Videoteca

location_onLondon, EnglandpublicGB

The Mystery of the Nativity 2022
Join Waldemar Januszczak as he delves into the mysteries of a renowned old tale, as artists throughout the ages developed incredible ideas to fill in the gaps.

Waldemar Januszcak: My Ukrainian Journey 2022
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak goes to Ukraine to see how Ukrainian art is being preserved in times of war.

Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman 2017 star_border 4
Waldemar Januszczak explores the impact of Mary Magdalene's myth on art and artists. In art all Christian saints are inventions but Mary Magdalene has been the subject of more invention and re-invention than any other.

Holbein: Eye of the Tudors 2015 star_border 5
A survey of Hans Holbein's career from his beginnings as a religious painter to his work for Henry VIII and beyond. The program also includes a close analysis of "The Ambassadors".

Rubens: An Extra Large Story 2015
These days, nobody takes Rubens seriously. His vast and grandiose canvases, stuffed with wobbly mounds of female flesh, have little appeal for the modern gym-subscriber. And it's not just the bulging nudity we don't like. The entire tone of Rubens's art offends us. Everything in it is too big - the epic dramas full of tragedy, the fantastical celestial scenery, the immense canvases and murals adorning the walls and ceilings of Europe's grandest palaces. All of it seems too much for modern sensibilities. But Waldemar Januszczak begs to differ. In Waldemar's eyes, Rubens has been traduced by modern tastes, and a huge misunderstanding of him has taken place. By looking in detail at Rubens's fascinating life, by understanding his art in more enlightened ways, Waldemar sets out to correct the extra-large misconceptions that have arisen about Rubens.

William Dobson: The Lost Genius of Baroque 2011
Acclaimed British art critic, Waldemar Januszczak, investigates the few known facts about William Dobson and seeks out personal stories he left behind as it follows him through his tragically short career. Among the Dobson fans interviewed in the wonderful film is Earl Spencer, brother of the late Princess Diana, who agrees wholeheartedly that William Dobson was the first great British painter.

Ugly Beauty 2010
Documentary in which art critic Waldemar Januszczak argues that beauty is still to be found in modern art, despite several recent books claiming the contrary.

Manet: The Man Who Invented Modern Art 2009 star_border 5.3
Manet is one of the main candidates for the title of the most important artist there has been. As the reluctant father of Impressionism, and the painter of Dejeuner sur l'herbe, he can probably be accused of inventing modern art. But his story is fascinating on many other levels. As a piece of compelling biography, Manet's is the unlikely tale of the stubborn son of the most highly placed judge in France who decides to become an artist and embarrass his father. The resulting family tensions are the stuff of legend. Then there was Manet's dramatic private life, including exotic romantic affairs and a particularly horrible death. Always cited as the father of the Impressionists, Manet stubbornly refused to show with them, and was careful to maintain an aesthetic distance from Monet, Renoir and the others. While they worshipped him, he looked down on them.

The Michelangelo Code: Lost Secrets of the Sistine Chapel 2008
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak is on the quest to explain exactly what the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is actually trying to tell us.

Sickert vs Sargent 2007
Sickert vs. Sargent brings to life two of the biggest characters in modern British art; Walter Sickert - the gruff, aggressive man-of-the-people; and John Singer Sargent - the urbane and charming dandy. The film focuses on some of the most beautiful and alarming paintings ever made in this country; pictures of aristocrats and prostitutes, coronations and killings, opera houses and music halls, and will evoke the long-lost atmosphere of Edwardian London. But above all it will show that from their two outposts in Chelsea and Camden, Sickert and Sargent were waging a war whose legacy still haunts us today.

Toulouse-Lautrec: The Full Story 2006
Art Critic Waldemar Januzczak presents this documentary which details french artist Toulouse-Lautrec's life.

Puppy Love 1999
A curious title given that for 50 minutes, Januszczak snarls his way through a canine critique and it’s not clear which he despises more, dogs or their owners. He visits a dog show which he regards as incorrigibly eccentric and he considers breeding practices to be the canine equivalent of eugenics practised by the Nazis. “We breed them until their heads look like misshapen Halloween pumpkins (often to the detriment of their health), we cut their bollocks off, we send them to a doggy psychiatrist and still most of them won’t do what we want them to do. The message appears to be that we love dogs, but not for themselves, it’s for the prestige they can bestow upon their owners.

The Lost Supper 1998
This rare film tells the strange, disquieting and protracted story of the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous masterpiece, The Last Supper. Some say the results of the restoration are glorious. Others have called them tragic. Da Vinci’s famously fragile fresco was always going to be a challenge for its secretive Italian restorers. No one, however, could have foreseen how problematic and strange their task would become. Marked by a series of extraordinary mishaps, mistakes, and miscalculations, the incredible restoration is hilarious to watch but may have resulted in the loss of a masterpiece.

Art's Wildest Movement: Mannerism 2024 star_border 10
Art critic Waldemar Januszczak delves into the heart of Mannerism, as he explores the development of the art style, examines its characteristics, and questions what it achieved.

The Art Mysteries with Waldemar Januszczak 2020 star_border 6.5
Art historian Waldemar Januszczak uncovers the secret meanings hidden within some of the greatest paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Seurat .

Big Sky, Big Dreams, Big Art: Made in the USA 2018
A history of American art with Waldemar Januszczak

The Renaissance Unchained 2016
Four-part series in which Waldemar Januszczak challenges the traditional view of art's most important epoch - the Renaissance.

Rococo: Travel, Pleasure, Madness 2014
Rococo art is often dismissed as frivolous. But Waldemar Januszczak disagrees and in this three-part series he tries to bring Rococo art closer to us, and argues that the Rococo was the age in which the modern world was born.

The Dark Ages: An Age of Light 2012 star_border 7.5
Christianity slowly emerged from being a persecuted minority to the state religion of the Roman Empire. This episode is a history of the ways believers grappled with a way to depict Jesus. Simple symbolic meaning developed into splendid art and churches.

The Impressionists: Painting and Revolution 2011
Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists.

Baroque! From St Peter's to St Paul's 2009 star_border 9
In this three-part documentary series Waldemar Januszczak discovers paintings, sculptures and architecture of the Baroque period. Starting from the square of Saint Peter's Basilica in Italy to St Paul's Cathedral in England.

Vincent - The Full Story 2004
The life of Vincent Van Gogh presented by Waldemar Januszczak.