L'astronome, Vermeer, 1668
Most of Johannes Vermeer's paintings, when it comes to characters, show women of Delft in a home environment. The artist nevertheless made three exceptions making a man the object of his interest., one of which is "The Astronomer" about a a scientist of his time at his table. This remarkable picture is a valuable reflection of the extraordinary scientific and cultural expansion in the United Provinces in the seventeenth century.
8.1 /10
La Ronde de nuit, Rembrandt, 1642
Everything you always wanted to know about one of the most famous paintings of art history. You will learn, among other things, why it is called "The Night Watch" whereas it is daytime, who are the militiamen represented, why the painting is so huge, why although the subject was treated several times in the Dutch Golden Age, only Rembrandt's work can be regarded as a masterpiece.
0 /10
Le deux mai 1808 à Madrid, 1814, Francisco Goya
On his way to Portugal, then allied with the English, Emperor Napoleon stopped in Spain and aroused the anger of the patriots by deposing the king and replacing him with his brother Joseph. From 1808 to 1814, the Spaniards rose up against the French invaders, starting on May 2, 1808, when they attacked the stagecoaches in charge of exfiltrating the royal children to France. When the king of Spain, restored to his throne, commissioned Goya to paint a picture commemorating the heroic struggle of the people, the painter chose the violent confrontation of May 2, in which he expressed all the violence of the assault on the emperor's troops.
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Femmes à la terrasse d'un café le soir, Edgar Degas, 1877
Degas, one of the leaders of the uncompromising Impressionists, chose in 1877 a daring genre scene, close to the photographic snapshot. What he shows us are prostitutes on the terrace of a café on the Grands Boulevards, one of whom is tapping her fingernail against her tooth, seemingly saying "not just that" about a customer's lack of generosity. Zola's naturalism here joins the theme of urban life, a major theme examined by all the Impressionists. In any case, the painting is miles away from the neoclassicism in vogue at the time, at the (claimed) risk of disconcerting the bourgeois.
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Vue de Varsovie depuis la terrasse du Chateau Royal, Bernardo Bellotto, 1773
Born in Venice in 1721, trained by his famous uncle Canaletto, the famous landscape painter Bernardo Bellotto did not stick to the City of the Doges. He was rather the rolling stone kind, traveling from one European court to another (Dresden, Vienna, Munich). In 1764, he accepted an invitation from Poland's newly elected King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski later (from 1768) to become his court painter in Warsaw.. Happy to work in Poland at he service of an enlightened monarch he settled down and remained there for 16 years, until his death. This is where, in 1773, he painted an intriguing "veduta" of the Polish capital and the environs of the Castle entitled "A View of Warsaw from the Royal Castle".
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Stelvio. Crossroads of Peace

Stelvio. Crossroads of Peace

A documentary that showcases an extraordinary place in the heart of Europe: The Stelvio Pass. Here, at 3,000 metres above sea-level in the middle of the Italian Alps, one finds an imposing natural treasure where the present meets the past and the visitor discovers a breath-taking landscape and mountain sports experience. Whereas the Stelvio alpine glacier is a big tourist attraction for summer skiing, the mountain road to the Pass, an engineering wonder built in 1825 by the Austrian Empire, hosts the most famous stage of the Giro d'Italia. But people once battled here not just for sporting reasons: One hundred years ago soldiers on those peaks experienced the so-called White War which took place on the highest and coldest battlefield of World War I. After one hundred years trenches, cans, bombs and weapons from that cruel war are still found in the snow by people like Mario Pasinetti, a hotel porter and former member of the Italian Alpine brigade, who collects war remains in his spare time. Through Mario's story the viewer meets the people that make the Stelvio a lively microcosm: Claudia, a female forest ranger; Gustav Thöni, a former world skiing champion; Pompa, an aficionado and pilot of vintage airplanes as well as inventor of Artic rescue tools which he tests personally on the glacier; and Lorenz, a shaman who lives at the foot of the Stelvio road. Through these people and other characters, along with the help of majestic mountain shoots (including helicams and wescam shoots), this documentary enables us to discover the unexpected power and magic of this alpine microcosm that has changed from a point of collision between hostile forces to a place of interchange and discovery, of encounters and leisure activities: a "crossroad of peace".

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