple perspectives in Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage to the multiple soup cans of Andy Warhol, Western art abounds with examples of "double vision." This program looks first at duplication within works of art via mirrors, naturally reflective surfaces, and shadows and then at stylized repetition, whether it be through patterns integral to a work or through patterns that in themselves constitute the work. More esoteric aspects, such as implied and distorted reflections, the otherness of reflected images, the weightiness of shadows, the fear-inducing quality of doubled images, and repeating as a means of progressing, are also addressed. (27 minutes)

#30685 Illuminating the Night (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95

What do Piero della Francesca's Dream of Constantine and Edward Hopper's Summer Evening have in common with the films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Night of the Hunter? This program analyzes the lights that illuminate the night-from candles and street lights, to the moon, to Ingo Maurer's hologram of a neon-rendered light bulb-and the way artists make use of them to create revealing contrasts and to direct the viewer's gaze. Technical aspects of light manipulation in the visual arts such as the use of chiaroscuro and sfumato in painting and the creation of cinematic night effects by underexposing film are considered as well. (27 minutes)

#30686 Women Bathing (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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 in a painting looks at a bather or when a bather looks out at a viewer; the concealing and revealing of the body with wraps and towels; and the power of actions both mundane and symbolic, such as the combing of hair. Contains nudity. (27 minutes)

#30687 Metamorphoses of the Body (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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 of genitalia; digital manipulation of images, to model bizarre new races of people; and engineered beings such as Frankenstein-type creatures and cyborgs. (27 minutes)

#30688 The Window (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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 or made opaque; and objects and figures, as bridges between interior and exterior. The window as anti-veduta is also considered, as are cinematic and photographic analogs to the veduta. (27 minutes)

#30689 Landscape as Backdrop (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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, and photographs show how visual devices such as gardens and estrades are used to separate foreground and background and how the artistic tension is resolved between landscapes and the humans that often inhabit them. (27 minutes)

#30690 The Cityscape (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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 and private spaces, the depiction of city-dwellers singly and in groups, the portrayal of utopias and dystopias, and the distillation of the city into its most dynamic component: its rhythm. (27 minutes)

#30691 The Painter's Studio (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

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. (27 minutes)

#31225 Lascaux: The Prehistory of Art (Run Time 61 min.) DVD $129.95

One of the world's most fascinating museums is by far one of the oldest. But can the paintings there really be called art? This program goes inside the Lascaux cave complex to examine the richest and most beautiful collection of Paleolithic cave drawings in France. Who were the artisans who rendered those arresting images, and how exactly did they do it? Different theories are presented as the cameras capture a site that never ceases to amaze and intrigue. (61 minutes)

#31235 The Lady and the Unicorn: Making Sense of the Senses-in French (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $129.95

The National Museum of the Middle Ages in Paris is the home of The Lady and the Unicorn, the exotic set of six medieval tapestries that illustrates the five senses-and the Lady's deepest desire. This program seeks to unravel the mysteries woven into these enchanting wall hangings as it explores their history and symbolism. (French, 33 minutes)

#31236 Gustave Courbet: The Place of Death-in French (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $129.95

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. (French, 32 minutes)

#31237 Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Bright Summer Sundays-in French (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $129.95

This program studies Pierre-Auguste Renoir's charming composition The Moulin de la Galette, a marvelous interweaving of sunlight and soft, hazy blue-and a genial proclamation of the Impressionist school. The nuanced color, the subtly overlapping brushstrokes, the artful blurring of the figures, and other technical elements are considered. (French, 32 minutes)

#31409 The Victorian Nude (Run Time 37 min.) DVD $129.95

In this program, Tate Britain's Alison Smith explores contradictory Victorian attitudes toward the nude in painting and sculpture. Topics include attempts to characterize the English nude, the classical nude as an expression of moral and spiritual ideals, the mystique of the artist's studio, the sensational nudes of the later Victorian years, and modern depictions of the naked human form that began to emerge around 1900. The works of William Etty, William Blake Richmond, Annie Swynnerton, Edward Burne-Jones, John William Waterhouse, Frederic Leighton, Henry Scott Tuke, William Orpen, John Singer Sargent, and others are featured. (37 minutes)

#31941 African Art (Run Time 22 min.) DVD $129.95

In the villages of sub-Saharan Africa where traditions are still strong, art is an integral part of daily life. This illuminating program examines the symbolism, aesthetics, and functionality of African art through the vast region’s sculpture, masks, architecture, ornaments, clothing, and utensils. In addition, indigenous African religious beliefs are explored through rituals—a spiritual form of performance art—and funerary statuary. Prehistoric rock art is also presented, and the conceptual nature of African art is stressed. Location footage underscoring the rich mosaic of cultures to be found in sub-Saharan Africa provides the backdrop for the program. (22 minutes)

#33230 Gary Hill: Transcending the Senses (Run Time 54 min.) DVD $129.95

Gary Hill's transformative films, performances, and video installations offer resonant philosophic and poetic insights as he explores the tensions that reverberate among electronic media, language, the senses, and the self. In this program, Hill uses a number of his pieces to investigate otherness and ambiguity, dislocation of the senses, the boundary between words and comprehension, the physicality of text, and figurative interactivity. Featured works include Wall Piece; Crossbow; Liminal Objects; Reflex Chamber; Conundrum; Remarks on Color; Suspension of Disbelief; I Believe It Is an Image in Light of the Other; Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (Come on Petunia); CRUX; Primarily Speaking; and Mediations. Contains brief nudity. (54 minutes)

#33232 The Body as a Matrix: Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $129.95

With the five-part Cremaster Cycle of films, multi-award-winning artist Matthew Barney invented a densely layered and interconnected sculptural world that surreally combines sports, biology, sexuality, history, and mythology as it organically evolves. In this program, Barney, Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector, and others deconstruct the Cycle's filming and subsequent translation into sculptural installations. The locations, characters, and symbols that organize the Cycle films; the Cycle installations as spatial content carriers and extensions of the performances; and objectification of the body and undifferentiated sexuality are addressed, as are the intricacies of costuming, makeup, and sculpting with Barney's signature materials: plastic, metal, and Vaseline. Contains nudity and mature themes. (53 minutes)

