Journeys by land and by canvas invite art lovers to enjoy the week that is about to begin on TV.
From the less known corners of Molise where signs still survive today that tell the close relationship between the animal world and the human being (and which have inspired numerous artists), to the mystery enclosed in the water lilies by Claude Monet, a masterpiece destroyed in a fire at the MoMA in 1958, here are some events not to be missed.

Sky Arte in the backstage of the latest film dedicated to Botticelli
Sky week opens under the sign of mystery. Monday 14 November The Mystery of the Lost Masterpieces – Monet Burns! – the series that tells the paintings that tragically disappeared, because they were stolen or destroyed – sheds light on the water lilies by Claude Monet. Completely disintegrated in a fire that broke out at the MoMA in 1958, the work will be reconstructed in the episode by a team of experts.

Botticelli and Florence. The Birth of Beauty | Courtesy Nexo Digital

The rich Thursday signed by Sky awaits the public with two first visions. At 20.40 we will go behind the scenes of Botticelli and Florence. The birth of beautythe new Sky documentary film dedicated to the brush of Spring and to Renaissance Florence.

Told by the voice of Jasmine Trinca, produced by Sky, Ballandi and Nexo Digital with the patronage of the Municipality of Florence, conceived and written by Francesca Priori and directed by Marco Pianigiani, the docufilm will be in cinemas only on 28, 29 and 30 November to investigate the master’s art through interventions by curators and museum directors. Spectators will be accompanied among the marvelous Madonnas, Dante’s Inferno, the Pietàs, the ancient gods of Hellenic mythology, in a riot of beauty, creativity, violence, power struggles.
Despite the fact that contemporary painters, stylists and photographers, from Terry Gilliam to Andy Warhol, from David LaChapelle to Jeff Koons and Lady Gaga, have remained dazzled by the artist’s charm and his works reinterpreted and re-invented to the point of entering the collective imagination, for over three hundred years after his death, the Florentine painter was almost completely forgotten.
Who deserves the credit for the rediscovery? The word to the documentary film.

The second appointment on Thursday (at 21.15) guides us in the presence of Great masters with the series exploring the lives of Italian art greats through their immortal masterpieces. The protagonist of the fifth episode will be Antonello da Messina, one of the greatest Renaissance painters of southern Italy. Perfectly balanced between atmosphere and attention to detail, strongly inspired by the suggestions of Flemish painting and the Italian school, the Sicilian painter has a brush with an international reach. Paolo Cova and Sara Menato will tell the story of his life by browsing through his works. See the big screen on the small screenAnnounced of the Regional Gallery of Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo, or the Portrait of an unknown sailor of the Mandralisca Museum of Cefalù, o St. Jerome in the study it will be a feast for the eyes.

Giotto, Jesus enters Jerusalem. Padua, Scrovegni Chapel

Closing the week, Saturday 19 November at 6.35 pm, will be Giotto with his grandiose intuitions – first of all the introduction of perspective among his contemporaries – which make him an authentic innovator of Italian painting. Art historians Gaia Ravalli and Andrea De Marchi will review the master’s masterpieces in the Upper Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi, in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua and in the Bardi Chapel of the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

The less known Molise protagonist on Rai 5
Wednesday 16 November at 21.15 in the company of Andrea Angelucci, a young archaeologist, tour guide and travel designer with multifaceted interests, the fourth episode of Art Rider takes us to Molise. The format that explores the lesser-known art places in Italy, produced by GA&A Productions, in collaboration with Rai Cultura, accompanies travel lovers from Castel San Vincenzo to Matrice. In the small but very rich region nestled between the Adriatic and the Apennines, signs still survive today that tell of the close relationship between the animal world and the human being, and from which many artists have drawn inspiration.

Art Rider, From Castel San Vincenzo to Matrice | Courtesy Rai 5

Joan Mitchell’s abstract art on Arte TV
Among the greatest American painters of the Second World War, Joan Mitchell was one of the few women to establish herself in the world of abstract expressionism. Her work has been recognized and appreciated from the outset, in New York in the fifties as in Paris, the city in which she lived her passionate love story with her colleague Jean-Paul Riopelle and where she met her death in 1992.
Halfway between the American abstract school and the impressionism of Claude Monet, Mitchell established herself as a powerful female figure alongside Pollock, Motherwell, Kline, de Kooning and Rauschenberg.