Great documentaries about visual art?

May 3, 2023 5:09 PM

I'd like to know more about art history, especially the first half of the 20th century. Any recommendations for documentaries? I'm more interested in learning about styles than individual artists. Expressionism 101, Non-Objective Art for Beginners, that sort of thing.
posted by The corpse in the library to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Though it's getting on a bit in years, Robert Hughes' The Shock Of The New is canonical about the development of Western modern art, from the 1880s onward.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:51 PM on May 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

2nding The Shock of The New, it was part of our old Art School curriculum. Learning about different radical early 20th Century Art-Movements was fascinating for me.
posted by ovvl at 7:22 PM on May 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

If you have access to Kanopy streaming, here is what I got when I searched Google for "Kanopy art history"

Kanopy is available on Roku for example. You get access to Kanopy through your public library.
posted by TimHare at 8:22 PM on May 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am partial to Waldemar on perspectives.
posted by oldnumberseven at 8:49 PM on May 3, 2023

I don't think you'll beat The Shock of the New, but I also enjoyed Matthew Collings's documentaries. They span a range of periods. They're on YouTube in bits. e.g. This is Modern Art, The Rules of Abstraction, and Impressionism: Revenge of the Nice. Blimey!
posted by fabius at 4:58 AM on May 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

To augment the above recommendations with a docu-series on how art history fits into the social and political, John Berger's Ways of Seeing from the 1970s is really great.
posted by EL-O-ESS at 7:08 AM on May 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I second anything by Waldemaar Janusczak (sp?). He always teaches me something I didn't know, no matter what the topic.
posted by wittgenstein at 12:58 PM on May 4, 2023

Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art. Second half of 20th century. Might still be on Kanopy.
posted by Jackson at 5:07 PM on May 5, 2023