Educational Media Reviews Online

Another winner from Tim Marlow and Channel 5 (UK). This companion to “Great Artists One”, is a 2-DVD set, a series of 12 23-minute profiles (6 on each disc) of the most influential artists of the last 500 years of Western art, in chronological order: Piero della Francesca (Italian), Hans Holbein The Younger (German), Michelangelo Caravaggio (Italian), George Stubbs (English), Francisco Goya (Spanish), Jacques-Louis David (French), John Constable (English), Eugène Delacroix (French), James McNeill Whistler (American), Auguste Rodin (French), Mary Cassatt (American), and Egon Schiele (Austrian)

As a host, Tim Marlow takes the viewer on something of a Grand Tour, using state of the art brilliant high definition videography. Surveying not only the major works wherever they are currently located and discussing them in situ, but also going further and visiting significant locales from the lives of these artists—where they grew up, where they studied and apprenticed, and where they created their masterworks—Marlow ties all these strands together beautifully, every time. The viewer gets a real sense of the artist as a human being, and a deeper, more intimate understanding of the artwork on display.

Throughout the series Marlow is never less than in peak form, with every artist’s profile here an absolute gem, and equal time given to several artists with whom many may be less than familiar (Stubbs, Cassatt, and Schiele). But special mention must be made of his trenchant analysis of Holbein’s painting “The Ambassadors” on the first disc—it’s revelatory, bordering on the virtuosic.

Highly recommended for all libraries.