Movies: Art history

The representation of genitalia in the fine arts was censored for centuries: sexual organs were discreetly hidden among fig leaves, pearls or sheets; and it is still a taboo today. From Antiquity to the present day, the history of puritanism applied ...

A documentary about the French photographer Nadar aka Gaspard-Félix Tournachon...

The Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky claimed, or has been credited with, the 'creation' of abstract art. At the core of this film is a dramatic recreation of Kandinsky's account of returning to his studio one dark evening, and being astonished by an...

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....

The Flemish painter, humanist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was fortunate to be recognized during his lifetime as an artist of genius and one of the most prolific among his peers, making him a key figure of the Baroque....

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A documentary about Tintoretto....

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 t...

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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 ...

Olev Subbi (1930–2013) was one of the most significant painters of the second half of the 20th century. His art constantly strived for harmony and beauty, reviving lost memories. This documentary reconstructs the environments of his paintings, featur...

A documentary about the statue Winged Victory of Samothrace, unquestionably one of the most complete expressions of Hellenistic sculpture...

A survey of the painting of Henri Matisse, revealing the development of the idyllic quality in his work. Studies pictures from the beginning of his career, and follows the spontaneous flowering of color....

An artistic animated short showing the life in secondary school....

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In 2009, art detective Dr Bendor Grosvenor caused a national scandal by proving that the Scottish National Portrait Gallery's iconic portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rebel Stuart who almost seized power in 1745, was not in fact him. Keen to mak...

To be in Venice and see the architecture of New York, to perceive in a painting by Tintoretto the birth of animated images, to look at the burlesque Cretinetti as the ancestor of montage - so many shifts, displacements, and striking telescopings that...

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This documentary features a kinetic artist who creates vibrant mixed media works that push the boundary between 2D and 3D....

A portrait of Spanish visual artist, writer and art critic Elena Asins (1940-2015), a key figure in geometric abstraction since the sixties....