An Overview of the Mona Lisa
Guernica is the most famous anti-war painting in history, and Picasso’s best-known work. It has gone from a piece that was created in protest at the horrific bombing of a small village in northern Spain, to an icon and a universal symbol of freedom from ALL wars. Picasso said, “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth”, and like so much of Picasso’s work it can be difficult to decipher the ‘truth’ in the political, artistic and religious symbolism. James Payne looks at some of the more acknowledged interpretations along with techniques, composition and artistic inspiration. Guernica is a masterpiece that always leaves the viewer with more t
Michelangelo was the first superstar artist. He was a sculptor, a painter, an architect, a poet and an engineer. An outsider touched by genius. His statue of David, the most famous statue in the world, personifies the aesthetics of High Renaissance art, the politics of Renaissance Florence, and the technical virtuosity of Greek sculpture. James Payne looks at the story of Michelangelo’s David, and discovers it is anything but the story of a teenage boy king who slew Goliath.
This is the story about the painting of the raft that shook the world and scandalised high society. Not only for its anti-royalist statements but also for its choice of a black man as the hero. In an age of slavery. In its brutality, realism, and raw emotion it captures the essence of a historic event that shocked the French public, a Revolution-weary public that was not easy to shock. The story behind the painting is as devastating as the desperation on canvas.
Frida Kahlo is the most famous female artist in history. She deviated from the traditional portrayal of female beauty in art, and instead chose to paint raw and honest experiences. A near fatal bus accident at 18 left Frida crippled and in chronic pain her whole life, but she managed to make a virtue out of adversity, and astonishing original art out of her pain. She was a Mexican, female artist who was disabled, in a male-dominated environment in post-revolutionary Mexico. A feminist icon who broke all social conventions, and produced some of the most haunting and visionary images of the 20th century. James Payne explains 'The Two Fridas', her greatest painting, created during a period of deep instability fro Frida Kahlo.
The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck has baffled art historians ever since it was painted in 1434. It has been dissected and analysed, maybe more than any other painting in history, and in the process, become even more mysterious. During the medieval period, a rapid expansion in trade and commerce led to the rise of a new class, the incredibly wealthy and powerful merchant class. Bruges in the 15th century was the hub of international trade, and people came from all over the world, wanting to get rich. Including the Arnolfinis from Lucca in Italy. As those Merchants became richer, their appetite for social status grew. Consumerism was rampant and the ultimate way to show off your wealth was to commission a portrait. And by the 1430s, a portrait by Jan Van Eyke was the most exclusive status symbol
Women were excluded from almost all cultural and social resources in the centuries from 1400 to 1900 when so much of the world's great art was created. And visual art was almost entirely a male industry before modern times. Having an artist for a father was about the only way women could get access to the training expected of artists in Renaissance and baroque Europe. Women were not allowed to do apprenticeships, attend life classes or be members of the academies. Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia’s father, was a well-known painter, who saw the potential in her from an early age and promoted her talent. Gentileschi became the very first woman accepted into the prestigious Florentine Academy of Fine Arts. Through her talent and determination she had a 40-year career, and was collected by the likes of Charles I of England and Philip 4th of Spain. And yet, she was largely forgotten and written out of art history for 300 years. Why? The simple answer is, because she was a woman.
Andy Warhol made “Marilyn Diptych” in 1962, right after Marilyn Monroe’s death. By the 1960s Marilyn’s film career as a sex symbol was all but over. Warhol would effectively immortalize Marilyn as the sex symbol of the 20th century. The seductive blonde Marilyn with the heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips is frozen in time. She is transformed into the personification of the allure and glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age. Marilyn would make Warhol a household name, and Warhol would make Marilyn an icon. Marilyn Diptych is perhaps his greatest canvas, bringing together celebrity, death and exposure. It is both a warning and a love letter to America. Warhol, who is often criticised as vacuous or superficial, produced art, that is profoundly subversive and quite simply a perfect mirror of our times. Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe were both the embodiment of the American dream. They also, both projected a vacant persona that made sure no-body knew the real person behind the mask.
