Palazzo Vecchio: a history of art and power. Directed by Piero Messina, through a clever movement of the narration between past and present, makes a real journey into the beauty of an ancient place that still retains its undisputed charm.
The Victorian era is often cited for its lack of sexuality, but as this documentary reveals, the period's artists created a strong tradition surrounding the classical nude figure, which spread from the fine arts to more common forms of expression. The film explains how 19th-century artists were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman works to highlight the naked form, and how that was reflected in the evolving cultural attitudes toward sex.
The history of the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, an opera house located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, whose construction, between 1884 and 1896, depended on the labor exploitation of the local indigenous populations, provides an insight into the cultural, social and political situation in Brazil.
At the turn of the sixteenth century, Michelangelo (Mark Frankel), Raphael (Andrea Prodan), and Leonardo Da Vinci (John Glover) create their masterpieces, while dealing with religious persecution, political turmoil, and the discovery of America.
The inner world of the great painter Max Ernst is the subject of this film. One of the principal founders of Surrealism, Max Ernst explores the nature of materials and the emotional significance of shapes to combine with his collages and netherworld canvases. The director and Ernst together use the film creatively as a medium to explain the artist's own development.
Over time, Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was the most hated woman of her time, experienced a spectacular return to favor. Today, historians and curators show another character: an independent and loving woman in constant search of intimacy who knew how to keep her secrets; a woman with refined, feminine and modern taste who marked her time. At Versailles, in this sublime setting cut off from the world where she barricaded herself, Marie-Antoinette cultivated her own style and influenced, throughout Europe, the tastes of her time.
A portrait of Spanish comic book author Paco Plaza.
The multi-talented outsider artist Richard McMahan is on a quest to painstakingly re-create thousands of famous and not-so-famous paintings and artifacts–in miniature.
Janina Ramirez explores the BBC archives to create a TV history of Leonardo Da Vinci, discovering what lies beneath the Mona Lisa and even how he acquired his anatomical knowledge.
For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.
During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.
M.C. Escher is among the most intriguing of artists. In 1956 he challenged the laws of perspective with his graphic Print Gallery and his uncompleted master-piece quickly became the most puzzling enigma of modern art. Fifty years later, can mathematician Hendrik Lenstra complete it? Should he?
For three and a half centuries, from the same day that Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) applied his last brushstroke to the canvas, the enigma of “Las meninas, o La familia de Felipe IV” (1656) has not been deciphered. The secret story of a painting unveiled as if it was the resolution of a perfect crime.
This documentary features a kinetic artist who creates vibrant mixed media works that push the boundary between 2D and 3D.
A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes - he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should re-think them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin.
With an original staging of text and music, Orlando follows the trail of one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance: Orlando di Lasso (also known as Roland de Lassus). His life and masterful oeuvre continue to move people to this day. Although he was a European star at the time, di Lasso had to endure the indignities of his social status as a servant. This documentary explores the relationship between art and power, musically accompanied by the ensemble La Tempête.
A daughter is constantly overshadowed by her famous father, but she is determined to make her own mark in the world.
We go behind the scenes and into the minds of artists as they capture, commemorate, and, at times, condemn our presidents.
