London History & Culture: Experience London/Britain/Europe!

At Eternity's Gate Film Screening!

Our art film history program will have two parts.
The first portion of our program (approximately 15-20 minutes) will be a brief overview of the film including its historical context, plot summary, things to look for, accuracy, etc.
The second portion of our two-part program will be a full screening of the film.
During and after the screening you are welcome to join your fellow participants in a live online discussion of the film via Zoom.

At Eternity's Gate is a 2018 biographical drama film about the final years of painter Vincent van Gogh's life. The film dramatizes the controversial theory put forward by Van Gogh biographers Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, in which they speculate that Van Gogh's death was caused by mischief rather than it being a suicide.
The film is directed and co-edited by Julian Schnabel, from a screenplay by Schnabel, Jean-Claude Carrière and Louise Kugelberg. It stars Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner and Niels Arestrup. Principal photography took place in late 2017 over 38 days at various locations across France where Van Gogh resided during his final years.

Prado Museum, Madrid and the Spanish Golden Age - Livestream Art Tour
Hosted by Robert Kelleman

Let’s travel to one of my favorite places, Madrid, Spain, to see one of the world’s greatest art museums, the Prado. Our online/virtual tour will feature an overview of the museum and its amazing art collection, including Spanish Golden Age artists including El Greco, Velázquez and Goya.

The Prado Museum (/ˈprɑːdoʊ/ PRAH-doh; Spanish: Museo del Prado), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The Prado Museum is one of the most visited sites in the world and is considered one of the greatest art museums in the world. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside Italy.
The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures, in addition to many other works of art and historic documents. The Prado is one of the most-visited art museums in the world and is one of the largest museums in Spain.
The Prado, with the nearby Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Museo Reina Sofía, forms Madrid's Golden Triangle of Art, which was included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2021.

***

Painted with Words Film Screening!

Our art film history program will have two parts.
The first portion of our program (approximately 15-20 minutes) will be a brief overview of the film including its historical context, plot summary, things to look for, accuracy, etc.
The second portion of our two-part program will be a full screening of the film.
During and after the screening you are welcome to join your fellow participants in a live online discussion of the film via Zoom.

Vincent Van Gogh: Painted with Words (2010 - BBC)
Award-winning drama-documentary, presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role as Van Gogh, using dialogue sourced from the artist's letters to his brother.

J.M.W. Turner - A National Gallery of Art Film Presentation (Livestream)

Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs, National Gallery of Art, this documentary chronicles the rise of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), one of the greatest landscape painters of all time.
One of the greatest landscape painters of all time, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways. This documentary chronicles the rise of Turner, a barber's son who entered the Royal Academy art school at age fourteen to become, over the course of six decades, Britain's most renowned painter. It includes footage of locations important to Turner in Wales, England, Switzerland, and readings from writers and artists of the era, including John Ruskin and Lord Byron.

Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
Turner was born in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, to a modest lower-middle-class family and retained his lower-class accent, while assiduously avoiding the trappings of success and fame. A child prodigy, Turner studied at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1789, enrolling when he was 14, and exhibited his first work there at 15. During this period, he also served as an architectural draftsman. He earned a steady income from commissions and sales, which he often only begrudgingly accepted owing to his troubled and contrary nature. He opened his own gallery in 1804 and became professor of perspective at the academy in 1807, where he lectured until 1828. He travelled around Europe from 1802, typically returning with voluminous sketchbooks.
Intensely private, eccentric, and reclusive, Turner was a controversial figure throughout his career. He did not marry, but fathered two daughters, Evelina (1801–1874) and Georgiana (1811–1843), by the widow Sarah Danby. He became more pessimistic and morose as he got older, especially after the death of his father in 1829; when his outlook deteriorated, his gallery fell into disrepair and neglect, and his art intensified. In 1841, Turner rowed a boat into the Thames so he could not be counted as present at any property in that year's census. He lived in squalor and poor health from 1845, and died in London in 1851 aged 76. Turner is buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London.