Students draw a cartoon door knob upside down, copying each line, shape and space as accurately as possible. When finished, they turn their paper right side up and are usually very surprised to see how great their door knob looks. Students are then free to add cartoon arms, legs, and a fun background. This lesson is one of the students’ favorites. Drawing the door knob upside down helps the student to access the right side of the brain and see...

Segment one of this program presents Rodin's The Kiss, Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Picasso's The Three Dancers to chart the progression of distortion as a means of expressing more than what a figurative subject can represent. Segment two uses Kandinsky's Cossacks and Pollock's Summertime: Number 9A to illustrate how color, line, and shape communicate ideas and emotions without a recognizable subject. Segment three spotlights...

The 17th century was a time of religious conflicts, political struggles, and great scientific advances. This upheaval contributed to the Baroque period's relatively unrestrained, overtly emotional, and more energetic style that is reflected, to varying degrees, in paintings from all across Europe.This program examines:o Caravaggio's The Young Lute Player (circa 1596), from The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburgo Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal...

Some of the most widely known paintings in the history of English art were produced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose work stands out as the most intensely romantic aspect of Victorian painting in England. Founded in 1848 to protest against the outmoded academic conventions of the day, the Brotherhood's influence lasted until the end of the century, affecting fashion, interior design, and literature. This program explores the early years of...

In the late 1800s a revolution of art swept through the world by way of Paris. A group of bold young French artists defied the rules set by aristocratically-controlled schools and exhibitions and created the art movement known as Impressionism. Originally, called "The Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc.," the Impressionists included artists Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edouard Manet, Alfred Sisley, and...

1000 Masterpieces from the Great Museums of the World takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of art and provides a deeper insight into the masterpieces of painting. This film explores Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s “The Family of John the Baptist with the Family of Christ,” completed in 1817 and housed in New Masters Gallery in Dresden.

A unique, powerful, first-rate painter overshadowed by her lionized painter-husband, a bisexual woman torn apart by her obsessive love for her faithless husband, Frida Kahlo lived a life of physical and spiritual torment. This program provides personal insights into her work and her torment; it offers a portrait of the woman and the roots of her work in the meaning of her gender.

This program provides an outstanding historical overview of Bauhaus, the most controversial and forward-looking school of art and design of its time. The conflicting artistic philosophies of the school's key figures are considered, from Walter Gropius' espousal of expressionism to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's overriding belief that fewer aesthetic ambitions would yield more functional products-that less is more. With a stellar faculty that also included Paul...

In 1886, at the last Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, an unknown painter, Georges Seurat, exhibited a large canvas which caused a scandal for its technical daring and lack of concern for the accepted conventions of painting. A multitude of small dots created an astonishing light, and "pointillism" was born. In this program, video graphics are used to focus on key elements of Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and to analyze...

Paul Cezanne has been called the founder of modern painting. Picasso and Matisse both paid tribute to him. The simplicity of his still lives, the extraordinary use of color in his paintings and his erotic sequence, "The Bathers," all contribute to making him one of the most admired of painters. Omnibus travels to the South of France, visiting his beloved Mont St Victoire, and exploring the environment and atmosphere he captured in his paintings, in...