Claude Monet is often criticised for being overexposed, too easy, too obvious, or worse, a chocolate box artist. His last works, the enormous water lily canvasses are among the most popular art works in the world. Yet there is nothing tame, traditionalist, or cosy about these last paintings. These are his most radical works of all. They turn the world upside down with their strange, disorientating and immersive vision. Monet’s water lilies have come to be viewed as simply an aesthetic interpretation of the garden that obsessed him. But they are so much more. These works were created as a direct response to the most savage and apocalyptic period of modern history. They were in fact conceived as a war memorial to the millions of lives tragically lost in the First World War.
On the 25th February 1970, the Tate gallery in London received nine Mark Rothko canvasses, a generous donation from the artist himself. A few hours later, Rothko was found dead in his studio on East 69th Street in Manhattan. The 66-year-old painter had taken his own life. His suicide would change everything and shape the way we respond to his work. Rothko was aware that people often burst into tears when confronted with his painting. “I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions, tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on” he said.
The Thinker, captured in a moment of concentrated introspection has come to represent a multitude of ideas about the nature of man and his place in the world. For some it is a symbol of knowledge, others philosophy, even existence itself. As the critic Gabriel Mourey said: “It is simply a man for all time”. Yet, Rodin had no intention of producing such a complex universal symbol when he first conceived the idea. And The Thinker itself might never have existed, if Rodin had been accepted by the establishment in the first place.
In 1982 at the age of just 22 years old, Jean-Michel Basquiat would produce this painting. A powerful and dazzling image that mixes text, colour, symbolism and mark-making in a raw and uncensored explosion. In a single painting, he would use his instinctive power of visual language to say everything he wanted to say. About America - about art - and about being black in both worlds.
The Taking of Christ is a painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The subject is the moment that the son of God is betrayed with a kiss, and arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. Caravaggio’s approach to religious art was shocking and controversial in his time, his work was censored, dismissed and criticised, but it would lead to an entirely new kind of Christian art. The intensity of his paintings was matched only by his tempestuous lifestyle. The same year he painted this picture, Caravaggio was imprisoned for libel. A year later he was arrested for throwing a plate of hot artichokes at a waiter, a year after that, he wounded an official, and then finally, in 1606 he killed a man… and would spend the rest of his life on the run. More than any other painter in history, Caravaggio understood what it was like to be pursued by the authorities.
In this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible. What we think of as hell comes from later mistranslations and medieval art. What hell is or like, or whether it exists in the bible at all is widely disputed even within modern Christianity. The Garden of Earthly Delights was the most popular video(s) voted on by viewers. I am still taking suggestions, so please put them on the comments of my video "what is your favourite work of art?" There are no records to tell us what Bosch or his contemporaries were thinking. There are so many theories out there, some more outlandish than others. I have sifted through most of them, and from a process of elimination, come up with what I think is a pretty good idea. I have also come up with several theories I haven’t seen before. Bosch’s images are so ambiguous and their meaning so el
In this video I look at Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. Nobody painted Hell quite like Bosch. What we think of as Hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as Hell is not based on the bible. There is no mention of Hell as a fiery place of eternal damnation in the original bible, and much of what we think of as hell comes from later mistranslations and medieval art. I have based my research around the Bible, Medieval history, infrared scans, art history papers, books and historical documents. But in the end it is still my opinion. If you have an opinion, then why not put it in the comments, and keep the dialogue going? What we think of as hell, and certainly what Bosch thought of as hell is not based on the bible. There is no mention of hell as a fiery place of eternal damnation in the original bible, and much of what we think of as hell comes from later mistranslations and medieval art. What hell is or like, or whether it exists in the bible at all is widely disp
There are no records to tell us what Bosch or his contemporaries were thinking. There are so many theories out there, some more outlandish than others. I have sifted through most of them, and from a process of elimination, come up with what I think is a pretty good idea. I have also come up with several ideas I haven’t seen before. In part three I discuss possible meanings, of the final and most controversial panel, Hell. The previous scenes are set in nature, but hell is a man made world. There is nothing here that they have not brought on themselves, and even the musical instruments they created have turned on them. The demons are clothed but the humans, or souls, are still naked. But they have lost any element of eroticism, and many of them are covering their bodies, ashamed of their nakedness.
The Garden of Earthly Delights video was the most popular, voted on by viewers for me to make. I am still taking suggestions, so please put them on the comments of my video "what is your favourite work of art?" There are no records to tell us what Bosch or his contemporaries were thinking. There are so many theories out there, some more outlandish than others. I have sifted through most of them, and from a process of elimination, come up with what I think is a pretty good idea. I have also come up with several ideas I haven’t seen before.