#33403 Rothko: An Abstract Humanist (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $129.95

This program offers a rare examination of the life and work of Mark Rothko. Rothko gave abstraction the emotional power of music and poetry. He painted ideas rather than objects and, in the process, created a deeply original pictorial language. One of the most important artists of his generation, Rothko is perhaps best known for his work in the style of the New York School and was a peer of many other illustrious abstract artists: Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell, to name only five. (52 minutes)

#33427 Turner and Venice (Run Time 49 min.) DVD $129.95

Venice is the subject that dominates the later paintings of J. M. W. Turner. Its shimmering radiance, ethereal beauty, and faded magnificence inspired some of his best-loved and most enchanting images-dazzling reflections on light and color, history and literature, tradition and modernity. This program explores all aspects of the rich relationship between the illustrious painter and the city he loved so well. Interviews with Ian Warrell, curator of a Turner exhibition at Tate Britain; historian David Laven; poet Andrew Motion; and artist Cornelia Parker are featured. (39 minutes)

#33549 Cataclysm: The Black Death Visits Tuscany (Run Time 49 min.) DVD $129.95

Until 1348, people in Sienna and Florence enjoyed the richest, safest, and most comfortable lives in their history. But almost overnight, their certainty of life-and even any hope of a good death-was gone. This program assesses the aftermath of the ferocious damage unleashed by the bubonic plague on the two city-states. Historians Alexander Nagel and Nicholas Terpstra, from the University of Toronto, and professional artisans-chief among them, sculptor Marcello del Colle, from Opera del Duomo-comment on how dazzling works of architecture went unfinished, artisans became more intrigued with the divine world than the natural, and how from the ashes a new spiritual inquiry would spring, paving the way for the High Renaissance. (49 minutes)

#34714 Latin American Women Artists 1915-1995 (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

Surveying some of the most under-appreciated art of the 20th century, this program documents a groundbreaking exhibit of work by Latin American women at the Milwaukee Art Museum. The video opens up the world of these bold and sensitive visionaries, illuminating their accomplishments, their impact on artists outside their own countries, and the relationship between cultural and artistic identity. Featuring the work of legendary painters Frida Kahlo and Maria Izquierdo-as well as living artists Fanny Sanin, Soledad Salame, Elba Damast, and many others-the program reevaluates notions of mainstream and margin in the contemporary art world. (27 minutes)

#36066 The Drawings of Michelangelo (Run Time 41 min.) DVD $129.95

Art students can benefit greatly from comparing Michelangelo's preparatory drawings to his finished masterworks-but viewing them together is virtually impossible in a museum setting. This program solves that problem, closely juxtaposing the artist's pencil and charcoal works with the painting, sculpture, and architecture that grew out of them. Studying drawings at the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, and other renowned institutions, the program presents detailed analysis of the Pieta, the colossal David, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, The Last Judgment, the Medici tomb, and St. Peter's Basilica. It also provides insight into Michelangelo's tools, techniques, stylistic evolution, and sexuality. (41 minutes)

#36099 Hell (Run Time 24 min.) DVD $129.95

The iconography of hell-a grim warning and arguably a form of behavior control-dates back to ancient times. This program surveys the landscape of damnation as it has been portrayed as Tartarus, Gehenna, Hell, Jahannam, Naraka, and modern-day apocalyptic horror. Representative works of art include the doom painting at Salisbury's Church of St. Thomas, Lorenzo Maitani's relief The Last Judgment on the facade of Orvieto Cathedral, Hieronymus Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, an illustration by William Blake of Dante's Inferno, Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell, Hadith illustrations, Japanese scrolls, and Hell, a diorama by Jake and Dinos Chapman populated by mutated and mutilated Nazis-destroyed, ironically, in a warehouse fire. (23 minutes)

#37437 The Space of Pottery: Ceramics of Paul Mathieu (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $129.95

This beautifully filmed program by Richard L. Harrison explores the work, creative process, and philosophical perspective of award-winning ceramist Paul Mathieu, whose multilayered works in porcelain defy conventional boundaries of craft, sculpture, and representation. Different stages of the ceramics-making process are spotlighted as Mathieu creates an intricate stacking dinner service called The Arrows of Time inspired by physicist Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time. Images of numerous other finished pieces-Le Souci de Soi, The Piece Is Not to Be Photographed, and The Mortal Secret of Immortality, to name only three-further emphasize the complexity of Mathieu's work and the cerebral yet poetic nature of his aesthetics. The only thing missing from this classic program-and from the internationally acclaimed artist himself-is ego. (27 minutes)

#2236 Hieronymus Bosch (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $149.95

Almost precisely the contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, that emblem of the Renaissance, Hieronymus Bosch epitomizes the Middle Ages with its bitter vision of the endless ways in which man sins. This program covers the array of Bosch's work collected by Philip II and housed in the Prado, showing the depth and detail of Bosch's pictorialization of man's ways on Earth, painted in extraordinary and imaginative detail-the more extraordinary because Bosch, arguably the greatest medieval painter, worked in the middle of the Renaissance. (30 minutes)

#4096 Picasso and His Time (Run Time 34 min.) DVD $149.95

This superb documentary covers the long and extraordinary life of Picasso, beginning with the first period of his life in Malaga, La Coruna, and Barcelona (the time of his classic painting) and continuing in Paris, Vallauris, and Vouvenargue. This beautifully photographed program follows the development of this genius through the Pink and Blue Periods, surrealism, cubism, sculpture, and ceramics: a unique artist who excelled in all styles and all media and remained-regardless of where he was-Spanish to the core. (34 minutes)

#4655 The Old Testament in Art (Run Time 76 min.) DVD $149.95

The themes touched on in this program cover the whole spectrum of ideas in the Old Testament: myth and history, poetry and allegory. The stories are classed under the headings of the Genesis Story of Creation, the Patriarchs, Israel in Egypt, the Promised Land, the Lord's Anointed, and Exile and Return. The illustrations, by artists from Fra Lippo Lippi and Rembrandt to William Blake, not only clarify the Biblical narrative but broaden its metaphoric range. (76 minutes)

#6271 Bauhaus: The Face of the 20th Century (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

This stunning program looks at the development of the Bauhaus and at the key figures involved in it-including the founder Walter Gropius, his successor Mies van der Rohe, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Josef Albers. The program also sets the history of the Bauhaus in the context of the political unrest and economic chaos of the Weimar Republic in Germany. The program features numerous experts including Christopher Frayling of the Royal College of Art, architectural historian Charles Jencks, and Dr. Peter Hahn, Director of the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin. Former students discuss their time at the Bauhaus, and the eminent architect Philip Johnson tells how it influenced his work. The program contains rare archival footage of the Bauhaus at Dessau and looks at the architecture of Chicago, much influenced by Mies van der Rohe, who emigrated there after the Bauhaus was shut by the Nazis in 1933. (50 minutes)

#8370 Goya (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95

Under the direction of Paloma Chamorro, this RTVE production explores the life, works, and epoch of one of Spain's most beloved painters, utilizing images from his pictures, drawings, and exclusive imprints. Avoiding polemic interpretations of Goya's creations, it presents his work within the context of the events of his life and the period in which they were painted. (58 minutes)

#9045 Art and Life in the Middle Ages: The Luttrell Psalter (Run Time 36 min.) DVD $149.95

The illuminated psalm book of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell is a priceless treasure, containing beautiful calligraphy and extremely fine illustrations. Packed with scenes from the Bible and from everyday life-plus all manner of creatures, including bizarre monsters called babewyns-the book provides a mysterious glimpse of life during the Middle Ages. Section one of this charming program discusses how the psalter was made and decorated, focusing on what the paintings reveal about fashion, trade, and entertainment. In section two, images of feasting, warfare, heaven, and hell are spotlighted, providing insights into 14th-century values and the prominent role of religion in daily living. (36 minutes)

#9276 Henry Moore: Carving a Reputation (Run Time 100 min.) DVD $149.95

Composed of massive biomorphic forms, punctuated with the playfulness of hollowed-out spaces and openings, the sculptures of Henry Moore are scattered throughout the modern landscape. This definitive program combines critical evaluation of Henry Moore's work with biographical background, unveiling photographs, film clips, and drawings previously unrecorded. Interviews with noted critics David Sylvester and Richard Cork and the photographers who captured Moore's art on film discuss some of his most celebrated sculptures, while recollections from Moore's relatives and former assistants Anthony Caro and Philip King illuminate the life story of Great Britain's most celebrated sculptor. A BBC Production. (2 parts, 50 minutes each)

#10586 Ruskin's Journey: Teaching People to See (Run Time 48 min.) DVD $149.95

Author of Modern Painters, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and The Stones of Venice, John Ruskin was a leading art critic and architectural authority whose brilliant prose shaped a generation of writers and whose insights and aesthetics helped establish the careers of Whistler and Turner. In this program, scholar Michael Wheeler traces Ruskin's spiritual and intellectual journey both around Europe and through life, visiting the Gothic cathedral at Rouen and other sites that inspired and shaped the thinking of the great writer. Manuscripts, artwork, and personal memorabilia drawn from the Brantwood and Ruskin Library collections add depth to this sensitive portrait. (48 minutes)

#10704 Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Artist (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $149.95

The works of Frida Kahlo, one of the 20th century's most prominent artists, are included in museums and private collections the world over. This documentary incorporates archival material, readings from journals and letters, and interviews with friends and scholars to retrace the life and work of one of Mexico's most highly recognized painters. (Spanish, 28 minutes)

#10954 TOPSY: WILLIAM MORRIS (Run Time 57 min.) DVD $149.95

The life of William Morris was a crusade against the ugliness of the Industrial Revolution. In this program, art historian Douglas Skeggs addresses the many achievements of the boisterous and energetic "Topsy," 19th-century Great Britain's most influential designer, founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, socialist reformer, and Tennyson's heir to the position of Poet Laureate-which he declined. Topics from every period of his life are discussed in evocative detail, including his intimate relationships with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, the decorating of Red House, and the founding of Morris & Co. (57 minutes)

#11802 Goya: The Audacity of Freedom (Run Time 72 min.) DVD $149.95

Francisco Goya was a paradox, the happy recipient of royal patronage as court painter yet proponent of individual freedom. This program closely examines the struggle of Goya's contradictory desires for a life of middle-class sensibility informed by a caustic perception of the world. His works are evaluated as social critiques of the time and place in which he lived, often harsh and satirical commentaries made on a culture Goya derided as archaic and prejudiced. What emerges in this exploration of Goya's life, filmed in part in his original work space, is a persona quite different from the 19th-century romantic traditionally portrayed. (72 minutes)

#11803 El Greco: Rediscovering a Master (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

Spurned and then nearly forgotten, El Greco went on to be hailed as one of Spain's greatest painters. This program describes the life of Domenikos Theotokopoulos, nicknamed "El Greco," and how his artistic legacy was rescued by a group of young Modernists who discovered his works in a museum in Barcelona. Emphasis is given to the revival of El Greco's reputation in the late 19th and 20th centuries by such painters as Rusinol and Picasso. Their rediscovery not only brought a master back from obscurity but also influenced their own work, as evidenced in paintings like The Old Guitarist from Picasso's "Blue Period." (53 minutes)

#29181 Frida Kahlo: Portrait of an Artist (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $149.95

The works of Frida Kahlo, one of the 20th century's most prominent artists, are included in museums and private collections the world over. This documentary incorporates archival material, readings from journals and letters, and interviews with friends and scholars to retrace the life and work of one of Mexico's most highly recognized painters. (Spanish with English subtitles, 28 minutes)

#29746 Diego Velazquez (Run Time 48 min.) DVD $149.95

The leading painter of the Spanish Baroque period, Diego Velazquez covered a wide range of subjects, from royal portraits of King Philip IV and his family to perhaps the most celebrated of all self-portraits, Las Meninas. Filmed on location at The Escorial, The Prado, and in Velazquez's native Seville, this program chronicles the life of the artist through his work, examining his Classical education and apprenticeship under Francisco Pacheco as well as numerous canvases from his long career as court painter. (Spanish with English subtitles, 48 minutes)

