Art from the BBC Archives - a retrospective

The BBC has been having a rush of art to the BBC4 programme controller's brain. Moreover it is raiding the BBC Archives as a way of making television programmes about art while spending very little. Or as the programme makers put it

Delving into the BBC Archives to reveal a colourful, surprising and rounded portrait of how television has chosen to portray the world’s most famous artists and artistic movements over the last 60 years.

This post is about:

• another new series of programmes about art - on Sunday night (which started last night)
• a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes

Art on the BBC

The series or four programmes (4 x 60 minutes) about "Art on the BBC" comprise:

• 2nd February 2020: The Story of the Nude (now available on iPlayer)

Humans have been drawing nudes for almost 30,000 years. Kate Bryan explores six decades of BBC archive to discover how television has influenced our understanding of the nude.

• 9nd February 2020: The Many Faces of Picasso - a television history of Picasso who the BBC term "the controversial godfather of modern art" - curated by David Dibosa (pictured) 
• 16th February 2020: The personality of Michelangelo - curated by Sona Datta
• 23rd February 2020: Constable - pushing the boundaries of landscape painting - with Rose Balston

It follows on from a programme in 2018 (repeated in 2019) about The Genius of Leonardo. The video below gives you a sense of the approach of these programmes.

ART ON THE BBC_THE GENIUS OF LEONARDO_CLIP1 from Alleycats Films on Vimeo.

Art from the Archives - The Art Collection

You can also go direct to a BBC Archives website Collection of various Art Programmes and view the various programmes from the Archives which are available to view on iPlayer.

These include:

• Omnibus: Lucian Freud (1988)  - I've watched this one and will no doubt view it again (Available for over a year)

For over 40 years, the artist Lucian Freud has allowed his paintings to speak for themselves, but in this week's Omnibus he talks for the first time about his work and ambitions.

'The greatest living realist painter' is critic Robert Hughes' description of Lucian Freud, whose major retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery earlier this year, brought together the paintings of a lifetime. The exhibition was seen as a revelation, just as it had been in Washington and Paris. 

• LS Lowry at work (17 July 1957 short 3 minute extract) - The artist LS Lowry discusses his painting technique, in a documentary about his work. Originally broadcast 17 July 1957 . I don't think I've ever heard his voice before

"The buildings always come before the figures"

• Rossetti - Sex, Drugs and Oil Paint (2003) - Andrew Graham-Dixon considers the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter and poet who reinvented the Victorian ideal of female beauty... and who dug up his wife's coffin to retrieve poems he had buried with her. 

available on iPlayer

• Release: Pop Goes To The Hayward (5th July 1969) 

On July 9 London's Hayward Gallery becomes host to one of the largest exhibitions of Pop Art to be seen in this country. In the words of one of its exponents, Pop Art is ‘young, witty, sexy, glamorous, and big business’. It is an instant art form and has had instant success. Robert Hughes talks to leading pop artists in New York amid the ad-mass living that inspires their art. Artists featured include Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, George Segal and Andy Warhol. 

See Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Winchester

Michelangelo's frescos and paintings for the Sistine Chapel are now on view in Winchester until the end of September.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND a visit to view - it's a quite unique experience and by all accounts you can view Michelangelo's artwork much better than you can the originals in the Sistine Chapel. Certainly the only other people who have seen them this close up were Michelangelo and the restorers!

“Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving.” ​​​​Goethe 1787

Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement" in Winchester

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: A Different View is, in fact, licensed by the Vatican Museums.

Officially licensed by the Vatican Museums, the images were reproduced and transferred to special materials. This technique allows a true-to-life reproduction and gives a glimpse of the works, which, apart from Michelangelo, has so far been given to only a few people.

The frescoes have been photographed, reproduced at high resolution and transferred onto special fabric webs to create highly detailed display panels. This technique allows a true-to-life reproduction of the ceiling and gives visitors a unique opportunity for an otherwise impossible close-up view of his brushwork.

The size of the Exhibition means that it can be found in three venues across Winchester 

• you begin at the City Space on the ground floor of Winchester Discovery Centre where you get your ticket (£5 if bought online or £6 bought on the City Space - which gets you into every venue)
• then continue upstairs in The Gallery where you can see the frescoes from the Sistine Chapel ceiling
• finally you walk to the The Great Hall, where a giant 6 metre x 6 metre panel of The Last Judgement, painted 25 years after the ceiling, is on display.

Please note that the Great Hall operates different opening times to Winchester Discovery Centre: once redeemed at City Space, your ticket is valid for seven days for entry to the Great Hall.

The City Space

The City Space has the larger more complex paintings around the walls of the Chapel - plus a copy of the only known painting of Michelangelo.

Sermon on the Mount

These paintings were produced by various painters. Their reproductions are actually very much smaller than the original and seem to be on some sort of aluminium panel.

The Gallery

This first floor Gallery includes the frescos from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - but on the floor.

It's a very weird feeling when you first see it - it's almost as if a famous destination for viewing great art has been upended. However from the descriptions of all those who had been to the Sistine Chapel, the overwhelming consensus was how pleasant it was to be able to look at the images but without

• the neckache!
• the time limit for viewing - due to the speed with which ticketed and timed groups are marshalled through to make sure everybody gets to get in and see the great art.

In effect the display "explodes" the pictorial imagery by separating individual scenes - but placing them close to one another as they might be seen in the real chapel. Other images from the ceiling are on the side walls.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel reduced in size and on the floor

Here you have as much time as you like to look at Michaelangelo's iconic paintings - which has the ceiling on the floor.

Can I recommend you....