Herman, Amy

Summary: "What would you say if I told you that looking at abstract paintings could give you the confidence you need to speak up in class? Or that learning the history of donuts could help you think like a super spy and train like the CIA? smART teaches readers how to think critically and creatively, a skill that only requires you to open your eyes and actively engage your brain. This young reader's...

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Publisher / Publication Date: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 2022

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Summary: Throughout history, one type of individual has instinctively grasped art's power to persuade and manipulate-and indeed, images have become at least as deadly as swords or guns in the hands of political and military leaders. This program revolves around a basic question: when did art mutate from a vehicle of the imagination into a tool of the ruler? Beginning in Britain, the program looks at the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: How did modernist ideas reshape the presentation of art in museums and galleries? And how did that approach evolve in the postmodern era? This program examines intellectual and aesthetic issues associated with the display of art, using rooms in the Tate Modern as case studies. Overviewing the exhibition style Alfred Barr established during his transformation of MOMA in the 1930s, the video...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Thirty years after the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, one of its principal champions sat down with historian T. J. Clark to discuss the evolution of art criticism and issues surrounding modernist painting. This program documents their conversation, spotlighting Clement Greenberg's reflections on his career and its place in the wider arenas of art theory, art journalism, and the philosophy of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Ten thousand years ago, Magdalenian artists carved expressive faces into slabs of limestone, creating a Paleolithic portrait gallery that required sophisticated drawing skills. This program shows how the art of portraiture has been refined and expanded through the ages. Examples of Egyptian sarcophagi portraits segue into discussions of paintings by Titian, Rafael, Durer, and other...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Beginning with the classical and biblical subjects of Diana, Susannah, and Bathsheba, this program discusses female nudity as it relates to the act of bathing. Depicted as a chaste ritual, a sensual invitation, and a terrifying opportunity for violence, the act of bathing is deconstructed and scrutinized from an artistic point of view. Topics include the inherent dramatic tension of nudity; the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: Where do abstract painters and fashion designers find their muses? To what extent does the creative process differ between video artists, sculptors, and fine art embroiderers? How do illustrators and mixed media artists handle the business side of their work? Using capsule interviews with contemporary figures on the U.K. visual arts scene, this program draws viewers into the studio space and...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

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Summary: Promoted in its time as a celebration—or at least a fully informed study—of foreign ethnicities and customs, the 1900 World’s Fair is recognized today as a spectacle of Eurocentric myopia. This program lays bare that conceit as it interweaves archival photographs, film clips, and posters from the Fair with commentary from renowned art historians. Offerings from museum collections across the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Called art by some and vandalism by others, street art transforms the depersonalized, over-commercialized urban landscape into a forum for self-expression. Filmed in New York City, Pittsburgh, and Toronto, this edgy program documents the exploding underground art form of street stenciling and explores its roots in political street art, industrial signage, and freehand graffiti. John MacPhee,...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: When did we begin to create images and, more importantly, find tangible meaning in them? How did this conceptual leap lay the groundwork for our modern, visually oriented culture? This program investigates when and why humanity underwent what archaeologists call the "creative explosion" and invented pictorial art. Beginning with the Altamira cave paintings in Spain, the film addresses questions...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: When setting up a shot, a photographer works with composition, lighting, and color to create a subliminal subtext that reinforces or even carries the meaning of his or her subject. This program illustrates how basic components of photography-line, shape, form, texture, balance, volume duality, point of view, depth of field, and perspective-contribute to an image's impact on the subconscious...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: Some of the earliest landscape paintings are found on the walls of Egyptian tombs-demonstrating that, since ancient times, panoramic scenes of nature have held spiritual significance. This program guides viewers through the history of landscape art and its various emotional, symbolic, and sacred meanings. Progressing through ancient Greek and Roman villa paintings, Byzantine art, and the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: In this program, artists Ben Johnson and Patrick Hughes travel to Florence, where 15th-century painter Piero della Francesca first employed mathematically based perspective. Tracing the use of perspective, they discuss how artists at the beginning of the 20th century rebelled against its limitations. Johnson then uses a computer to create a perfect perspective model for a planned painting,...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: Segment one of this program addresses the anxiety and suffering surrounding World War I through Sir William Orpen's Zonnebeke, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's Bird Swallowing a Fish, and Max Beckman's Carnival. Segment two reflects on the fear and anguish of World War II with Salvador Dali's Mountain Lake and Francis Bacon's triptych Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Segment three...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Why do we find comfort in some systems while rebelling against others? How can the artist use systems as a mean of expression? Systems explores these questions in the work of contemporary artists Julie Mehretu, John Baldessari, Kimsooja, and Allan McCollum—all motivated to explain and explore the infinite systems of life as they experiment with abstract composition, performance art, stenciling,...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Throughout the history of painting and sculpture no muse has exerted more influence than the artist's model. This program studies the role of the human form in art, focusing on complex relationships between famous male artists and their female subjects. Works featuring the male figure are also examined. Discussing numerous artistic milestones-including classical Greek statuary, Masaccio's...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Everyone has the desire to arrange things in a way that is most pleasing to the eye. In painting, composition involves arranging every ingredient-shape, color, texture, and light-so that working together, they create artistic balance. In this program, artist Ray Richardson deliberately chooses a long, slim canvas to challenge his compositional abilities. As he confronts his quest to create a...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: A quarter-century following the death of Abstract Expressionist firebrand Jackson Pollock, renowned critic Clement Greenberg and art historian T. J. Clark sat down to discuss the legendary painter's career, working methods, and legacy. This program documents their talk, focusing on Pollock's work from the mid-1940s onward and highlighting Greenberg's firsthand observations of the artist in his...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Physical metamorphosis as a theme in painting, sculpture, photography, and cinema reveals an ongoing fascination with all manner of transformations and distortions of the human form. Ranging from classical to modern times, this program presents zoomorphism; hybrids from mythology, the hells of Hieronymus Bosch, and the caricatures of Granville; "botanomorphism," people as plants; treatments of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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Summary: No storytelling medium is more powerful than the modern movie-but the ability to inspire and entertain by combining words and pictures is hardly a recent phenomenon. This program reveals the age-old roots of the cinematic narrative form and their evolution over the centuries. Beginning in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh, the film points to the Epic of Gilgamesh as one of the earliest...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Described as "the artful dodger meets Einstein meets an explosion in a sequin factory," public artist Martin Firrell specializes in large-scale digital projections onto iconic architecture-text messages that raise questions about faith, human rights, cultural diversity, and other subjects. Marking the first time that Firrell has allowed cameras into his creative process, this program follows...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

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Summary: Might a work of art move us to temper our more destructive impulses? In what ways do artists’ feelings of empathy contribute to works that tackle problematic subjects and address the human condition? Compassion, features three contemporary artists-William Kentridge, Doris Salcedo, and Carrie Mae Weems-whose unique works and experimental methods explore the conscience and the possibility of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: When artists worked in the service of the state, they glorified their cities and gave them imposing facades. But as the place of artists in society has matured over the centuries, artistic expression has became increasingly more penetrating. Beginning with the Renaissance, this program describes how visual artists have represented, deconstructed, and reconstructed the cityscape as they dealt...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

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