In 1639 Japan closed its borders and cut itself off from the outside world. Foreigners were expelled, Western culture was forbidden, and Entering or leaving Japan was punishable by Death. It would remain that way for over 200 years. It was under these circumstances that a quintessentially Japanese art developed. Art for the people that was consumed on an unprecedented scale.
Vincent van Gogh was a largely self-taught artist who didn’t pick up a paintbrush until he was 30 years old. Just seven years later, he would be dead. It was really his last four years where he developed the style we would come to know him by, and these were also his most prolific years. Once he found his way, he was making up for lost time.
Edward Hopper’s world was New York, and he understood that city more than most people. He understood that, even though you may live in one of the most crowded and busy cities on earth, it is still possible to feel entirely alone. This painting, was completed on January 21st, 1942, just weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbour and America’s entry into World War two. That’s not to say the war was a direct influence, but the feeling of dread many Americans had, surely infused the painting. Afraid of air raid attacks, New York had blackout drills, and lights were dimmed in public spaces. Streets emptied out and Hopper’s city was effectively dark, and silent.
You could say Land art existed thousands of years even before oil painting, but it would take a group of American artists to bring it back to the public gaze in the 1960s and 70s. Artists like Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, and Nancy Holt had emerged from sculpture, minimalism and conceptual art. Rather than painting the landscape, they started working outdoors and sculpting directly into the landscape itself. Instead of paint brushes, they would use bulldozers, and the earth would be, not only the site, but also the materials and the canvas.
Since releasing my first film on the Mona Lisa over a year ago, I have been amazed at the response. This is the more comprehensive version I always wanted to do, that uses some of the information from the first film (but in higher resolution with better sound and with clearer graphics), as well as answering the hundreds of questions my first film generated.
Salvador Dali's exploration of the depths of the subconscious mind in his paintings and his powerful images tapped into the fantasies, dreams, fears and hallucinations of entire generations, and he should be remembered as a consummate draughtsman, and a pioneer of Surrealism. An artist who made modern art popular and accessible. “The Persistence of Memory” is for good reason, the most celebrated surrealist canvas ever painted. Created long before his descent into self-parody, it really is the work of a crazy genius.
Sandro Botticelli’s poetic sense of beauty captivated the Florentine court. But it was his subject matter which distinguished him from other artists. He was one of the first western artist since classical times to depict non-religious scenes, and Botticelli’s inclusion of a near life size female nude was revolutionary.
The 59th International Venice Biennale Arte runs to 27 November 2022. The cost for a one-entry ticket is 25,50 euros for access both to the Giardini area and the Arsenale area. Off-site exhibitions throughout the city are free and most run through until the fall but do check dates.
My name is James Payne, and I write edit and narrate these films, where I look at great and important works of art with a fresh eye.
Between 1863 when Munch was born and the years before the first world war, European cities were going through unprecedented change. Industrialization and economic change brought anxieties and obsessions, political unrest, and radicalism. Questions about society and the changing role of man within it, about our psyche, our social responsibilities, and most radical of all, questions about the existence of God. This is a period of Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzche. This is also the period that Munch painted The Scream.
By the mid 17th century, the art being produced in Catholic countries had become a powerful tool of propaganda, characterized by a heightened sense of drama, movement, and theatricality that had never been seen before. But in the Protestant Netherlands, a new wave of realism was sweeping across the country. Johannes Vermeer was producing simple domestic interiors of middle-class life. His paintings were quiet, private, and unassuming. Secular works that contained stories of real human relationships.
Abstract Expressionism would emerge from a post-war mood of anxiety and trauma. These were artists who, like the surrealists before them had a profound interest in the unconscious mind. They produced work that may have been abstract but was also emotional, expressive and universal. Despite their differences, the physical act of painting united them. The work they produced came straight from the gut. It was an art form that was monumental in scale and an expression of the individual. It would run alongside (and be inspired) by that other great improvisational American art form: Jazz.
