Renaissance: The Blood and the Beauty

An alternative history of the British Isles, told through art. Looking at 1,500 years and eight dramatic turning points, acclaimed artists and thinkers encounter key historic art works from across the UK that have shaped the history of the British Isles and inspired their own work.

Andrew Graham-Dixon examines the history of French art, revealing how it emerged from a struggle between tradition and revolution, and rulers and citizens. He compresses centuries of culture into three thematically linked chapters.

Andrew Graham-Dixon explores how a group of 19th-century architects and artists spurned the modern age and turned to Britain's medieval past to create iconic works and buildings.

This two-part, four-hour documentary delves into the world of a 15th-century art titan and unravels his journey while shedding light on his lasting impact on future generations.

Nigel Spivey reveals how the images which surround us today come from the ancient world. It's an epic journey spanning five continents and a hundred thousand years of history.

Through a combination of interviews and studio reconstructions, recount the gripping stories behind those who have excavated and stolen masterpieces.

Contemplate the "anti-art" spirit of Dadaism, its nihilistic yet humorous indictment of civilization and bizarre use of unconventional media. In the sensibility of Surrealism, observe its compelling focus on the subconscious and two substyles - dream imagery, with its juxtaposition of objects and settings, and "automatic drawing," eliciting unplanned images from the unconscious.

A history of American art with Waldemar Januszczak

Art historian Waldemar Januszczak uncovers the secret meanings hidden within some of the greatest paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Seurat .

A fresh look at the life and legacy of the iconic artist Leonardo da Vinci, positing that he was a gay outsider who used his work as a way of hiding his true self. Each episode will examine one of da Vinci’s artworks for hidden clues about a tortured artist struggling for perfection.

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.

La vita di Leonardo da Vinci — in English, The Life of Leonardo da Vinci — is a 1971 Italian television miniseries dramatizing the life of the Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci. The Golden Globe-winning miniseries was directed by Renato Castellani, and produced by RAI and distributed in the United States by CBS, which aired it from August 13, 1972 to September 10, 1972. Castellani wrote the screenplay. It was filmed entirely on location in Italy and France. The total runtime of the five episodes is nearly five hours.

Leonardo is a British children's television series broadcast on CBBC. The show is an adventure programme featuring a teenage Leonardo da Vinci starring Jonathan Bailey. The series is set in 15th-century Florence. A second series premiered on CBBC on 20 September 2012, starting with episodes one and two being shown back to back. For Series 2, actor James Clyde replaced Alistair McGowan in the role of Piero de' Medici. It was announced on 21 January 2013 that Leonardo would not be recommissioned for a third series.

Women write art history – but in turn are systematically ignored by it. LOST WOMEN ART tells the story of the suppressed female avant-garde and by doing so introduces a new art history.

In his most personal project to date, Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime. Best known for writing history, he has lived a fair bit of it too. Born in 1945, on the night of the bombing of Dresden, Simon grew up as part of a generation determined to rebuild the world from the ashes of war. In this film, he reveals the stories of artists and writers who have been at the forefront of the fight for truth and democracy, often at great personal cost.

The series follows the "untold" story of Leonardo Da Vinci: the genius during his early years in Renaissance Florence. As a 25-year old artist, inventor, swordsman, lover, dreamer and idealist, he struggles to live within the confines of his own reality and time as he begins to not only see the future, but invent it.

First broadcast on October 2, 1989, these 18 original 30-minute episodes provide a panorama of 2000 years of architecture, painting and sculpture, and studies the art masterpieces as reflections of the Western culture that produced them.

A a serial in ten parts on the lives of one of the most intriguing families in history.

Channel 4 documentary series covering all branches of the arts.

In an absorbing study, Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the story of a national art that conveys passion, precision, hope and renewal. He juxtaposes escapism with control and a deep affinity with nature against love for the machine. The fascinating story takes us from the towering cathedral of Cologne, the woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer and paintings of Grünewald to the gothic fairytale Neuschwanstein Castle, the Baltic landscapes of Caspar David Friedrich and the industrialisation lent expression of Adolph Menzel and Käthe Kollwitz. As the series progresses, it presents a rare focus on the cultural impact of Hitler's obsession with visual art, reveals how art became an arena for the Cold War and examines the redemptive work of the "visionary" Joseph Beuys – the most influential artist of modern times.