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Documentary
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture, revealing the stories behind the most compelling images in British art and examining the ways portraiture is used to make a statement.
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture. Simon looks at the eternal power of portraiture and sees how it can foster loyalty and control.
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture. Simon looks at artists who have created images of people who would otherwise have been forgotten.
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture. Simon looks at portraits of the famous and examines the celebrated faces of Britain's past and present.
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture. Simon explores how love portraits allow us to fulfil our craving to keep the ones we love close to us.
Simon Schama explores the history of British portraiture. Here, Simon looks at the complex motivations behind some of the most intriguing self-portraits.
Self - Presenter
During the turbulent 19th century, a number of brilliant French artists developed the Romantic movement in Paris: writers Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Honoré de Balzac and Charles Baudelaire, painter Eugène Delacroix and composer Hector Berlioz, among others, changed the way of looking at art and created enduring works that have inspired the world to this day.
In his most personal project to date, Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime. Best known for writing history, he has lived a fair bit of it too. Born in 1945, on the night of the bombing of Dresden, Simon grew up as part of a generation determined to rebuild the world from the ashes of war. In this film, he reveals the stories of artists and writers who have been at the forefront of the fight for truth and democracy, often at great personal cost.
In an absorbing study, Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of a national art that conveys passion, precision, hope and renewal. He juxtaposes escapism with control and a deep affinity with nature against love for the machine. The fascinating story takes us from the towering cathedral of Cologne, the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and paintings of Grünewald to the gothic fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, the Baltic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and the industrialisation lent expression of Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. As the series progresses, it presents a rare focus on the cultural impact of Hitler's obsession with visual art, reveals how art became an arena for the Cold War and examines the redemptive work of the "visionary" Joseph Beuys – the most influential artist of modern times.
