Video Documentaries

Documentary in which Andrew Graham-Dixon reveals how the Medici family transformed Florence through sculpture, painting and architecture and created a world where masterpieces fetch millions today.  Without the money and patronage of the Medici we might never have heard of artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo or Botticelli, and Graham-Dixon examines how a family of shadowy, corrupt businessmen, driven by greed and ambition, became the financial engine behind the Italian Renaissance . The Medici The House of Medici was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of Tuscany and prospered gradually until it was able to fund the Medici Bank. This bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century, and it facilitated the Medicis' rise to political power in Florence, although they officially rema...

The Renaissance Unchained is a four-part series in which Waldemar Januszczak challenges the traditional view of art's most important epoch - the Renaissance. According to Januszczak, that ‘Michelangelo groupie’ was responsible for inventing the Renaissance in his use of the term rinascita to describe what was happening around him artistically.   The Renaissance Unchained - Gods, Myths and Oil Paints part 1 [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://video-clump.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/The-Renaissance-Unchained-ep-1.mp4"][/video]   Waldemar Januszczak challenges the traditional notion of the Renaissance having fixed origins in Italy and showcases the ingenuity in both technique and ideas behind great artists such as Van Eyck, Memling, Van der Weyden, Cranach, Riemenschneider and Durer. The Renaissance Unchained - Whips, Deaths and Madonnas part 2 [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://video-clump.com/wp-content/u...

Piero della Francesca This episode looks at the life and work of the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca. With only 26 surviving works Piero has been seen as one of the mystery men of western art. But his calm, monumental, often enigmatic images mark an important step in the development of Renaissance art. This fascinating film reveals the man behind the myth, an artist that paved the way for likes of Leonardo and Michelangelo.  In his typically enthusiastic and accessible manner Tim Marlow explores works such as the huge fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo, (made famous in the film The English Patient), the haunting Resurrection and the Baptism of Christ held in the National Gallery in London. Great Artists This major 26-part series takes a fresh look at the most important artworks of some of the greatest artists in history. Shot on location in over fifty museums, churches and palaces throughout Europe and the United States, this series is a comprehensiv...

Giotto Giotto di Bondone, the son of a Tuscan shepherd. Born in 1267, Giotto began his apprenticeship at the age of 12, and with his naturalistic treatment of medieval Christian iconography, was recognised as the first in a line of great painters and architects who contributed to the Italian Renaissance. Giotto's contemporary, the banker and chronicler Giovanni Villani, wrote that Giotto was "the most sovereign master of painting in his time, who drew all his figures and their postures according to nature" and of his publicly recognized "talent and excellence". In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break with the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating "the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years". Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of the...

An artist with an exuberant imagination, a painter of the most extraordinay gardens and terrifying hells, a respected public figures of 's-Hertogenbosch, and a man of faith - Hieronymus Bosch is certainly the most fascinating and mysterious artist of the Renaissance.  This film sheds light on this forerunner of Surrealism and on his approach. The paintings are brought to life, to help us decipher the symbols and place them in the context of the time, based on the most recent historical research. Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch - born Jheronimus van Aken; c. 1450 – 9 August 1516 was a Dutch/Netherlandish draughtsman and painter from Brabant. He is widely considered one of the most notable representatives of Early Netherlandish painting school. His work is known for its fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions ...