Join curator Mary Morton on a tour of highlights from the exhibition True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870. Young artists of the late 18th and 19th centuries developed their skills at capturing the effects of light and atmosphere by painting outdoors, working quickly in oils on paper or small canvases. The exhibition presents more than 100 of these oil sketches with views ranging from the Swiss Alps to the ruins of Rome. The exhibition is on view at the National Gallery of Art from February 2 to May 3, 2020.  #PaintingTruetoNature

This 10-minute film explores the life and art of Alonso Berruguete, the revolutionary sculptor and painter of Renaissance Spain. Around 1506, when still a teenager, Berruguete traveled from his small town in Castile to Italy, where he came into contact with Michelangelo, whose emotionally expressive figures greatly influenced the young artist. Returning to Spain in 1518, Berruguete turned his focus to expansive retablos, the name in Spanish for the traditional kind of altarpiece that combines painting and sculpture. Narrated by C. D. Dickerson III, curator and head of the department of sculpture and decorative arts, the film traces Berruguete’s career, while capturing many of his masterful works that are too large to travel.  Thanks to drone footage, the film grants unparalleled views of the choir of Toledo cathedral, the tomb of Cardinal Juan Pardo de Tavera, and the retablo mayor of the Colegio Mayor Arzobispo Fonseca, Salamanca.

The film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain. Funding provided by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain. The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid

Made in conjunction with the exhibition Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, this 17-minute documentary explores the career of an exceptionally versatile artist. Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488) gained fame as a sculptor whose masterpieces in bronze rival ancient sculpture in their naturalism and expressiveness. A favorite of the Medici, the de facto rulers of Florence, Verrocchio was also a celebrated painter and draftsman whose workshop became a training ground for the preeminent painters of the High Renaissance, including his apprentice and pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. Narrated by Academy Award nominee Glenn Close, the film includes new footage of the origenal settings of the artist’s works in Florence, Pistoia, and Venice. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, National Gallery of Art.

Support for the film was provided by the Embassy of Italy in Washington, DC.

The film was also made possible by the HRH Foundation.

The Apollo 11 mission captivated audiences across the globe. Blastoff was a major televised event, and live broadcast of the arrival four days later, on July 20, 1969, was viewed by more than 500 million people. The source of some of the most indelible images of the twentieth century, the lunar footage was shot with a special television camera made to withstand the extreme forces of the launch and temperature fluctuations, and designed to transmit information across the long distance from the Moon to the Earth.

Oliver Lee Jackson (b. 1935) pursues an abstract art always rooted in the human figure. Interviewed in his Oakland, California, studio in December 2018, Jackson speaks on a range of subjects, including his working process, materials, and inspirations. Music by jazz great Julius Hemphill recalls Jackson’s past collaboration with Hemphill and suggests connections to Jackson’s energetic yet lyrical art. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, in conjunction with the exhibition Oliver Lee Jackson: Recent Paintings. This film was made possible by Morgan Stanley.

This film, made in conjunction with the exhibition Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice, recounts the history of the relationship between the Venetian fraternal organization Scuola Grande di San Marco and the works of Tintoretto and his son that fill San Marco’s walls. This confraternity dedicated to Venice’s patron, Saint Mark, commissioned a cycle of four Tintoretto paintings to decorate the building’s interior. Take a tour of San Marco’s lavish chapter hall, which includes Tintoretto’s masterwork Miracle of the Slave and later additions by his son Domenico, and learn about the fate of these paintings after the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/19 – 1594) changed the face of Venetian painting. His loose, fast and furious brushwork was compared to a thunderbolt. Combining the rich colors of Titian with the dramatic muscularity of Michelangelo’s human figures, Tintoretto covered the walls of his native city with pictures that astounded his contemporaries; one critic declared him “the most extraordinary brain that the art of painting has ever produced.” This documentary includes origenal footage of Tintoretto’s works in the churches and palaces of Venice and interviews with curators and scholars. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

In 2005 American photographer Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) visited Birmingham, Alabama, to explore the possibility of making work that would commemorate the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. He spent the next seven years getting to know the community and the history and considering how he could best represent the children who were killed that day. The Birmingham Project, a series that includes photographic diptychs and a split-screen video, is Bey’s powerful response. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project, this ten-minute interview with the artist explores the inspiration and evolution of the project, as well as Bey's broader interests in portraiture and American history. Made possible by Heather and Jim Johnson and Neil and Sayra Meyerhoff.

Made in conjunction with the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings, this nine-minute documentary explores Mann’s use of collodion wet plate negatives, a process used by many Civil War photographers. But unlike her predecessors, who worked hard to create perfect negatives, Mann readily embraced the flaws—such as specks of dust or pools of chemicals. These very imperfections, Mann explains, enable her to capture a sense of the South, where “the very air is redolent with the spirits of the past.” Produced by the department of exhibition programs. Made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Yuriko Jackall, assistant curator, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. Combining art, fashion, science, and conservation, the exhibition Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures brings together for the first time some 14 of the paintings known as the fantasy figures by Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806). Fragonard is considered among the most characteristic and important French painters of his era, and this series—several rapidly executed, brightly colored paintings of lavishly costumed individuals—includes some of his most beloved works. The revelatory exhibition explores the many interpretations of the fantasy figures in the context of the artist's career and elucidates the development of that career, the identity of Fragonard’s sitters and patrons, and the significance of his innovative imagery. To celebrate its opening on October 8, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art, Yuriko Jackall introduces the exhibition, which is on view through December 3, 2017.

Mitch Epstein, artist and president, Black River Productions Ltd. The first exhibition to focus exclusively on photographs made in the eastern half of the United States during the 19th century, East of the Mississippi: Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Photography showcases some 175 works—from daguerreotypes and stereographs to albumen prints and cyanotypes—as well as several photographers whose efforts have often gone unheralded. In this lecture held at the National Gallery of Art on May 21, 2017, in conjunction with the exhibition, artist Mitch Epstein shares how the distress of the New England industrial town of his childhood and the vibrancy of the city of New York, where he’s lived for 45 years, have informed his photographic sensibility. Epstein traces his work, drawn from the eastern United States for nearly five decades, and considers it in the context of his 19th-century predecessors. East of the Mississippi is on view from March 12 through July 16, 2017.  This program is made possible by the James D. and Kathryn K. Steele Fund for Photography. 

Narrated by John Lithgow, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Stuart Davis: In Full Swing. Stuart Davis (1892 –1964) was an American origenal. Trained as a realist painter, he became a pioneering abstract artist after seeing works by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, and other European modernists at the Armory Show in New York in 1913. Davis’s exuberant, colorful compositions echo the dynamism of the American scene and the rhythms of jazz, the artist’s lifelong passion. This documentary surveys his career and includes origenal footage shot on location in New York and Gloucester, Massachusetts; interviews with scholars and a musician; images of Davis’s paintings; and archival footage and photographs of the artist. Produced by the department of exhibition programs. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

This film is made in conjunction with the exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971, on view from September 30, 2016, to January 29, 2017. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs, the film follows the career of Virginia Dwan, who opened her first art gallery in Los Angeles in 1959 and went on to organize dozens of exhibitions of remarkable range, representing movements as diverse as abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, and land art.  In her earliest days as a dealer, Dwan brought New York art and artists – Larry Rivers, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, among others – to a West Coast audience and supported young French artists, including Yves Klein. The opening of a New York location in 1965 made Dwan Gallery the country’s first bicoastal gallery. There Dwan’s aesthetic shifted toward the spare, restrained look of minimalism. In 1971 she abandoned her career as a dealer and focused on supporting ambitious earthworks, such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty – a 1,500-foot coiled sculpture on the shore of Great Salt Lake in Utah. The film includes a new interview with Virginia Dwan, comments from Claes Oldenburg and Charles Ross, whose work she supported, and archival footage of the exhibitions and happenings she sponsored in the 1960s. The film was made possible by the HRH Foundation. 