#30074 The Studio Glass Movement: Legacy of Glass (Run Time 51 min.) DVD $149.95

This program chronicles the Studio Glass Movement from its inception in the early 1960s. In historic footage and interviews, Harvey Littleton, Dominick Labino, and others discuss the movement's rise and the innovations they pioneered that transformed glassblowing into a celebrated art form. The distinctive styles of three contemporary artists-Labino's sole protegee Baker O'Brien, Shawn Messenger, and Mark Matthews-are also profiled. (51 minutes)

#30142 Paul Gauguin (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $149.95

Though often associated with his lush, sensual depictions of Tahiti, Paul Gauguin drew inspiration from many diverse landscapes and artistic styles as well as from numerous artists-an aesthetic that became the Synthesist movement. Structured as a dialogue with the artist, this program provides a comprehensive retrospection of Gauguin's life and creative output, juxtaposing dozens of his paintings and sculptures with examples of influential works or styles. The program also blends photos, film, and newsreel footage to trace Gauguin's far-ranging travels from his childhood in Peru through his years in Paris, Martinique, Brittany, and Polynesia. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (52 minutes)

#30511 Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice (Run Time 57 min.) DVD $149.95

A young Jewish immigrant, Ben Shahn fearlessly recorded in paint and on film a broad swath of America's social landscape, from the Great Depression to the Civil Rights Movement. This program presents the biography of an artist who fused political awareness with modernism, whose works were as likely to appear on the cover of Time as in the Museum of Modern Art. Rare television and radio interviews recorded before Shahn's death in 1969 complement a retrospective of his paintings, sketches, and photographs. Also featured are interviews with Shahn's biographer, Howard Greenfeld; his widow, Bernarda Bryson Shahn; and daughter Judith Shahn. (58 minutes)

#30512 Corot: Nature in the Studio (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

Filmed on location in France and Italy, this classic program is built around an imaginary dialogue with Camille Corot. As the painter describes his upbringing and artistic method, a survey is presented of over 100 of Corot's works, along with those of his chief influences and contemporaries. Several of his famous canvases are juxtaposed with their precedents. The program chronicles the artist's years in Italy, crowned by his masterpiece Marietta, and his return to France, highlighting Corot's exploration of remembrance as a theme, his portraits, the relationship between painting outdoors and working in the studio, and his friendships with other painters. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (53 minutes)

#30567 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $149.95

This program, filmed in Rome, Paris, and at the Musee Ingres in Montauban, traces the life of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, providing a retrospective of dozens of the artist's sketches, studies, and canvases, including Le Grande Odalisque, The Turkish Bath, and The Apotheosis of Homer. Starting with his apprenticeship to David and his emulation of the Greek artistic tradition, particularly sculpture, and moving on to his discovery of Raphael and the Italian painters, the program examines Ingres's major influences and chronicles his repeated triumphs. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (27 minutes)

#30572 Marcel Duchamp, Iconoclast (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $149.95

This outstanding program presents Marcel Duchamp and his controversial oeuvre. Representative works, culled from every period of his life, bring together sketches, paintings, readymades, kinetic art, optical discs, sculpture, and his posthumous installation, Etant Donnes: 1. La Chute d'Eau 2. Le Gaz d'Eclairage. Clips from an interview filmed the year before Duchamp's death, location footage of significant places from his past, and archival photographs provide additional insights into an enigmatic artist whose every creation displays an intriguing blend of banality and provocation. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (27 minutes)

#30692 David Hockney's Secret Knowledge (Run Time 73 min.) DVD $149.95

Why did paintings suddenly take on a nearly photographic realism around 1420? In this controversial program, noted artist and art critic David Hockney investigates how, 400 years before the invention of the photograph, painters were using simple cameras-the camera lucida, camera obscura, and convex mirror-to capture realistic images. Hockney visits Florence, Bruges, and Ghent, examining dozens of paintings by such masters as Jan van Eyck, Vermeer, Holbein, Caravaggio, and Velazquez. In a specially designed Hollywood set he demonstrates his findings and replicates the lost techniques of the Old Masters. A BBC Production. (73 minutes)

#32705 Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts (Run Time 51 min.) DVD $149.95

What do modern art, a symphony, and a documentary film have in common? They all require aesthetic considerations. This program presents the ideas of key figures in the shaping and understanding of aesthetics-from Plato, Francis Hutcheson, and Kant to Leon Battista Alberti, Stendhal, and Tolstoy-and addresses pivotal writings, including Aristotle's Poetics and Morris Weitz's "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." Columbia University's Arthur Danto and Princeton University's Alexander Nehamas offer keen insights into the interactions between artist, artwork, and audience as they have evolved over the centuries. (51 minutes)

#32843 Isamu Noguchi: The Sculpture of Spaces (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

"One day...I had a vision: I saw the Earth as sculpture." Isamu Noguchi often said that the space around a thing is as important as the thing itself. This program shows Noguchi turning landscapes into participatory works of art as it follows in dramatic detail the struggle to bring his ideas to fruition at Miami's Bayfront Park and at Moere Numa Park, outside Sapporo. His austere sets for Martha Graham, which helped define modern dance, and his UNESCO garden in Paris, which shaped earth, water, and greenery into a series of multisensory surprises, are featured as well. A brilliant glimpse of an artist at work. (53 minutes)

#34542 The Saatchi Gallery: Highlights of British Conceptual Art (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

Presenting nearly 100 pieces from the Charles Saatchi collection in London, this program transcends the standard video catalog format by incorporating interviews with several artists, all of whom candidly share their goals and processes. From Gary Hume's contemplative abstractions to Damien Hirst's shark in formaldehyde, a wide variety of artistic and social concerns come to light. Jake and Dino Chapman's bizarre figures are among the most challenging pieces featured, in addition to Tracy Emin's provocative fabric installations and Sarah Lucas' sexually suggestive food sculptures. Contains mature themes and explicit language and imagery. (53 minutes)

#34641 The Art of Henry Moore (Run Time 61 min.) DVD $149.95

Henry Moore's work is so representative of mid-20th-century modernist concerns that a generation of art viewers may be unfamiliar with it. This program facilitates a rediscovery of the brilliant sculptor and draftsman by freshly examining many of his drawings, graphics, and monuments. From his most iconic pieces to his lesser-known works, including the amazingly relevant WWII-era tube shelter sketches, Moore's sensitive vision emerges with startling clarity. Footage from sites in the United States, Italy, and England, including the 2003 Tate Modern exhibition-as well as narration drawn from the artist's own words-bring his remarkable career to life. (61 minutes)