Movies have been inspired by fine art from the very beginning of the cinema industry. Edward hopper was 13 years old when the first motion pictures were shown - he was in his late 40s when talking pictures came, and he died just as Bonnie and Clyde was being released. You could say his life was tied to cinematic history. Hopper is seen as one of the first 20th-century artists to be influenced by the cinema. He was an artist - more than any other - who loved cinema - and cinema loved him.
To understand Francisco Goya's Black Paintings, we need to understand how he went from a popular well-loved royal portrait artist to painting deeply disturbing imagery on the bare walls of his house in total isolation. In 1819, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, commonly known as Goya, was a successful and celebrated artist. Then suddenly, he withdrew from public life, left Madrid and the Royal Court behind, and moved into a farmhouse in the countryside. His wife and most of his friends were dead and he had become isolated. He was 73-years old, sick, and completely deaf. His long life was coming to a close… BUT he wasn’t finished yet. The man who had once painted crucifixions, miracles, saints, and priests, now painted terrifying, demonic, raw and brutal works – works without even a hint of God.
In Part Two, I look at his series of etchings, 'The Disasters of War' and his Black Paintings. In 1819, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, commonly known as Goya, was a successful and celebrated artist. Then suddenly, he withdrew from public life, left Madrid and the Royal Court behind, and moved into a farmhouse in the countryside. His wife and most of his friends were dead and he had become isolated. He was 73-years old, sick, and completely deaf. His long life was coming to a close… BUT he wasn’t finished yet. The man who had once painted crucifixions, miracles, saints, and priests, now painted terrifying, demonic, raw and brutal works – works without even a hint of God.
In this episode we look at three less well known works by Michelangelo, including a Pieta he made for his own tomb, a controversial naked Jesus Christ created when he was just a teenager, and a Bacchus rejected by the man who commissioned it for being too raunchy. All three are in Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance, and a city which houses one third of the world's most important works of art. Michelangelo went to study in Florence at the age of 13, so he is inextricably linked to the city. Perhaps no more so than with his statue of David - the very embodiment of Florence and everything it stood for. He wasn’t the only genius in town. Even before he was born, Dante Alighieri had written his Divine Comedy and established the Italian language, Filippo Brunelleschi had completed his impossible dome for the Cathedral and kick started the Renaissance, and Lorenzo Ghiberti gave us the gates of paradise. No other place can rival Florence for the sheer quantity of master works, many
In this full-length film, I look at Francisco Goya's later works. At the age of 46, Goya suffered from a severe illness that caused loss of vision and hearing, tinnitus, dizziness, right-sides paralysis, weakness and general malaise. Although he recovered from a cerebral stroke which accompanied it, he went completely deaf. From this point on his work took a darker tone. To understand Francisco Goya's Black Paintings, we need to understand how he went from a popular well-loved royal portrait artist to painting deeply disturbing imagery on the bare walls of his house in total isolation. His darker work was never really seen in his lifetime. His series of etchings known as Los Caprichos was withdrawn from public sale for fear of attack by the Inquisition, and his deeply pessimistic 'Disasters of War' was so gruesome and radical it had to wait until his death to be published. Even his masterpiece, The Third of May 1808, was censored by the king and hidden away. His wife and most of h
Georges Seurat once revealed that he had been ‘interested in finding an optical formula’ for painting since he was just 17 years old. Seurat spent most of his adult life thinking about colour, studying theories, and working out systematically how one colour, placed in a series of dots, next to those of another, creates a whole different colour when it hits the retina of the human eye. How one colour can make another appear luminous bright, and vibrant.
For seven decades Georgia O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art. She was a female artist who refused to be pigeonholed. An artist who stayed true to her unique vision and remained independent from all the shifting art trends of her time. Her paintings, now loom so large in the collective imagination, that it is easy to forget just how radical she was for her time. In 1935, O’Keeffe produced this ground-breaking image. The artist was already known for her series of sensuous flower paintings, but this was different. That year, her life and the type of work she created would drastically change.
John Singer Sargent was the most successful society portrait painter of the Belle Epoque, and having one’s portrait painted by him was seen as an indication of impeccable good taste. In this episode, I look at two paintings created by Sargent. Two paintings united by scandal. One of them is of Doctor Pozzi, a celebrity gynaecologist and infamous ladies' man, who was referred to by many of his clients as L’Amour médecin, or Doctor Love. The other is Madame X, or Virginie Gautreau, who, like Dr. Pozzi, had a colourful love life, and is also shown in a provocative pose. The paintings have been written about and discussed as separate works of art, but instead of looking at them as two separate paintings - maybe it’s time we talked about them as a pair?
