Episodes

In 1902, Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke visited sculptor August Rodin in Paris to write an essay on the artist for a new series of German monographs. Writing with his usual intensity, Rilke’s poetic language and passion for Rodin’s art make this an engaging account of the artist’s life and work. Curator Anne-Lise Desmas discusses this text and Rodin’s career, addressing the personal relationship between the two men, Rodin’s unusual artistic process, and the reception of Rodin’s art in his time...

A towering sarcophagus for a man with a Grecian name, an ancient medical scroll that details Mycenaean cures in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a Roman mosaic illustrating scenes from the Nile are just a few of the incredible objects that tell the story of sustained trade and cultural exchange between Egypt and Classical Greece and Rome. The Getty Center exhibition Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World centers on this artistic exchange and in this episode, exhibition curators Timothy Potts ...

Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was a well-known and somewhat controversial artist in his time, and many historians, critics, and artists wrote about his work and life during and shortly after his lifetime. In this episode, curator of paintings Anne Woollett discusses three short biographies of the artist: one by German painter Joachim von Sandrart; the second by Italian painter Filippo Baldinucci; and a third by Dutch painter and printmaker Arnold Houbraken. All three biographies were ...