Apples, Pears And Paint

Series which looks at how the Art Nouveau movement flourished in the burgeoning cities of Europe at the end of the 19th century.

Britain's country houses are home to astonishing world-class art collections full of priceless old masters and more. In this three-part series art historian Helen Rosslyn opens the doors of some of our most impressive country houses to tell the story of how so many great paintings came to Britain and of the adventurous men and women who brought them here.

Caravaggio was extraordinarily secretive about the techniques he used to create his ingenious and revolutionary art. He didn't employ assistants and hardly let anyone into his workshop. Although jealous rivals offered rewards to anyone who could discover his trade secrets, he took them to his grave. Or so everyone thought…

Artemisia Gentileschi was deemed the first woman to earn a living from art but was her work of fantasies of revenge the result of a troubled early life? The darling of feminist French historians, she triumphed in the early 17th century, an era dominated by masters like Rubens and Caravaggio and has since inspired three best-selling novels and a film.

Matthew Collings explores how Turner makes light the vehicle of feeling in his work, and how he found inspiration for that feeling in the waters of the River Thames. Throughout a lifetime of travel, he returned time and again to paint and draw scenes of the Thames, the lifeblood of London. The film reveals the Thames in all its diverse glory, from its beauty in west London, to its heartland in the City of London and its former docks, out to the vast emptiness and drama of its estuary near Margate.

Painter and critic Matthew Collings charts the rise of abstract art over the last 100 years, whilst trying to answer a set of basic questions that many people have about this often-baffling art form. How do we respond to abstract art when we see it? Is it supposed to be hard or easy? When abstract artists chuck paint about with abandon, what does it mean? Does abstract art stand for something or is it supposed to be understood as just itself?

With sumptuous palaces, exquisite artworks and stunning architecture, every great city offers a dizzying multitude of artistic highlights. In this series, art historians Dr Janina Ramirez and Alastair Sooke take us on three cultural citybreaks, hunting for off-the-beaten-track artistic treats - and finding new ways of enjoying some very famous sights.