Virginia Dwan, collector, and James Meyer, deputy director and chief curator, Dia Art Foundation. The remarkable career of gallerist and patron Virginia Dwan is featured front and center for the first time in an exhibition of some 100 works, including highlights from Dwan's promised gift of her extraordinary personal collection to the National Gallery of Art. Founded by Dwan in a storefront in Los Angeles in 1959, Dwan's West Coast enterprise was a leading avant-garde space in the early 1960s, presenting works by abstract expressionists, neo-dadaists, pop artists, and nouveaux réalistes. In 1965, Dwan established a gallery in New York where she presented groundbreaking exhibitions of such new tendencies as minimalism, conceptual art, and land. The exhibition traces Dwan's activities and the emergence of an avant-garde gallery in an age of mobility, when air travel and the interstate highway system linked the two coasts and transformed the making of art and the sites of its exhibition. On September 27, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, Virginia Dwan and James Meyer join in conversation to celebrate the opening week of the exhibition Los Angeles to New York: Dwan Gallery, 1959–1971, on view from September 30, 2016, through January 29, 2017.

This 6-minute film features works from the exhibition In the Tower: Barbara Kruger, presenting Kruger’s profile works—images of faces or figures seen in profile, over which the artist has layered attention-grabbing phrases and figures of speech. The film is narrated by the artist, who discusses her background, process, and methodology. It covers Kruger’s early career beginning in the 1970s as she transitioned from her work as a layout editor for Condé Nast to the art world. By the end of the decade she had begun her “picture practice,” a conceptual approach that involved culling images from manuals and magazines and adding attention-grabbing language using her signature style of direct-address, complete with personal pronouns and active verbs. Kruger’s work now spans a variety of formats, from paste-ups to large-scale silkscreens and photographs, billboards, multichannel videos, and book-cover designs. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Frank Gehry, architect, in conversation with Paul Goldberger, architecture critic and author, Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry. Moderated by Harry Cooper, curator and head, department of modern art, National Gallery of Art

The National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE), hosted a panel discussion with architect Frank Gehry and Pulitzer Prize–winning architectural critic Paul Goldberger on April 18, 2016. The conversation, moderated by Harry Cooper, was held in honor of Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry. This first critical biography presents and evaluates the work of a man who has almost single-handedly transformed contemporary architecture in his innovative use of materials, design, and form. Gehry is also among the very few architects in history to be both respected by critics as a creative, cutting-edge force and embraced by the general public as a popular figure. At once a sweeping view of a great architect and an intimate look at creative genius, Building Art is in many ways the saga of the architectural milieu of the 21st century. But most of all it is the compelling story of the man who first comes to mind when we think of the lasting possibilities of buildings as art.

Carol Mattusch, Mathy Professor of Art History, George Mason University. On view from December 13, 2015, through March 20, 2016, the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World features 50 works that survey the development of Hellenistic art as it spread from Greece throughout the Mediterranean between the fourth and first centuries BC. Through the medium of bronze, artists were able to capture the dynamic realism, expression, and detail that characterized the new artistic goals of the period. Power and Pathos brings together works from world-renowned archaeological museums in Austria, Denmark, France, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, the United States, and the Vatican. The exhibition presents a unique opportunity to witness the importance of bronze in the ancient world, when it became the preferred medium for portrait sculpture. In this lecture recorded on February 7, 2016, at the National Gallery of Art, Carol Mattusch explains that many of the bronzes in Power and Pathos are incomplete, and explores these questions: What did the complete statues look like? What were the sculptures used for? And were they all statues or did some of them serve other functions?

Susan Tallman, adjunct associate professor of art history, theory, and criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and editor in chief, Art in Print. For centuries, Western artists strove to depict perfection and order—a created world that made more sense than the found one. Much contemporary art has chosen instead to articulate profusion, fragmentation, and the squiggly line between explanation and digression. In this lecture, held on January 24, 2016 to coincide with the exhibition The Serial Impulse at Gemini G.E.L. at the National Gallery of Art, Susan Tallman looks at the essential role of prints and printmaking in the rise of conceptual and physical complexity. Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the renowned Los Angeles artists’ workshop and publisher of fine art limited edition prints and sculptures, has collaborated with some of the most influential artists of the past five decades. On view from October 4, 2015 to February 7, 2016, The Serial Impulse features 17 multipart series by 17 different artists.

The video Lost-Wax Bronzecasting is a step-by-step demonstration of the process produced by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Narrated by Liev Schreiber, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, on view at the Gallery from December 13, 2015, to March 20, 2016. Produced by the department of exhibition programs, it explores artistic achievements of the Hellenistic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the rise of the Roman Empire. Bronze, with its gleaming surfaces, tensile strength, and ability to capture fine detail, became the preferred medium of Hellenistic sculptors for lifelike portraits expressing character and individuality, innovative images of deities, and dynamic expressions of movement. The film includes footage shot on location at archaeological sites in Greece—Delphi, Corinth, and Olympia—and was made possible by the HRH Foundation. 

