Art Appreciation

Color is perhaps the most powerful artistic element, but it is also the most difficult to control. In this program, artist June Redfern goes to Venice to see one of her favorite paintings-Titian's Assumption of the Virgin. Analyzing Titian's innovative use of color, Redfern traces other color innovations pioneered by artists like Monet, Van Gogh, and Mark Rothko. (30 minutes)

When setting up a shot, a photographer works with composition, lighting, and color to create a subliminal subtext that reinforces or even carries the meaning of his or her subject. This program illustrates how basic components of photography-line, shape, form, texture, balance, volume duality, point of view, depth of field, and perspective-contribute to an image's impact on the subconscious mind. Commentary is provided by Herb Zettl, author of the seminal Sight Sound Motion, and photographers Jo Whaley, Stephen Johnson, Larry Sultan, and Catherine Wagner. (27 minutes)

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)"

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.

No students should have to grow up without a chance to experience America's great museums. Take them there with this 29-part series that honors people and values, events and artifacts, that have helped make this country what it is today. Great Museums encourages discovery learning through captivating glimpses of exhibits supported by dynamic interviews with museum experts-curators, archivists, researchers, volunteers, and others-who all share a single passionate interest: to preserve the past for the benefit of the future. Previously sold individually. 29-part series, 28-52 minutes each.

What forces impelled our ancient ancestors to invent painting and sculpture? How has that creative impulse evolved over the millennia? Can we still detect the influence of the cave painter and the primitive sculptor in today's artistic landscape? This five-part series explores the human capacity to produce-and to appreciate-artistic symbols, expressions, and narratives. Presented by acclaimed art historian and University of Cambridge lecturer Dr. Nigel Spivey, the series incorporates stunning video footage and state-of-the-art digital reconstructions as it spans 100,000 years and five continents-all in a quest to understand what is, arguably, humankind's greatest innovation. A BBC/KCET Co-production. 5-part series, 47-52 minutes each.

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)

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)

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)

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)

The so-called Dark Ages were, in fact, a remarkably fertile period in which many artistic forms have their roots. This program traces the evolution of medieval art, architecture, and musical styles, from the decline of the Roman Empire to the rise of secular monarchies and the troubadours. With detailed studies of both the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the film explores the influence of the Roman basilica, the Carolingian revival, the Crusades, the Clunaic tradition, the patronage of Abbot Suger, and other historical and cultural forces. Illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings, stained glass, and cathedral construction and ornamentation are examined in parallel with plainchant, the organum style, monophonic and polyphonic composition, and the emergence of secular music. A Discovery Channel Production. (37 minutes)

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)"

When it comes to depictions of the human form, art history reveals something strange: we prefer images that don't look like us. This program seeks to understand why unrealistic figures are so prominent throughout the evolution of painting and sculpture. Beginning with the Venus of Willendorf, one of the oldest representations of the body ever found, the film explores stimulus-and-response theories that suggest the brain is hardwired to favor exaggeration. Examining the stylized art of ancient Egypt and the cultural developments that produced the Kritios Boy of pre-classical Greece, the program draws intriguing conclusions from the Riace Bronzes-subsequent Greek works that deftly balance verisimilitude and distortion. A BBC/KCET Co-production. A part of the series How Art Made the World. (51 minutes)

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)

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)