#35352 Hieronymus Bosch: The Delights of Hell (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $149.95

Documenting two major museum exhibitions, this program ventures inside the frenzied world of Jeroen van Aken-otherwise known as Hieronymus Bosch, the 15th-century Dutch painter famous for his visions of sin, damnation, and inadvertent eroticism. The video examines numerous Bosch works, including Ecce Homo, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, The Haywain, The Garden of Earthly Delights, and The Conjurer. While concentrating on the artist's central themes and imagery, the program also explores the late medieval culture in which he worked, taking into account the influences of the carnival and the religious brotherhood to which he belonged. Some interviews are in French with English subtitles. (60 minutes)

#35379 La Primavera (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

Is Botticelli's La Primavera an artistic allegory? A pageant of sexual permissiveness? An emblem of Renaissance humanism and Neoplatonism? This program offers multiple interpretations of one of the most hotly debated works in the history of Western art as it tracks La Primavera from its creation, to its decline into obscurity, to its sensational reemergence as an icon of the Pre-Raphaelites, to its place in modern pop culture as an object of both reverence and satire. Technical aspects of La Primavera's painting, such as Botticelli's use of egg tempera and lead white, are touched upon as well. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35380 The Night Watch (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

When Rembrandt painted Frans Banning Cocq's militia company, he imbued it with all the drama and gravity of a major moment in history. This program deftly deconstructs The Night Watch to understand the many conventions it broke through its suggestions of movement, dramatic use of light and perspective, and its very composition; appraises its value in the hearts of the Dutch; and reveals the terrible damage it has sustained over the centuries. The story of Banning Cocq's musketeers and Rembrandt's commission to paint them is also told, and The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp-along with several Night Watch homages and send-ups-is discussed. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35381 The Third of May 1808 (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

"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 painting's influence on both the art world and society in general, and comments on its prescience in prefiguring the horrors of future atrocities. The painting's companion, The Second of May 1808, is also discussed, as are Goya's engravings The Disasters of War and "the black paintings." A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35382 The Great Wave (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

Hokusai's The Great Wave is arguably the best-known image of Japanese art in the Western world today, and yet prints of it were sold in the 19th century for only the price of a large bowl of noodles. This program tells the story of an iconic image, its visionary maker, and the times in which he lived. It also decodes the multiple meanings of The Great Wave, explains the mechanics of woodblock printing, considers the influence of Shiba Kokan's art on Hokusai's, and illustrates The Great Wave's impact on Impressionism and 1960s pop art. 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, of which The Great Wave is a part, is also discussed. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35383 Whistler's Mother (Run Time 51 min.) DVD $149.95

"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 artistic vision; the influence of Charles Gleyre, Manet, Courbet, and Hokusai on his work; his bohemian lifestyle in France and England; his painting technique; and Whistler's Mother's entry into pop culture. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35384 Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

This program brings 1870s Montmartre and the Moulin de la Galette to life through Renoir's romanticized vision and history's less generous account. Beginning with Renoir's life on the Rue Cortot, the video contrasts the artist's idealism with the realities of poverty and left-wing radicalism that pervaded the locale. In addition, it sheds light on the painting's composition; the art establishment's negative reaction to Impressionism; less complimentary takes on the famous dance hall by Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Van Gogh; and the other, smaller version of Moulin de la Galette-which sold at auction in 1990 for an astonishing $78.1 million. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35385 Little Dancer Aged 14 (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

Enigmatic and remote, yet very much present and perhaps all too real: that is the Little Dancer Aged 14, by Degas. Beginning with information on the artist's life, this program brings to light the genesis of Degas' immortal wax sculpture, background on the unusual model who posed for it, and the uproar the piece caused at its debut, where it stood at stark odds with the ideas of feminine beauty then in vogue. Illustrations of studies, both nude and clothed, that Degas drew for it; high-tech forensic analysis of it; and a peek into the seamy side of the world of ballet in 19th-century Paris provide additional insights. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35386 The Kiss (Rodin) (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

Loved by the public and spurned by its creator, Rodin's The Kiss remains controversial to this day. While telling the remarkably intricate story of how the sculpture came to be, this program illustrates the impact of Michelangelo's and Ghiberti's works on Rodin's artistic sensibilities, comments on Rodin's relationships, sketches out the character of the times, sheds light on The Kiss's imperishable place in pop culture, and thoroughly explores the sculpture's erotic appeal. Rodin's The Age of Bronze and The Gates of Hell are discussed as well. Contains mature themes and explicit language and imagery. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Kiss. (50 minutes)

#35387 Sunflowers (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

To study the Sunflowers sequence is to chart van Gogh's meteoric rise from apprentice to master-and subsequent ruin. In telling the incredible story of how these 11 paintings came to be, this program follows the doomed trajectory of the relationship between van Gogh and his would-be mentor, Paul Gauguin. Van Gogh's unprecedented use of color and texture and the method to his seemingly mad technique are also covered, as is the tireless work of his sister-in-law Johanna Van Gogh to promote awareness of his works after his death. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35388 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

In 1907, the intimidating women in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon-also known as The Brothel-were a jarring contrast to all prior Western traditions of depicting the female nude. This program offers an in-depth analysis of an iconoclastic painting born from the rivalry between Picasso and Matisse for leadership of the avant-garde. The painting's intentional lack of narrative, rejection of three-dimensionality, and distorted, sharp-edged forms are analyzed, as are the influences of Ingres, Cezanne, El Greco, African tribal masks, a stolen Iberian stone sculpture, and one very significant postcard. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#35428 Realism: The Artistic Form of the Truth (Run Time 54 min.) DVD $149.95

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 sociopolitical origins of the phenomenon in the 1848 Revolution in France and the concurrent wave of industrialization that swept Europe and America. Luminous images by Edouard Manet, Gustave Courbet, Jean-Francois Millet, and Honore Daumier-along with the unflinching writings of Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, and Heinrik Ibsen-are analyzed and compared with the work of Thomas Eakins, George Bellows, Mark Twain, Jack London, Stephen Crane, and others. The contributions of early photographers and filmmakers, as well as the first stirrings of feminism, are also examined. (54 minutes)

