Audio-Visual Materials: N: Fine Arts

Presents Dakar's 24-day Festival of Negro Arts. Depicts performances of African and American entertainers and presents displays of art works. Includes Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, and Alvin Ailey.

Focusing on eight iconic works of art, this series reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages. A combination of reconstruction, photography and storytelling transport the viewer back to the intense moments when great works were conceived and born: the murderous, messianic world of Baroque Rome; opulent, parvenu Amsterdam; paranoid, revolutionary Paris; Victorian England suffocating beneath riches and righteousness; the madhouses and brothels of Provence; the carnage of civil war Spain; 1950s New York, caught between Cold War jitters and Manhattan glitter. In each place, a great artist is backed into a corner, facing a crisis, given a chance to confound his rivals, enemies and critics one more time.

Meet diverse contemporary artists through revealing profiles that take viewers behind the scenes into artists' studios, homes, and communities to provide an intimate view of their lives, work, sources of inspiration and creative processes.

"Go behind the scenes to meet today's most fascinating contemporary artists in Season Three of the Emmy-nominated ART:21--ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY documentary series. Unparalled in access to today's young artists, this unique series takes viewers into artists' studios, homes, and communities to provide an intimate view of their lives, work, creative processes, and sources of inspiration. The four one-hour programs present 18 artists working in the United States..."--Case.

Season 5

Through in-depth profiles and dynamic behind-the-scenes footage featuring artists speaking directly about their inspirations and ideas, Season Five shows a broad range of artistic practice, technical innovation, and experimentation, from artists tackling large-scale collaborative projects in hangar-like studios to those working in the quiet of more intimate studio settings.

"Meet contemporary artists at work and speaking in their own words--direct, accessible, and unfiltered--in Season Four of the Emmy-nominated ART:21--ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY documentary series. ... This unique four-hour series spotlights 17 artists working in the United States today, and invites viewers behind the scenes to see artists at work in their homes, communities, and unexpected sites--from an old-growth forest to a military base to a film set. The artists ... explore questions ... about politics, mortality, love, nature, science, order, chaos, and more. Themes of Romance, Protest, Ecology, and Paradox provide a connective thread between profiles ..."--Container.

Follow Sister Wendy around the world as she discusses the art and architecture she sees.

Lee Hammond demonstrates how to achieve lifelike portraits through smooth blending and gradual toning.

"From using recycled materials to installing energy-efficient heating systems, creating an environmentally friendly home is all about being responsible without sacrificing style"--Container.

2 Discs

Take a grand tour of the nation's most extraordinary homes: Grand Plantations, Florida's Grand Estates, Hudson River Valley Estates, Newport Mansions, Adirondack Camps, and Gold Coast Estates.

Uses still photographs and filmed sequences to recreate the social and political climate of the Harlem renaissance--a period of great artistic and cultural activity in the 1920's which had, and still has, a profound influence on black American art and self-awareness and life-style.