In the summer of 1937, the last one before the war, Man Ray and Picasso spent their holidays on the French Riviera together with other artist friends. The great professional and human adventure of the two is revealed in a documentary, premiered on Sky Arte.
While the heat gallops outside, for those forced to give up the beach there is nothing better than browsing the agenda of great art on the small screen, this week in the company of Leonardo and Verrocchio, and the magnificence of the Roman Empire.
Here are some appointments with art not to be missed from 1st to 7th August.
On Sky Arte with Leonardo, Picasso, Man Ray
The first Monday of this hot August takes us to Lorenzo the Magnificent’s Florence. At 5.35pm on Sky Arte the documentary entitled Leonardo and Verrocchio explores the relationship between the student and the teacher, from the apprenticeship of the young Leonardo to the artistic debt that binds him to his mentor. Taking its cue from the exhibition set up at Palazzo Strozzi and at the Bargello Museum on the occasion of the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance genius, the documentary brings to life the Renaissance workshop of Verrocchio, with its internal dynamics, methods and techniques, but also the clients.
The Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent will frame the story, which sees the flowering of numerous masterpieces, many of which were created by Verrocchio and his pupils Perugino, Ghirlandaio and above all Leonardo.
Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci, Baptism of Christ, ca.1475, Tempera and oil on wood, 177 x 151 cm, Florence, Uffizi Galleries
Thursday 4 August at 6.05 pm, in the company of Edoardo Leo we will set out on the trail of the Roman Empire, celebrating its birth with Power of Rome, a journey through time to discover Rome, between amusing encounters and surprising twists. An actor who is about to take on the role of Julius Caesar leaves the set of American production and sets out on the trail of his Rome, a city that is “cynical, violent mocking, founded on blood and yet capable of rising again every time in the name of beauty”. The actor (Edoardo Leo) becomes a guide for the public among the more or less known places, while he revisits Roman history, entrusting many figures of antiquity with the task of retracing the stages of a rich and multifaceted past.
The week on Sky TV ends with the sunny landscapes of the Côte d’Azur. Here two exceptional artists, Man Ray and Picasso, spend the summer of 1937 together, the last before the war. What happened, along with other artist friends, is revealed in the documentary Man Ray & Picasso – Journey to the French Rivierapremiered on Sunday 7 August at 9.15 pm.
Female votive bust, 3rd cent. BC Votive Coroplasty: orange / pink terracotta with cream-colored engobe and traces of pigments, Cerveteri, Archaeological deposits of the Necropolis of Banditaccia
On Rai Storia, a tribute to Leonardo
500 years after his death, Rai Storia proposes a reconstruction of the immense mosaic of Leonardo’s life and work (Monday 1st August at 1pm). The journey into beauty continues, among the Italian sites of the Unesco Heritage, precisely in the two necropolises of Banditaccia and Monterozzi, the main cemeteries of the ancient Etruscan city-states of Cerveteri and Tarquinia, while, again on Monday at 9.15 pm, Francesca Fialdini for “È l ‘Italy, beauty! ” guides us to discover the ancient spirituality of Calabria, among timeless jewels such as the Cattolica di Stilo, a unique work for its architectural balance that bears traces of the long Greek and Byzantine influence on these lands.
Heading north, Francesca’s journey stops at Santa Maria della Roccella, the monumental Norman basilica immersed in the archaeological park of Scolacium, a few kilometers from Catanzaro. Going up the east coast, in Basilicata, we admire the complex of the Santissima Trinità di Venosa, an abbey of Benedictine origin, built with the marble and bas-reliefs of the Roman amphitheater, whose construction, however, was never completed.
Cattolica di Stilo
The eye of Doisneau and Mulas on Rai 5
On Friday 5 August on Rai 5 the immense and painful sculptures of Leoncillo Leonardi, the Umbrian sculptor and ceramist who has dedicated his entire life to art, give the screen to Robert Doisneau, protagonist in the late evening of a rerun of Art Night. The gaze of the great master of photography spanned the whole of the twentieth century rummaging through the most varied humanity, art and life of Paris and its inhabitants. Those who manage to stay late will be able to follow a portrait of Ugo Mulas, one of the Italian photographers who best talked about the art and artists of the late twentieth century.
Egon Schiele, Self-portrait with alchechengi1912, Oil on canvas, 39.8 x 32.2 cm, Vienna, Leopold Museum
Arte tv tells the life of Egon Schiele
Mirror of anxieties, disturbances and impulses that emerge from the magma of the unconscious, for Egon Schiele the body represented the tool to investigate the limits of the flesh and sexuality without regard to death, disease, human frailty. Dark, visceral, scandalous in his just 28 years of life, the Viennese artist still amazes today with the nudes, the angular lines, the daring poses, expressions of a deeper subjectivity. Unknown to most people until the 1950s, Schiele is now one of the most popular painters in the art market.
His drawings and paintings combine tender intimacy with brutal sincerity. Arte tv accompanies us in the discovery of this artist with a precocious talent who marked the Austrian expressionism of the early twentieth century, leaving behind numerous works. It was said that he never used rubber and had an irrepressible creative energy. We will find out thanks to a documentary entitled Egon Schiele, broadcast from 31 July to 5 September.
Read also:
• The five most scandalous paintings in the world
• Happy birthday Egon Schiele! A 130-year revolution