#35750 Matisse and Picasso (Run Time 61 min.) DVD $149.95

Compiling a half-century of unparalleled artistic dialog, this program documents the complicated relationship between two indomitable personae: Matisse, the serene, self-indulgent father figure, and Picasso, the eternal adolescent and fiery primitive. The program employs archival photos and film clips, stunning images of painting and sculpture, and firsthand recollections of the Picasso and Matisse circles, illuminating the intersecting creative journeys of both artists. Francoise Gilot and Picasso's son Claude shed light on the Spaniard's formal reactions to-and admiration of-Matisse, while Jacqueline Matisse Monnier and Matisse biographer Hilary Spurling reciprocate. (60 minutes)

#35751 Goya: Crazy Like a Genius (Run Time 76 min.) DVD $149.95

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 his portraiture and early work-such as The Duchess of Alba, both Majas, and a gratuitously violent tapestry painting. Links between Goya's work, deafness, and political stance are explored in detail, while observations from painter Leon Golub highlight Goya's continuing relevance. (Portions in Spanish with English subtitles, 76 minutes)

#35842 The Sculpture 100: England's Public Sculpture, 1905-2005 (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $149.95

Beginning with Thomas Brock's Queen Victoria Memorial and ending with Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant, this program spotlights 100 public sculptures in Britain created over the course of 100 years. Stories of patronage, controversy, and celebration contextualize the images on screen, while quotations and commentary from important sculptors offer valuable insights. Henry Moore, Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Andy Goldsworthy, Barbara Hepworth, Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, Anthony Caro, Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Jacob Epstein, Tony Cragg, Eric Gill, Richard Wilson, David Mach, Elisabeth Frink, William Turnbull, and "England's Michelangelo" G. F. Watts are only 18 of the landmark artists represented. (58 minutes)

#36103 Through the Eyes of the Sculptor (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $149.95

"A sculpture comes alive in clay, dies in plaster, and is reborn in marble." This intense process has rarely been documented. The program takes viewers inside the Malibu studios of master sculptor Emmanuel Fillion as he creates a new piece-from a figurative clay model to a life-size marble sculpture. Educated as a restoration artist, Fillion worked on many important historical monuments in France including Notre Dame cathedral and the Louvre. In a program highlight, he visits a master carver restoring sculptures on the Pont Neuf, a 17th-century Parisian bridge. Comparing present-day carving and quarrying methods with those used centuries ago, scenes in the marble mountains of Pietrasanta and Carrara, Italy evoke rich traditions dating back to Michelangelo's time. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (59 minutes)

#37024 The Power of Art: Caravaggio (Run Time 54 min.) DVD $149.95

Backed by a Church struggling to connect with the faithful, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio painted images imbued with physical immediacy and in-your-face drama. As this program shows, there was a trade-off: Caravaggio's biblical scenes frequently eschew, in the words of presenter Simon Schama, "any vision of consolation or redemption." Exploring the artist's humble origins, penchant for violence, and spiritual complexity, the program analyzes several major paintings-including The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, The Beheading of John the Baptist, and The Death of the Virgin Mary-with extensive commentary on the ominous David with the Head of Goliath. A BBCW Production. (53 minutes)

#37025 The Power of Art: Bernini (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $149.95

Although rendered in stone, the sculptures of Gian Lorenzo Bernini convey a sense of weightlessness perhaps unequalled in the history of Western art. This program illustrates Bernini's nearly miraculous ability to turn marble into a vessel of rapture, both spiritual and sexual. With The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa as his principal focus, presenter Simon Schama examines numerous works by the prodigious artist-David, Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Proserpina, Bust of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Bust of Constanza Bonarelli, and more. Schama also addresses the failure of Bernini's bell tower at St. Peter's Basilica and recounts the fierce rivalries and amorous misadventures that shaped the sculptor's life and career. (52 minutes)

#37026 The Power of Art: David (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $149.95

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 The Portrait of Monsieur Lavoisier and His Wife, The Oath of the Horatii, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, a self-portrait painted in prison, and other works. Simon Schama presents this powerful examination of David's political opportunism and his talent for solidifying ideology in immortal works of art. (52 minutes)

#37027 The Power of Art: Rothko (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

Life, death, heroism, tragedy-subjects that, until the latter half of the 20th century, propelled the canon of Western art. How do the abstractions of Mark Rothko figure in that tradition? Are they, in a sense, its swan song? This program depicts Rothko's engagement with timeless themes that dominated his thinking long after the mythic grandeur of Abstract Expressionism had yielded to the calculated banality of Pop. Host Simon Schama presents an impassioned study of Black on Maroon as well as compelling discussions of Rothko's subway paintings, The Green Stripe, numerous untitled works, the images enshrined at the Rothko Chapel, and other selections from the Seagram's project. The painter's youth and his encounters with anti-Semitism are also examined. (53 minutes)

#37167 Constable at Tate: Art and Life in Landscape (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95

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 curator Anne Lyles and art historians Michael Rosenthal and William Vaughan-accompanied by high-definition video of Flatford Mill, The Hay Wain, The Cornfield, Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, Hempstead Heath with a Rainbow, and other stunning paintings. (57 minutes)

#37622 Bacon's Arena: An Art of Pain and Beauty (Run Time 96 min.) DVD $149.95

Despite the carnage and horror in his paintings, Francis Bacon insisted that beauty was his inspiration. This program explores Bacon's life and work, from his troubled Edwardian childhood to his death in Madrid in 1992. Using rarely seen archival films and images, as well as interviews with friends and relatives of the painter, the film depicts Bacon's influences, far-flung travels, chaotic relationships, and most of all his torturous, spellbinding pictures. Viewers will encounter Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, other triptychs, Figure in a Landscape, several pope paintings, and more. Bonus materials (DVD only) include an interview with the film's director, short features on Bacon's studio and photographic influences, and a conversation between Bacon and renowned art critic David Sylvester. (96 minutes + 65 minutes of bonus material)

#39228 Jeff Koons: A Man of Trust (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $149.95

