National Gallery of Art | Audio

March 2011 - Mary Miller, Yale University. This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica. In this audio podcast of the fifth and final lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 16, 2010, art historian and archaeologist Mary Miller argues that 16th-century pictorial documents by indigenous artists offer a lens on the vanishing pre-Columbian world, showing how Mesoamerican visual culture exposed a cultural transformation that texts alone could not convey.

March 2011 - Mary Morton, curator of French paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Belinda Thomson, exhibition guest curator. On the occasion of the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Morton and Thomson discuss Gauguin�s talent for storytelling across media through his remarkable works of Brittany and the islands of the South Seas.

February 2011 - Mary Miller, Yale University. This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica. In this audio podcast of the fourth lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 9, 2010, art historian and archaeologist Mary Miller discusses the paradox of truth and deception in the depiction of natural objects in Maya and Aztec art, exploring the pleasures of illusion and the virtue of mimesis when materiality is suspended.

February 2011 - Anna Ottani Cavina, professor of art history, Universit� di Bologna. Professor Anna Ottani Cavina examines the aesthetic of the Italian landscape as depicted by foreign painters during the first half of the 19th century, in this podcast recorded on November 5, 2006, as part of the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art series. In the wake of Rousseau, these painters left the atelier and chose to paint en plein air�inevitably modifying painting technique itself, as well as the relationship between painters and nature. As a result, the idea of the Italian landscape dramatically changed: the Arcadian vision traditionally offered by Poussin finally gave way to a new picturesque and modern idea of the Italian countryside.

February 2011 - Mary Miller, Yale University. This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica. In this audio podcast of the third lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on May 2, 2010, art historian and archeologist Mary Miller explores the signification and cultural import of beauty in Maya and Aztec aesthetics.

February 2011 - Daphne Barbour, senior conservator, department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art; Suzanne G. Lindsay, adjunct associate professor in the history of art, University of Pennsylvania; and Shelley Sturman, senior conservator and head of the department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art. This podcast, recorded on January 30, 2011, celebrates the publication of Edgar Degas Sculpture, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, which documents the Gallery�s collection of the artist�s lifetime sculptures�the largest of its kind in the world. Catalogue authors Daphne Barbour, Suzanne Lindsay, and Shelley Sturman present their contributions to the landmark publication, including essays on Degas� life and work, his sculptural technique and materials, and the story of the sculptures after his death. The technical analysis reveals that Degas usually built his own armatures from wires, wood, and metal pins, and formed the sculptures over them and fillers he had at hand: cork stoppers, paper, rope, rags, and even discarded objects such as the lid of a saltshaker.

February 2011 - Mark Leithauser, senior curator and head of design and installation, and Eric Denker, lecturer, National Gallery of Art. On the occasion of the exhibition Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals, the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia, has loaned the National Gallery of Art one of the world's oldest gondolas, once owned by American artist Thomas Moran. Leithauser and Denker discuss the legacy of gondolas.

February 2011 - Mary Miller, Yale University. This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica. In this audio podcast of the second lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 25, 2010, art historian and archaeologist Mary Miller discusses Maya systems of timekeeping, the most sophisticated in the New World, and explains how Maya art engaged and inflected notions of past, present, and future.

February 2011 - Andy Goldsworthy, artist. Held in conjunction with the exhibitions The Andy Goldsworthy Project and Andy Goldsworthy: Roof, Andy Goldsworthy spoke about his career and current projects in this podcast recorded on January 23, 2005, at the National Gallery of Art. Goldsworthy has gained worldwide renown for works both ephemeral and permanent that draw out the endemic character of a place. The artist employs natural materials such as leaves, sand, ice, and stone that often originate from the site of the project. Roof, a site-specific sculpture, consists of nine hollow, low-profile domes of stacked slate, each with a centered oculus, that run the length of the ground-level garden area on the north side of the Gallery�s East Building. Goldsworthy selected the dome form as a counterpoint to the many architectural domes in Washington, DC. The Andy Goldsworthy Project catalogue is available for purchase in the Gallery Shop.

February 2011 - Mary Miller, Yale University. This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica. In this audio podcast of the first lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 18, 2010, art historian and archaeologist Mary Miller presents a history of the reception of pre-Columbian art from its arrival in Europe in the 16th century to the present day, as new discoveries continually transform the field.

February 2011 - Colin B. Bailey, associate director, and Peter Jay Sharp, chief curator, The Frick Collection. Jean-Honor� Fragonard's Progress of Love is considered by many to be one of the great works of 18th-century French art. In this podcast recorded on January 9, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, Colin B. Bailey examines the circumstances surrounding the commission, installation, and eventual rejection of the four canvases painted from 1771 to 1772 for Madame du Barry's pavilion at Louveciennes.

January 2011 - Patrizia von Brandenstein, Academy Award�winning production designer. Production designers define the appearance of a film, bringing to life written scripts by working with producers, directors, and their crews to achieve the desired look of a picture. Academy Award winner Patrizia von Brandenstein shared her practical knowledge of production design and used clips from several of her films, including Amadeus (1984), Six Degrees of Separation (1993), and The Last Station (2010), to illustrate the result of many years of research and visual interpretation.

January 2011 - Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Stephanie S. Dickey, Bader Chair in Northern Baroque Art, Queen's University. Recorded on October 26, 2008, this podcast celebrates the major international loan exhibition Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, which was on view at the National Gallery of Art from October 26, 2008, to January 11, 2009. In the first of two lectures, Arthur Wheelock places Lievens in historical context�particularly in relationship to his friend and colleague from Leiden, Rembrandt van Rijn�and focuses on the evolution and character of Lievens' paintings. In the second lecture, Stephanie Dickey examines Lievens' remarkable achievements as a printmaker.

January 2011 - Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art. In this podcast recorded on November 28, 2010, at the National Gallery of Art, Arthur Wheelock reveals the provenance of various Dutch masterpieces that hang in the West Building galleries. Wheelock explores the growth of the Dutch collection from the time the Gallery opened in 1941 to the present day, when it is considered one of the most celebrated collections of Dutch paintings in the world.

January 2011 - Daphne Barbour, senior object conservator, and Shelley Sturman, head of object conservation, National Gallery of Art. The National Gallery of Art holds the greatest collection in the world of original wax sculptures created by Edgar Degas. Celebrating the publication of the Gallery's newest Systematic Catalogue, Edgar Degas Sculpture, Shelley Sturman and Daphne Barbour, two of the authors who are senior conservators, discuss their extensive research on the art, history, and techniques of the Gallery's unsurpassed collection of 52 works in wax, clay, and plaster, as well as a dozen posthumously cast bronzes.