Haring had championed the poster format as a traditional form of political activism. He saw in them the immediacy which we now think of when we think of his aesthetic. It was in 1982 that he created one of his first posters. He printed and paid for 30,000 of them, which he gave out for free during an anti-nuclear protest in New York. He would use his platform to get us talking about socio-political issues often ignored, by employing a tradition used by political agitators since printing began.
At first glance, Thomas Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews, looks like just another classic painting of the 18th century, celebrating the dynastic marriage of the upper classes in all their finery. On closer inspection, two things stand out. One, is that Mrs Andrews has the most curious expression of contempt on her face. The other thing that stands out is the strange area in the middle of her lap which is unfinished. The rest of the painting is complete, so it makes it even more peculiar. In a painting that is heaving with tension, it is almost certain that at some point Mr and Mrs Andrews were so unhappy with the painting, that they put a halt to the proceedings, and sent Gainsborough on his way. The painting would then disappear and wouldn't be seen again for over 200 years. Why was this painting kept so secret for so long?
In 1937, the Nazis held an exhibition of 650 modern artworks that they had stolen from museums and private collectors. It was part of the Nazi’s culture wars, designed to inflame the public and it was called “The Degenerate Art Exhibition.” Artists considered degenerate by the Nazis included Paul Klee, Otto Dix, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Piet Mondrian, and Egon Schiele. But surprisingly one artist was missing… Gustav Klimt, who at one time or another had been described as morally questionable, obscene or even pornographic, and was friends with Jewish patrons, intellectuals and artists. So why did the Nazis leave him out of their modern art purge?
In The Lovers II, by Magritte, he takes the cinematic cliché but disrupts our voyeuristic pleasure by covering the faces in cloth. A moment of connection becomes one of isolation, of sexual frustration. An intimate moment becomes something dark and effortlessly disturbing. Something hidden and anonymous. Rene Magritte denied that his traumatic childhood was connected in any way with his art, but in this episode, I look at the possibility that his past affected him more than he admitted.
Dorothea Tanning painted the dark side of Surrealism. Her work sprang from the fantastic and the supernatural happenings we find in Gothic and Romantic literature, as well as the dream narrative of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Drawn to fairy tales and gothic literature as a child, in Tanning’s paintings, young girls grapple with otherworldly forces in dark, frightening places, that blend elements of the everyday and the grotesque.
At the age of 8, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the child prodigy, was presented to the Pope - who prophetically announced that the child would be the Michelangelo of his age. Bernini would not only raise the sculpted human figure to unseen levels of realism, but he would dominate the 17th century like no other, as a painter, an architect, as a playwright and of course as a sculptor, and come to be seen as the embodiment of the age of the baroque.
The age of Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, and it focused mainly on the power of human intelligence to explain the natural world. Romanticism emerged as a response to the cold science of the Enlightenment, with Romantics maintaining that art emerges from divine inspiration, and the artist’s role is as the mediator between the creative and the divine. The romantic age was characterised by a sense of drama and by the sublime spirit, a philosophical tradition, where a power or a force, an event or even beauty is so overwhelming, so awe inspiring and infinite, that it is beyond our comprehension. Nature, wild and uncontrolled became a major subject and the focus shifted to reconnecting with emotion and spirituality. The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich is a perfect embodiment of these ideas.
Istanbul, once known as Byzantium, and later as Constantinople, is a city of such diverse culture and history. It was the capital of three great empires – Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman. Both ancient and modern art blends elements from Europe, Asia and the Middle East, reflecting its geographical and historical positioning as a bridge between the East and the West. It is the only city in the world that straddles two continents, Europe and Asia. Constantinople became Istanbul in 1930, following Turkey becoming a republic. The city’s art is a visual embodiment of its complex history.
There was always debate about which painting was the artist’s last. For many years it was thought to be this painting, mainly because it featured in a 1930’s book and the 1956 film adaptation of that book. And the painting’s dark and gloomy subject matter seemed to perfectly encapsulate the last days of van Gogh, full of foreboding of his eventual death. But now, it is widely accepted that this unusual work is his last painting. The mystery of what it was and where it was painted would take over a century to solve, and that was only thanks to a worldwide epidemic. What it means is that we now have a deeper insight into what van Gogh’s final last hours were like - before his tragic death.