One of the most controversial artists working today, Jeff Koons follows in the footsteps of Andy Warhol's entrepreneurship, perfectionism, and appropriation of pop culture icons. This program provides an extensive look at Koons's background, professional accomplishments, and personal challenges, articulated through intimate conversations with the artist as well as with collectors and associates. Works featured include Rabbit, Balloon Dog, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, Woman in the Tub, Pot Rack, Winter Bears, and Celebration. In one sequence, the camera follows Koons through a grocery store as he uses everyday packaged items to explain his thought process and aesthetic. (58 minutes)

#39230 A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884 (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

Georges Seurat was an enigmatic character who produced, in La Grande Jatte, an equally enigmatic work of art. What is the fishing woman really fishing for? What do the monkey-revealed by X-rays to be a last-minute add-on-and the luminous little girl symbolize? What is going on with the painting's shadows and proportions? This program considers these and other mysteries as it scrutinizes Seurat's defining masterpiece: the pointillist technique and the color theory that underlies it, the visible influence of Classical art, the indignation aroused by the painting's first public showing, and its many unusual appearances in pop culture. A BBCW Production. (50 minutes)

#39231 The Kiss (Klimt) (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95

A moment of intense erotic union? A secular icon of the sublime? A feminist tableau in which a woman coolly disengages from a man's overheated desire? A tribute to someone special? This program debates the possibilities as it places Gustav Klimt's The Kiss within the context of Klimt's sexually charged life and fin de siecle Vienna, a locus of creative energy and societal double standards. Possible influences on The Kiss, details of Klimt's "golden period," and modifications to The Kiss after its first showing are examined as well, and additional Klimt works such as Judith I and Danae are discussed. Contains mature themes and explicit language and imagery. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Kiss. (50 minutes)

#39409 The Dark Heart: 16th- and 17th-Century Spanish Art (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95

Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon continues his travels from southern to northern Spain, revealing a stunning and informative array of artworks. In this program, he journeys to the provinces surrounding Madrid-where, during the 16th and 17th centuries, many of the world's great artists flourished against a backdrop of imperialism and fervent Catholicism. In Toledo, El Greco's mystical style is studied; at the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe, Zurbaran's stark yet sensuous monk portraits come to light. And in Madrid, viewers discover the greatness of Velazquez, who rejected religious subject matter and instead held a mirror up to a crumbling empire. The Escorial, Avila, and Trujillo are also visited. Contains some objectionable language and images. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Dark Heart. (52 minutes)

#6804 Miro: The Catalan Master (Run Time 55 min.) DVD $159.95

In this program, 20th-century surrealist Joan Miro talks about his life and the various influences on his work. It features a complete selection of Miro's masterpieces, with each piece brought to life through expert commentary. Known primarily for his abstract paintings, Miro's other works include murals, sculptures, tapestries, and ballet sets. Such works as Catalan Landscape are best known for their humorous fantasy, which uses a restricted range of pure colors and dancing shapes to achieve the effect. An RTVE production. (55 minutes)English

#6936 Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $159.95

This program is a timeless retrospective on the life and career of Isamu Noguchi, whose binational heritage sent him back and forth between Japan and America seeking a new artistic synthesis. He started his career in Paris as Constantin Brancusi's apprentice. He made his name in New York. And, after World War II, he brought a fresh modernist wind to Japan, putting his mark on Japanese ceramics, gardens, and paper lanterns. His late masterworks-rough stone monoliths that echo both Brancusi and the Zen garden of Ryoanji-marry East and West in an absolutely original way. (56 minutes)

#6958 The Louvre: From Dungeons to the Pyramid (Run Time 63 min.) DVD $159.95

This lavishly produced program traces the architectural evolution of the world's most famous art museum, from its use as a fortress by Philippe Auguste to the construction of its controversial glass pyramid by American architect I. M. Pei. Lithographs and superb photography trace the Louvre's development from both an architectural and historical perspective. This is an important learning tool for students of architecture, French culture, language, and history. (63 minutes)English

#6959 The Louvre: From Dungeons to the Pyramid (Run Time 63 min.) DVD $159.95

This lavishly produced program traces the architectural evolution of the world's most famous art museum, from its use as a fortress by Philippe Auguste to the construction of its controversial glass pyramid by American architect I. M. Pei. Lithographs and superb photography trace the Louvre's development from both an architectural and historical perspective. This is an important learning tool for students of architecture, French culture, language, and history. (63 minutes)French

#10654 The Arts: Dying, Thriving, or Just Hanging On? (Run Time min.) DVD $179.90

With the overwhelming demand for technology in the classroom, why should boards of education approve expenditures for fine arts faculty? And with 50-year-old-plus schools in the inner cities, how can municipalities justify building new museums and concert halls? This timely two-part series examines the state of the arts in America in an era of budget-cutting and belt-tightening. 2-part series, 29 minutes each.

#38762 Winslow Homer: Society and Solitude (Run Time 110 min.) DVD $199.95

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 dean of 19th-century American painting. (2 parts, 55 minutes each)

#35217 Great Museums-for Art (Run Time min.) DVD $219.80

This outstanding four-part series visits The Metropolitan Museum of Art and three other renowned American institutions. Magnificent gallery footage and interviews with experts passionate about art make this an experience not to be missed. A viewable/printable educator's guide is available online. A part of the award-winning Great Museums series. 4-part series, 28-52 minutes each.

#34477 Treasures of Athens and Olympia: Greek Art through the Ages (Run Time min.) DVD $269.85

With sumptuous footage, an authentic musical soundtrack, and commentary from leading experts in classical art and culture, this beautifully crafted three-part series provides a detailed guide to the treasures of Greece's foremost city and its surroundings. Paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and architectural spectacles create a visual framework in which Greek culture, and its impact in the wider world, can be comprehended and appreciated. 3-part series, 24-25 minutes each.

#10366 Icons of Twentieth-Century Design (Run Time min.) DVD $389.85

From the millions of goods that go on sale each year, certain items have risen above the whims of fad and fashion because of their ground-breaking design to become bona fide consumer icons and a part of the cultural legacy of the 20th century. This thought-provoking three-part series spotlights six pivotal products, tracing their development, analyzing their design, and considering their social impact. 3-part series, 20 minutes each.

