BBC - Fine Art Collection (2003)

The original art is a human desire, depicting life through a variety of ways, but who are the masters of it? The expression means they must be unique individuals, while also embracing life. "Art Collection" by the BBC performs elaborate and time-consuming search through the years, shuttling around the museums, galleries and private collections in the world and visiting around artists friends and family. It is also showing enjoyment through the creation of classics, interspersed with an introduction to the life of the great masters of art from various periods to gain insight into their artistic core.

Part 1: Mad About Monet
Oscar Claude Monet (1840-1926)
A portrait of the life, work and legacy of the world's most popular artist. Featuring celebrity fans and artists, Monet's descendants, and footage of the top secret, high risk, logistical nightmare of moving 80 huge Monet paintings across the Atlantic, as the greatest exhibition of his work moves from Boston to London.

Part 2: Bull in Winter : the Last Years of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso (1881-1973)
By the end of the Second World War, Picasso was the most famous living artist in the West. By 1954, he was moving out of the domain of global politics and increasingly into his own personal life. He left his "season of hell", the period after Francoise Gilot left him, and found peace in Southern France with Jacqueline Roque. This film addresses the last two decades of his life, which were as prolific as ever, but that witnessed a new phase in his work, the importance of which critics have been debating vehemently ever since.

Part 3: Rembrandt by Himself
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
Rembrandt van Rijn has been described as the greatest artist of the Dutch school of the Seventeenth Century. Thoughout his life he obsessively painted a series of self-portraits which now act as a visual autobiography. This film explores some of these self-portraits and shows us that not only do they present a picture of his changing painting technique, but they also capture the essence of the man throughout his life, allowing us to develop a deep familiarity with him, his life and work.

Part 4: Rodin 1840-1917
Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917)
Auguste Rodin is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential sculptor of the late nineteenth century. A passionate observer of the human body, he challenged certain conventions of the time and paved the way for modern sculpture. This film is a unique insight into the sculptor's personality and working methods, told through the artist's notebooks and letters as well as archive footage of him in his studio and at Meudon.

Part 5: The Gentle Art of Making Enemies : Whistler
James McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)
Perhaps one of the most misunderstood artists of the nineteenth century, James MacNeill Whistler was known as a dandy, an eccentric and a wit. He was far less celebrated for the value of this work, and, while his Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother (1871) is now renowned, in his lifetime it remained unsold for nineteen years after it was painted. During his life, he was largely dismissed for his interest in "art for art's sake" but this helped prepare the ground for modern art.

Part 6: Jackson Pollock : Love and Death on Long Island
Paul Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
Jackson Pollock's large-scale abstract paintings are recognised world-wide as one of the twentieth century's most unique and important visual statements. He is synonymous with the myth and legend of the "live fast, die young" male artist genius. He is believed by many to have re-invented painting and was hugely influential for the development of modern and contemporary art. This film presents a portrait of this unique, legendary and highly contentious artist.

Part 7: The Mysteries of Hieronymus Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)
Nicholas Baum travels to Holland, Spain and Portugal in search of clues to the nightmare paintings of this 15th-century artist. Over the years, his works have been interpreted in terms of heresy, alchemy, drugs and witchcraft, and one theory is that Bosch was a member of a secret sect which practised orgies. His works are unconventional interpretations of conventional subjects, that are intended to act as a terrible warning against sinning.