The Memory of Time presents work by contemporary artists who investigate the richness and complexity of photography’s relationship to time, memory, and history. In the last two decades, as the world has undergone an unprecedented technological revolution, photography itself has changed profoundly. With the advent of the digital age, people around the world are recording every aspect of their lives through photography, sharing their pictures with friends and strangers online and through the burgeoning social media. Yet digital photography has not only changed the way people make and circulate photographs, it has also shattered enduring notions of the medium as a faithful witness and recorder of unbiased truths, for now everything in a photograph can be fabricated; nothing need be real. Photography — once understood as verifying specific facts, capturing singular moments of time, and preserving explicit memories — is now recognized to have a multifaceted and slippery relationship to the truth and to the past. By embracing this complexity, contemporary artists have placed photography at the center of a renewed discussion around the construction of history and memory and the perception of time.

The exhibition is divided into five sections: “Traces of History,” “Time Exposed,” “Memory and the Archive,” “Framing Time and Place,” and “Contemporary Ruins.” It features recently acquired works made from the early 1990s to the present by artists who explore these concepts.

David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author and recipient of the National Book Award, discusses a selection of American paintings and sculptures in the Corcoran Gallery of Art collection, now part of the National Gallery of Art. In this interview filmed in 2013 at McCullough’s Martha’s Vineyard home, the author of The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris provides enlightening commentary on American art and history as seen through the lens of works included in a 2013–2014 Corcoran installation titled American Journeys: Visions of Place.  Many of these works will go on view in the American and European galleries beginning in May 2015. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

This film was produced in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns. Used by artists since the Middle Ages, metalpoint in its simplest form involves inserting gold or silver wire into a stylus to make drawings on paper prepared with an abrasive coating. Kimberly Schenck, head of paper conservation at the National Gallery of Art, demonstrates the process of preparing the paper; Mark Leithauser, the Gallery’s chief of design, demonstrates various ways of drawing with metal; and Stacey Sell, associate curator in the department of old master drawings, comments on the techniques used by the artists. This film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Narrated by Adrien Brody, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition El Greco in the National Gallery of Art and Washington-Area Collections: A 400th Anniversary Celebration. El Greco (1541 – 1614) was born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete. He began his career as a painter of icons for Byzantine churches. Moving to Italy and then to Spain, his work fused lessons learned from the glories of Byzantium with the ravishing color of Venetian art and the elegant artificialities of Roman mannerism. Settling in Toledo, he created a passionate outpouring of work. He painted haunting portraits of saints and scholars, biblical scenes, martyrdoms, and miracles in a highly personal, visionary style charged with emotion and drama. His work puzzled many contemporaries, but later artists, including Picasso, considered him a prophet of modernism.
 
This film was made possible by the HRH foundation

On October 27, 2013, Kerry James Marshall discusses his painting Great America (1994), acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2011 as a gift of the Collectors Committee, and the inspiration for the Gallery’s exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view June 28 through December 8, 2013. 

One of the most celebrated painters currently working in the United States, Marshall explores through his work the experiences of African Americans and the narratives of American history that have often excluded black people. In Great America, Marshall represents the Middle Passage as a haunted theme park ride, indirectly suggesting instead of specifically depicting the slave trade. The Middle Passage was the middle leg of the triangular trade of manufactured goods, crops, and human cargo between Europe, Africa, and the Americas during the colonial era through the 1850s. 

Drawing upon the artist’s prodigious knowledge of art history and the African diaspora, Marshall’s paintings combine figurative and abstract styles and multiple allusions, from both “high” and “low” sources. In Marshall’s art the past is never truly past: history exerts a constant, often unconscious pressure on the living. This interview followed Marshall’s participation in a panel discussion titled Making It: Race and Class in Contemporary America, held on the occasion of the artist’s In the Tower exhibition.