Édouard Manet, a precursor to the Impressionists, turned convention on its head. He painted the environment he knew well as a member of the bourgeoisie from an aristocratic lineage: Picnics, boating, concerts, masked balls, and the salons of Paris, but he painted it from a radical point of view. Manet took the ordinary everyday theme or convention and then created something extraordinary, something profound.
“Shall [we] call him Artist or Genius—or Mystic—or Madman? Probably he is all.” The 18th century artist William Blake was a true radical, in the deepest sense of the world, and he raged against injustice of every kind. Blake belonged to the Romantic age, but stands utterly alone in that age, both as an artist and as a poet: he is someone who invented his very own form of graphic art, which organically fused beautiful images with powerful poetry, while he also forged his own distinctive philosophical world-view and created an original cosmology of gods and spirits, designed to express his ideas about love, freedom, nature and the Divine.
Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez’s portrait of a Spanish princess and her entourage is one of, if not the most widely discussed paintings in western painting. Every viewing raises more questions, and every answer is followed by a dense network of meanings. It is not only a high point of realism in painting, a perfect life-like depiction of the Spanish court - it is also a complex meditation on painting itself. It’s a spell-binding work that is concerned with how we view a painting, and how the subjects in a painting view us.
In 1917 Marcel Duchamp bought a mass-produced porcelain urinal from a plumbing suppliers, laid it on its side, signed it, and then put it in an exhibition and called it art. The Fountain, as it was named, has cast a long shadow not only over the 20th century but also the 21st century. Over 100 years after it was created, it is still considered one of the most revolutionary works in art history. It is also one of the most contentious.
This film looks at how stolen art “disappears” in a complicated practise designed to obscure facts and create wealth for the art market. How the true owners of these artworks, the descendants of Holocaust victims, are still fighting a system that stops at nothing to keep secrets and protect its wealthy clientele. There are works in private collections and established museums right now, which were stolen by the Nazis. I think, it’s about time they were returned.
Man Ray’s image, 'Le Violon d’Ingres' helped redefine photography, at a time when it was still seen as a mechanical, documentary medium rather than a vehicle for creative expression. The image blurred the boundaries between traditional art forms like painting and sculpture, and helped to establish photography as a serious and innovative artistic discipline.
Milan, 1494: Leonardo da Vinci was an exceptional man, and everyone who met him described him as a genius. And yet, he was now 42 years old – a middle-aged man in an era when life expectancy was 40 - And he still hadn’t produced anything that would be considered a masterpiece by his contemporaries. Many of his works were unfinished or in private collections, there were no great public works that people could see, no architectural marvels and no distinguished altarpieces for cathedrals. Nothing that could be considered worthy of his potential. Then, he was asked to paint a wall.
Rome is the birthplace of Baroque, the highly ornate and elaborate style of architecture, art and design that flourished in Europe in the 17th and first half of the 18th century. Unlike the Renaissance, which was all about control and perfect balance, the Baroque era was famous for its dramatic flair and sense of movement. In this episode, Great Cities Explained goes outside the galleries and museums, and inside three Baroque churches that still house works by Caravaggio, Pozzo and Bernini today…. and cost nothing to visit.
Sometimes a Landscape painting is anything but a painting of a landscape. This is a film about José María Velasco, an artist who specialised in incredibly detailed landscapes, and was once a household name - but now is practically unknown outside the country of his birth, Mexico. When thinking about Mexican nationalism and cultural identity, figures like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera often take centre stage. Their iconic works have become synonymous with Mexican art. However, Velasco’s landscapes, particularly The Valley of Mexico, are often overlooked in these discussions.
This is a film about magic. Leonora Carrington’s paintings are populated with mythical creatures, alchemy, folklore, fairy tales, the occult and human-animal hybrids. She was an artist who explored the limits of the imagination and was dedicated to free expression - especially when it meant breaking the rules. Her life story is extraordinary - but so is the art she created. A true visionary, Carrington produced some of the most remarkable paintings of the 20th Century, where beasts lurk behind every doorway, rituals unfold in dim-lit chambers, and women become cats, witches, and alchemists - architects of their own dark metamorphosis.