#36096 Judgment Day: Images of Heaven and Hell (Run Time min.) DVD $389.85

Over the course of this three-part series, art historian Tim Marlow uses the intersection of art and religion to explore the concepts of divine judgment, heaven, and hell in Western and non-Western religious traditions. An excellent resource for Western art history courses and world art surveys as well as for courses in comparative religion and sociology. 3-part series, 23 minutes each.

#31290 Inside the Tate Modern: A Century of Modern Art (Run Time min.) DVD $449.75

What the MoMA is to New York, the Tate Modern is to London. This stimulating five-part series draws on the works of 35 modern masters and pop culture icons displayed at the Tate Modern to show how art evolved during the 20th century. Each of the series' 15 insightful segments is ideal for stimulating discussion as well as for deepening understanding and appreciation. 5-part series, 15 minutes each.

#33229 Video Artists, Video Art: Film at the Fringes of Experience (Run Time min.) DVD $519.80

Enlightening or mystifying, intriguing or repulsive, the works of Gary Hill, Shirin Neshat, Matthew Barney, and William Kentridge demand a reaction. This in-depth four-part series showcases these renowned video artists and their creations, giving viewers an opportunity to immerse themselves in a cinematic world where experimenting with the limits of filmmaking and testing the boundaries of societal acceptance are the norm. 4-part series, 42-54 minutes each.

#33545 First Light: Tuscany and the Dawn of the Renaissance (Run Time min.) DVD $519.80

This elegant four-part series deliberates on the explosive changes that occurred in Tuscany between 1200 and 1350. Invaluable works of art and architecture from the early Italian Renaissance serve as a window through which leading art historians analyze the formation of city-states, their commerce, visual arts, and religion. A stimulating examination of how the Renaissance has shaped Western civilization. 4-part series, 49 minutes each.

#3303 Imagination Captivated by Reality: Five Centuries of Dutch Art (Run Time min.) DVD $539.70

The art of the Netherlands constitutes a body of work so large, so important, so superb as to belie the size of the country from which its creators sprang. This series illustrates the changing relationship between art and reality in the Netherlands, as it moves from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world.6-part series, 25 minutes each.

#37023 Simon Schama's The Power of Art (Run Time min.) DVD $599.80

Presented by celebrated historian Simon Schama, this four-part series focuses on a quartet of iconic artists-Caravaggio, Bernini, David, and Rothko-and the cultural, political, and personal forces that drove each one to create. Sumptuous on-location cinematography, superb dramatizations, and Schama's spellbinding narratives venture directly into the life of each artist-enabling viewers to witness, as if firsthand, the birth of great paintings and sculptures. Schama delivers more than colorful storytelling, however; his consideration of major works is ripe with earnest, startling, and finely tuned interpretations. A BBCW Production. 4-part series, 52 minutes each.

#10352 Masterworks of Western Art (Run Time 480 min.) DVD $719.60

Filmed at many of the finest museums on both sides of the Atlantic, this dazzling eight-part series critically examines 48 masterpieces of Western art. Historical information and comparisons to other period paintings promote a deep appreciation and understanding of how styles developed within the major schools of art and how works of art respond to the context of their time. Extreme close-ups reveal the brush strokes invisible in art book illustrations. Detailed enough for high-level course work yet accessible enough for survey classes, each timeless program is an outstanding showcase of artistic virtuosity. 8-part series, 60 minutes each.

#36946 Palettes II: Great Artists, Great Art (Run Time min.) DVD $1029.45

In this 11-part series-the follow-up to the popular Palettes-Louvre art historian and critic Alain Jaubert scrutinizes paintings, tapestries, an illuminated manuscript, a church altar, and even cave drawings in his ongoing study of Europe's vast collection of art treasures. High-tech analysis combined with old-fashioned in-depth research provide a penetrating look at some of the world's greatest works of art. 11-part series, 29-61 minutes each.

#2809 Treasures of the British Museum (Run Time min.) DVD $1169.35

This 13-part series leads viewers through some of the most impressive exhibits in one of the world's greatest repositories of art and artifacts: the British Museum. The series also covers the origin and history of the Museum and takes a look into the Manuscripts Department and the British Museum library: the largest in the world. 13-part series, 26-28 minutes each.

#7783 Palettes: Great Artists and Their Paintings (Run Time min.) DVD $1259.30

From the canvas itself, to the type of brush used by the artist, from the historical, political, or individual context of the painting, to the personality of the characters displayed in its features, this series uncovers the endless secrets a work of art can hide. Using the latest techniques (infrared, x-rays, video animation), Alain Jaubert of the Louvre dissects the paintings to their most intimate levels, leading an investigation worthy of history's greatest detectives. 14-part series.

#30681 Every Picture Tells a Story: Artistic Themes Through the Ages (Run Time min.) DVD $1299.50

This provocative ten-part series singles out powerfully enduring themes that permeate the canon of Western art. Through close analyses of works selected from a wide range of media, these programs are designed to stimulate critical inquiry into the fundamental expression of art and to promote a deeper understanding of both the continuity and the evolution of artistic perception. 10-part series, 27 minutes each.

#35378 The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Ten Great Works of Art Exposed (Run Time min.) DVD $1499.50

Going beyond the Who, When, and Where of great art to address the all-important Why, this remarkable series firmly sets each of ten of the world's greatest masterpieces within the vibrant context of its times. A good deal of How is included as well, as X-ray analysis and 3-D reconstructions expand on the narratives-and solve long-unexplained riddles-by revealing details that could not otherwise be seen. And behind it all is valuable commentary by leading art historians, artists, art critics, and other specialists. Many images of other significant works are included throughout. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Private Life of a Masterpiece. 10-part series, 50 minutes each.

#39238 The Private Life of a Masterpiece: Great Works of Art Exposed (Run Time min.) DVD $1799.40

Going beyond the Who, When, and Where of great art to address the all-important Why, this remarkable series firmly sets each of 12 of the world's greatest masterpieces within the vibrant context of its times. A good deal of How is included as well, as X-ray analysis and 3-D reconstructions expand on the narratives-and solve long-unexplained riddles-by revealing details that could not otherwise be seen. And behind it all is valuable commentary by leading art historians, artists, art critics, and other specialists. Many images of other significant works are included throughout. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Private Life of a Masterpiece. 12-part series, 50 minutes each.