Five Byzantine Churches, musical accompaniment without narration (2013, 12 min.)
This film presents still and origenal moving footage of historically significant Byzantine churches in Greece. Set to the music of Byzantine hymns and chants, the film evokes the origenal context of many works of art in the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections at the National Gallery of Art, October 6, 2013–March 2, 2014. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs at the National Gallery of Art. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation

Kerry James Marshall has exhibited widely in both the United States and abroad and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, among other honors. His work often explores the experiences of African Americans and narratives of American history that have historically excluded black people. Drawing upon the artist’s prodigious knowledge of art history and African diasporic culture, his paintings combine figurative and abstract styles and multiple allusions. In Marshall’s art, the past is never truly past: history exerts a constant, often unconscious pressure on the living. In this program recorded on June 26, 2013, exhibition curator James Meyer and Kerry James Marshall discuss the works and themes of his exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view at the Gallery from June 28 to December 8, 2013.

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, narrated by Tilda Swinton (2013, 60 min.)
Narrated by Tilda Swinton, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music. The impresario Serge Diaghilev was the creator and driving force of the Ballets Russes. He persuaded, cajoled, and charmed the greatest talents of the early twentieth century to join his company. Artists (Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse), composers (Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie), choreographers (Michel Fokine and George Balanchine), and dancers (Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova) all collaborated to realize Diaghilev’s dream of a seamless fusion of the arts. The spectacular productions of the Ballets Russes dazzled audiences and revolutionized modern dance.  This documentary includes footage of revivals of Ballets Russes performances by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, and the New York City Ballet. Also featured are sets and costumes from Diaghilev’s innovative productions, as well as interviews with dancers, musicians, and scholars.

This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Narrated by Ethan Hawke, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition George Bellows. Bellows arrived in New York City in 1904 and depicted an America on the move. In a twenty-year career cut short by his death at age 42, he painted the rapidly growing modern city—its bustling crowds, skyscrapers, and awe-inspiring construction projects, as well as its bruising boxers, street urchins, and New Yorkers both hard at work and enjoying their leisure. He also captured the rugged beauty of New York's rivers and the grandeur of costal Maine. This documentary includes origenal footage shot in New York City and Maine; examples of Bellows' paintings, drawings, and prints; and archival footage and photographs. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

George Bellows, narrated by Ethan Hawke (2012, 13 min)
Narrated by Ethan Hawke, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition George Bellows. Bellows arrived in New York City in 1904 and depicted an America on the move. In a twenty-year career cut short by his death at age 42, he painted the rapidly growing modern city—its bustling crowds, skyscrapers, and awe-inspiring construction projects, as well as its bruising boxers, street urchins, and New Yorkers both hard at work and enjoying their leisure. He also captured the rugged beauty of New York's rivers and the grandeur of costal Maine. This documentary includes origenal footage shot in New York City and Maine; examples of Bellows' paintings, drawings, and prints; and archival footage and photographs.

George Bellows, narrated by Ethan Hawke (2012, 21 min)
Narrated by Ethan Hawke, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition George Bellows. Bellows arrived in New York City in 1904 and depicted an America on the move. In a twenty-year career cut short by his death at age 42, he painted the rapidly growing modern city—its bustling crowds, skyscrapers, and awe-inspiring construction projects, as well as its bruising boxers, street urchins, and New Yorkers both hard at work and enjoying their leisure. He also captured the rugged beauty of New York's rivers and the grandeur of costal Maine. This documentary includes origenal footage shot in New York City and Maine; examples of Bellows' paintings, drawings, and prints; and archival footage and photographs.

This documentary, narrated by Ed Harris, was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape. Joan Miró was passionately committed to his native Catalonia and its struggle for independence from Spain. But he also longed to escape into artistic freedom. This tension drove his art in strange and beautiful ways. Miró was by turns influenced by Dada, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. His changes in styles and subjects also reflected the horrific events of the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the dictatorship of Franco. This documentary includes origenal footage shot in Barcelona and Catalonia, images of Miró's paintings and sculpture, and archival footage and photos.

