Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss hell and its representation in literature and the visual arts, through the ages from Ancient Egypt to modern Christianity.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of John Ruskin. He was the most brilliant art critic of his age, perhaps the most brilliant that Britain has ever produced, but he was much more than that.
Melvyn Bragg and guests David Jackson, Dorothy Rowe and Alastair Wright discuss the work of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, focusing on his most famous painting, The Scream.
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the creative force of originality. How far is it to do with origins, how far with the combination of the discoveries of others, which were themselves based on the thoughts of others, into an ever-receding and replicating past?
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss surrealism. ‘Si vous aimez L’amour, vous aimerez Surrealisme!’. If you like Love, you’ll love Surrealism! Thus was the launch of the surrealist manifesto publicised in Paris in 1924.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the artist. The sculptors who created the statues of ancient Greece were treated with disdain by their contemporaries, who saw the menial task of chipping images out of stone as a low form drudgery.
Melvyn Bragg examines the social and aesthetic impact of the Avant Garde and discusses whether it has failed in making painting relevant in the 20th century.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Renaissance, which was first given its role as the birth place of modern man by the nineteenth century historian Jacob Burckhardt.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The School of Athens – the fresco painted by the Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael, for Pope Julius II’s private library in the Vatican.