In 1949, Life magazine asked: “Is Jackson Pollock, the greatest American Painter. He is a figure that is polarising among art aficionados. Some see him as a fraud, others as a genius. In Part One of my film I look at how, post World War Two, the art scene shifted from Paris to New York. How America was searching for "The Great American painter", and why he is so loved and hated at the same time. I look at just what Abstract Expressionism means, how we can "read it", and I look at the myths surrounding Pollock and modern art itself. I also look at his influences ranging from Mexican sand Painting, to the Regionalist art movement, to Picasso and the modernists.
In 1949, Life magazine asked: “Is Jackson Pollock, the greatest American Painter. He is a figure that is polarising among art aficionados. Some see him as a fraud, others as a genius. In Part Two of my film I look at how fame affected Jackson Pollock, and how alcohol destroyed his relationships. I look at the science behind why we are so affected by his work, and I also look at a lesser known story, of how art became an unlikely player in the Cold War and the global contest of ideas. How Abstract Expressionism was enlisted as an unknowing agent in a shadowy propaganda war, bankrolled by the CIA, to sell the story of freedom… and capitalism.
In the early 1500s, two of the greatest artists of all time were working just a few rooms apart in the Vatican. Michelangelo was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the same time Raphael was working on a painting in the Pope’s private library: The School of Athens. Both are considered masterpieces of the Renaissance. Michelangelo’s work sets out to reveal divine truth through the human form, while Raphael’s work celebrates human intellect and classical heritage. Two defining ideas of the Renaissance. Michelangelo, a brooding, difficult loner, paints figures charged with emotion and tension, figures who often struggle alone and who are deeply introspective. By contrast Raphael was sociable, charming and widely adored, and his work is balanced, serene and idealised. His figures are elegant, calm, engaged, and intellectually poised. The sort of company the artist surrounded himself with in real life.
Egon Schiele was one of the most intense and controversial artists of the early 20th century. A shy, reserved child turned rebellious visionary. He scandalised Vienna with raw, often unsettling depictions of the human body. His work is filled with twisted forms and existential angst, reflecting an obsession with mortality, sexuality, and identity - especially his own. His self-portraits are unlike anything that came before them: emaciated, contorted and confrontational. With sunken eyes and twisted limbs - they were not intended to flatter, but to disturb. So, what drove this young artist to depict himself so mercilessly?
Ilya Repin's Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan, is one of the most controversial and shocking images in Russian art. When it was unveiled in 1885, it caused such a scandal that the Tsar himself banned it from public view. Since then, it has been physically attacked twice - slashed in 1913 and nearly destroyed again in 2018. To this day, Russian nationalists denounce it, insisting it is Western propaganda, historically inaccurate, and unfair to Ivan the Terrible. But the painting leaves little room for doubt. Here, Ivan the Terrible - Russia’s first crowned Tsar - has just struck down his own son in a violent rage, moments after attacking his pregnant daughter-in-law and causing her to miscarry. This isn’t simply a historical scene. It is a universal story of rage, regret, domination, and destruction - an image that still reverberates through time. And is still relevant.
Jacques-Louis David was the image-maker of revolutions, regimes, and empire. Born into a France simmering with discontent in the build up to Revolution, his life was marked by violence, ambition, and turbulence. He voted to execute a king, helped build the myth of a revolutionary republic, and when that republic imploded, he helped crown an emperor. Drawn repeatedly to authoritarian figures - from Robespierre and Marat to Napoleon Bonaparte - David couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of power. His 1801 masterpiece Napoleon Crossing the Alps reveals everything about David: his obsession with power, his taste for dramatic storytelling, and how seeing is believing. This is the story of art as propaganda.
To modern eyes, Hunters in the Snow might evoke a picture-perfect winter’s day, full of charm and nostalgia that is both familiar and influential, but for Bruegel and his contemporaries, winter was not picturesque, it was harsh, dangerous, and often deadly. In that sense, the painting’s beauty is inseparable from its melancholy. It is not a ‘celebration’ of winter but a recognition of it, an honest, empathetic portrayal of human beings enduring and coexisting with the overwhelming force of nature. It is that bittersweet tension, that makes Hunters in the snow, such an emotive and timeless image.