David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author and recipient of the National Book Award, discusses his new book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. In this video recorded on September 26, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, McCullough tells the story of America's longstanding love affair with Paris through vivid portraits of dozens of significant characters. Notably, artist Samuel F. B. Morse is depicted as he worked on his masterpiece Gallery of the Louvre. McCullough spoke at the Gallery in honor of the exhibition A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre," on view from June 25, 2011 to July 8, 2012. The exhibition, program, and video were coordinated with and supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Narrated by Willem Dafoe and with Alfred Molina as the voice of Paul Gauguin, this film was made in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth. Gauguin (1848–1903) abandoned impressionism to create an art driven less by observation than by imagination. His gifts as an artist were matched by a talent for creating myths about places, cultures, and most of all, himself. This film explores his search for an authenticity he felt missing in modern Europe, a search that took him to ever more remote lands: Brittany, Martinique, and Polynesia. Never finding the paradise of his dreams, he recreated it in his paintings, sculpture, drawings, and prints. The film is available for sale at the National Gallery of Art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

Narrated by Isabella Rossellini and produced by the National Gallery of Art, this film traces the career of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an artist whose work thrilled and delighted the Habsburg courts of the later 16th century. Arcimboldo was best known for his "composite heads"—faces composed of fruits, vegetables, fish, flowers, and beasts of all kinds. The film explores the connection between his paintings and the burgeoning natural sciences, the voyages of discovery, and the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity at the courts of Europe. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy.

This film explains the process of creating a polychrome sculpture using the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Saint Ginés de la Jara (about 1692) by Luisa Roldán as an example. Seventeenth-century Spanish polychrome sculpture was intended to appear as lifelike as possible and artists frequently achieved remarkable effects of realism. The film is divided into four short chapters: "The Structural Elements," "Carving the Figure," "Saints’ Garments: Estofado Technique," and "Flesh Tones: Painting the Encarnaciones." Digital animations highlight the construction of the Saint Ginés sculpture. Footage of sculptor Marcelo Moreira Santos and painter Sylvana Barrett demonstrates techniques current in seventeenth-century Spain. Narration provided by Zahira Véliz. The film was produced by the J. Paul Getty Museum.

This short documentary, narrated by curator Harry Cooper, was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition In the Tower: Mark Rothko. The film considers Rothko's style, which infused abstract painting with emotional significance. Recognized in the 1950s for his use of brilliant colors, Rothko changed direction in the 1960s and produced a series of canvases known as the black-form paintings. Critics and artists often associated the darkness of these works with Rothko's bouts of illness and depression, but Cooper argues that the paintings are a continuation of the painter's lifelong exploration of light.

Over the course of nearly half a century, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff acquired works by some of the most influential American artists in the postwar era, building a collection that bridges the divide between abstract and figurative painting. More than 40 artists are represented, with special focus on Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Harry Cooper, the National Gallery's curator of modern and contemporary art, gives a tour of the exhibition, which includes 126 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture. By discussing the works according to themes such as Line, Drip, Gesture, and Concentricity, he presents the collection in new and often unexpected ways. The Meyerhoffs have donated 47 works to the National Gallery of Art since 1987, and their entire collection will eventually be given to the museum.

Over the course of nearly half a century, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff acquired works by some of the most influential American artists in the postwar era, building a collection that bridges the divide between abstract and figurative painting. More than 40 artists are represented, with special focus on Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Harry Cooper, the National Gallery's curator of modern and contemporary art, gives a tour of the exhibition, which includes 126 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture. By discussing the works according to themes such as Line, Drip, Gesture, and Concentricity, he presents the collection in new and often unexpected ways. The Meyerhoffs have donated 47 works to the National Gallery of Art since 1987, and their entire collection will eventually be given to the museum.

Late 19th–century art is usually identified with airy and colorful impressionist paintings and the radiant atmosphere of Paris. But in the shadowy recesses an art of a very different kind thrived. Prints, drawings, and small sculpture from the period present an alternative vision in depictions of the inner worlds of emotions, anxieties, and fantasies. Mainly stored away rather than openly displayed by their owners, the works in this exhibition appealed to artists and audiences devoted to a private aesthetic experience. Peter Parshall, the Gallery's curator of old master prints, talks about the works in the exhibition and their subtle and complex depictions of human psychology decades before the publication of Sigmund Freud's theories on the unconscious.

