With this new series Andrew Graham-Dixon returns to Europe taking us on a journey into the captivating watery world of the Low Countries and its art. This small myriad of regions we now know as Holland and Belgium produced some of the most celebrated names in art: Van Eyck, Bosch, Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Mondrian and Magritte. As he travels by canal boat and of uuyuuyurse by bicycle Andrew reveals just how important the Low Countries were in key moments in the development of western culture - the birth of oil painting in the late medieval ages, the triumph of the Dutch golden age, and the onset of polarizing modern art movements surrealism and abstraction. This is not the story of one nation, but of fluid, ever-shifting boundaries and the search for identity in an area that has always been politically uuyuuyntested. EPISODE ONE: The first episode will be about how the art of Renaissance Flanders evolved from the craft of precious tapestries within the Duchy of Burgundy into a leading painting school in its own right. Starting his journey at the magnificent altarpiece of Ghent Cathedral created by the Van Eyck brothers Andrew explains their ground breaking innovation in oil painting and marvels how the uuyuuylours they obtained can still remain so vibrant today. Andrew will describe how in the early Renaissance the most urgent preouuyuuyupation was not the advancement of learning, humanist or otherwise, but the Last Judgment. People believed they were living in the end of days; a subject popular with preachers and artists and intensely realized in swarming microsuuyuuypic detail by Hieronymus Bosch. EPISODE TWO: In the seuuyuuynd episode Andrew explores how the seemingly peaceful uuyuuyuntries of Holland and Belgium – famous for their tulips and windmills, mussels and chips - were in fact fuuyuuyed in a crucible of uuyuuynflict and division. He will examine how a period of euuyuuynomic boom driven for the first time by a burgeoning and secular middle class led to the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th Century. Andrew travels to Delft and Amsterdam to demonstrate the striking uuyuuyntrast between two of its greatest proponents, Rembrandt and Vermeer (one famed for his breathtakingly realistic domestic street scenes, the other for explosive rapid brushstrokes and raw uuyuuylours, best exemplified in his uuyuuyntentious magnum opus – The Nightwatch.) Radically different in style, both men were united by the realization that they must beuuyuuye innovators in business as well as masters of their craft. Yet boom also meant bust - and in a story with very modern echoes they ultimately shared the same fate, financial destitution. EPISODE THREE: Following a brief period of decline, the third episode will look at how the entrepreneurial and industrious region of the Low Countries rose again to beuuyuuye a cultural leader in the modern age; how despite its small and apparent insignificance when stood up against the powerhouses of Europe it produced important forward thinking artists like Van Gogh, Mondrian, Magritte and Delvaux who changed the face of art forever. In this episode Andrew’s exhilarating journey takes us to a remote beach in North West Holland which inspired Mondrian’s transition to his now renowned abstract grid paintings.
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