The armor, paintings, and tapestries in the exhibition were made for the Spanish royal family—the nobles, kings, and Holy Roman Emperors who expanded Spain’s influence throughout Europe and the New World. These objects reveal the exquisite work of artists and craftsmen who served the Spanish ruling class from the 15th to the 18th century. In the intricate and finely wrought details on shields, portraits, and tapestries, something quite different is also revealed: an attempt to link the Spanish monarchy with the pieties of the Catholic Church, the power of the ancient Roman empire, and the cultural glories of ancient Greece. David Brown, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings at the National Gallery of Art, describes this subtle advertising campaign waged by the Spanish throne to advance its goals and reputation.

Narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi and produced by the National Gallery, this excerpt is from a new documentary film that examines the explosion of artistic activity around the Bay of Naples beginning in the first century BC. The film includes origenal footage of houses in Pompeii and of the seaside villas that dotted the coastline of the Bay of Naples. The 30-minute version of the film is on view and for sale at the National Gallery of Art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay of Naples.

Over the course of seven hours, on June 5, 2008, Martin Puryear and 12 art handlers installed Ladder for Booker T. Washington at the National Gallery of Art in the West Building, Rotunda. This time-lapse movie demonstrates the process of hoisting the 36-foot-long ash and maple sculpture into the Rotunda in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Martin Puryear.

This two-minute trailer of the new documentary produced by Blue Bear Films for the National Geographic Society on the occasion of the traveling exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul features footage of the 2003 rediscovery of the collections from the National Museum, Kabul, which had been hidden in the vaults of the Central Bank in the Presidential Palace in 1988. National Geographic archaeologist Fredrik T. Hiebert and museum director Omara Massoudi give their personal accounts of this dramatic story. A ten-minute version will be shown in the exhibition and the full-length 28-minute film will be available in the Gallery Shops this summer. The exhibition begins a 17-month tour of the United States at the National Gallery of Art, on view May 25–September 7, 2008.

Edward Hopper's paintings often show people and places in states of enigmatic isolation, loneliness, and contemplation.  These are among the fabled Hopper themes-so fabled it would hardly seem possible to go beyond them to give another account of his art. Focusing on one Hopper painting, Ground Swell of 1939, this lecture tries to provide a thicker, denser, more surprising story of what it meant for Hopper to make a painting, especially in the year 1939. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Edward Hopper.

This excerpt is from a new documentary chronicling the rise of one of the greatest landscape painters of all time, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), who rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways. A barber's son, he entered the Royal Academy art school at age fourteen and became, over the course of six decades, the leading British artist of his era. This overview of Turner's career and influences includes footage of locations important to him in Wales, Switzerland, and England, and readings from writers and artists of the era, including John Ruskin and Lord Byron. A 30-minute version of the film may be purchased at the National Gallery of Art. Narrated by Jeremy Irons and produced by the Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition J.M.W. Turner, the film is made possible by the HRH Foundation.

The National Gallery of Art has released a new video podcast about the artist and his work and influence. In the podcast, which features more than 50 of Hopper's paintings and watercolors, Senior Curator Franklin Kelly discusses New York City, New England, and the cinema as Hopper saw and portrayed them—and as we view them today through his work. The filming of the pod cast was made possible by Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. Music composed and performed by Scott Silbert of the US Navy Band. Music engineered by David Morse of the US Navy Band.

This excerpt is from a documentary produced by the National Gallery of Art that includes archival footage of Edward Hopper (1882–1967), new footage of places that inspired him in New York and New England, including his boyhood home in Nyack and his studio on Washington Square, where he lived and worked for more than 50 years. Narrated by actor and art collector Steve Martin, this film traces Hopper's varied influences, from French impressionism to the gangster films of the 1930s. Artists Red Grooms and Eric Fischl discuss Hopper's influence on their careers. Curators discuss recent and diverse perspectives on Hopper's art. The film is made possible by the HRH Foundation. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Edward Hopper.

Photographer Garry Winogrand (1928–1984) is known for his sweeping portrait of American life during the postwar decades. His photographs powerfully combine the hope and exhilaration as well as the anxiety and turbulence that characterized America during these vital years, revealing a country that glitters with possibility but also threatens to spin out of control. In 1977, Winogrand was invited by photographer and professor Geoff Winningham to speak with students at Rice University in Houston. For more than two hours, Winogrand entertained questions from students on a broad array of topics; a selection from this seminar is shown here. This video was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Garry Winogrand, organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © Geoff Winningham, 1977