National Gallery of Art | Videos

Anthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this second lecture, entitled "Bearers of Memory and Makers of History: The Many Paths to Christian Antiquity," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 6, 2014, Professor Grafton argues that the history of knowledge was for millennia a history of books, the production of which established new standards of study and argument and ultimately the great libraries of Europe. Knowledge about the early church took the form of immense books—the work of learned scholars rich in erudition and impassioned by their beliefs, whose scholarship was often deeply prejudiced but sometimes reached original, prescient, and unexpected conclusions.

Anthony Grafton, Princeton University. In this six-part lecture series entitled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Anthony Grafton focuses on the efforts of artists and scholars to recreate the early history of Christianity in a period of crisis in the church from the 15th to the 17th century. In this first lecture, entitled "How Jesus Celebrated Passover: The Jewish Origins of Christianity," originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on March 30, 2014, Grafton explores how the pictorial form of the Last Supper, a central theme in art, was radically transformed after the beginning of the Reformation in 1517. He shows how writers with great archaeological and historical learning delved into Roman antiquities and Jewish texts from the time of the origins of Christianity in order to bring back the world in which the Last Supper actually took place.

Hidden among thousands of great works by famous artists in the National Gallery of Art is the work of a different artist, whose presence is not intended to be noticed. A mount maker meticulously creates small brass fittings by hand. This intricate process enables works of art to hang weightlessly from exhibition walls or appear to float in space. Mount makers' work is ever-present but never noticed. Take a glimpse behind the scenes to see a museum mount maker at work.

Darryl Atwell, a collector based in Washington, DC, has been acquiring works by artists of the African diaspora for the last eight years. His conversation with Jeffreen M. Hayes, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in African American Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, recorded on November 18, 2012, as part of the National Gallery of Art lecture series The Collecting of African American Art, provides an overview of Atwell's important collection. They also discussed the collecting of African American art in general and the rise of contemporary African American artists. Hayes is a scholar whose research interests are African American visual culture, contemporary representations of race, and art museums.

Photographer Garry Winogrand (1928–1984) is known for his sweeping portrait of American life during the postwar decades. His photographs powerfully combine the hope and exhilaration as well as the anxiety and turbulence that characterized America during these vital years, revealing a country that glitters with possibility but also threatens to spin out of control. In 1977, Winogrand was invited by photographer and professor Geoff Winningham to speak with students at Rice University in Houston. For more than two hours, Winogrand entertained questions from students on a broad array of topics; a selection from this seminar is shown here. This video was produced by the National Gallery of Art in conjunction with the exhibition Garry Winogrand, organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © Geoff Winningham, 1977

On October 27, 2013, Kerry James Marshall discusses his painting Great America (1994), acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2011 as a gift of the Collectors Committee, and the inspiration for the Gallery’s exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view June 28 through December 8, 2013. One of the most celebrated painters currently working in the United States, Marshall explores through his work the experiences of African Americans and the narratives of American history that have often excluded black people. In Great America, Marshall represents the Middle Passage as a haunted theme park ride, indirectly suggesting instead of specifically depicting the slave trade. The Middle Passage was the middle leg of the triangular trade of manufactured goods, crops, and human cargo between Europe, Africa, and the Americas during the colonial era through the 1850s. Drawing upon the artist’s prodigious knowledge of art history and the African diaspora, Marshall’s paintings combine figurative and abstract styles and multiple allusions, from both “high” and “low” sources. In Marshall’s art the past is never truly past: history exerts a constant, often unconscious pressure on the living. This interview followed Marshall’s participation in a panel discussion titled Making It: Race and Class in Contemporary America, held on the occasion of the artist’s In the Tower exhibition.

Kerry James Marshall has exhibited widely in both the United States and abroad and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, among other honors. His work often explores the experiences of African Americans and narratives of American history that have historically excluded black people. Drawing upon the artist's prodigious knowledge of art history and African diasporic culture, his paintings combine figurative and abstract styles and multiple allusions. In Marshall's art, the past is never truly past: history exerts a constant, often unconscious pressure on the living. In this program recorded on June 26, 2013, exhibition curator James Meyer and Kerry James Marshall discuss the works and themes of his exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view at the Gallery from June 28 to December 8, 2013.

Many of the Dutch paintings at the National Gallery of Art have fascinating histories. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. recounts how, under the threat of the Third Reich, the Petschek family in Aussig (now the Czech Republic) saved their beautiful landscape by Albert Cuyp from the Nazis. Wheelock also relates the peaceful, Arcadian quality of Cuyp’s paintings to the political and social ideals of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.

By examining the stylistic relationships between two paintings in the National Gallery of Art, The Fall of Man by Hendrik Goltzius and Daniel and the Lions’ Den by Peter Paul Rubens, curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. explains how Goltzius drew inspiration from the great Flemish master. In 1612 Rubens traveled from Antwerp to Haarlem to visit Goltzius, and as The Fall of Man (1616) demonstrates, that meeting had a profound impact on Goltzius’ subsequent style.

Rembrandt van Rijn’s art is marked by his ability to capture the human experience in its joys, its drama, and its vulnerabilities. His many self-portraits are among the most iconic of his works. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. explains how Rembrandt, in his Self-Portrait of 1659, depicted himself as a proud and thoughtful individual, worn with age but with an inner dignity gained from the personal difficulties he had experienced in the mid-1650s.

The dramatic composition and emotional power of Rembrandt’s The Mill has made it one of the most renowned paintings in the Dutch collection at the National Gallery of Art. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. takes viewers through the fascinating history of this masterpiece, which includes major controversies about its attribution and its appearance.

Many seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings are small because they were created for domestic settings. In 1995 the National Gallery of Art unveiled the Dutch and Flemish Cabinet Galleries, a suite of intimately scaled, wood-paneled rooms that emulates the viewing experience one might have had in such an environment. Curator Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. tours the cabinet galleries, discusses his inspiration for them, and explains why they are especially appropriate for paintings such as Vermeer’s remarkable genre scenes.

HABITAT, a composition for percussion with video and computer transformations, is a concert-length technology venture by Steve Antosca, percussion performance and video content by Ross Karre, and audio technology by William Brent. Premiered November 10, 2013 in the National Gallery of ARt East Building Atrium. The conceptual framework of HABITAT involves a percussionist operating comfortably within the domain of his instruments, emerging over the course of his performance into a larger, more profound environment through his roles as a performer and activator of the technology. This involves his movement to and performance within a “spiral galaxy” of unique percussion stations, distributed throughout the performance space. As the percussionist moves through the space on his transformational journey, a multiplicity of effects—visual, aural, and architectural—enters into the complex formula that comprises the performance of HABITAT. Used uniquely in the Gallery premiere as one of the percussion stations, Harry Bertoia’s Tonal Sculpture (1977) is a gift to the Gallery’s permanent collection from Bernard and Audrey Berman. HABITAT stems from the tradition of intermedia art, in which a variety of media are employed for the mutual benefit of underlying concepts. From the outset of the compositional process, HABITAT treats percussion instruments, monitors, and projection surfaces as installed sculptures and unifying elements of the project. The varying placement and instrumentation that define the percussionist’s journey allow the audience to adjust its auditory perspective through spatialization cues and timbral shifts, constantly reformulating their perception of the performance.

This film presents still and original moving footage of historically significant Byzantine churches in Greece. Set to the music of Byzantine hymns and chants, the film evokes the original context of many works of art in the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections at the National Gallery of Art, October 6, 2013–March 2, 2014. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs at the National Gallery of Art. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation

This film presents still and original moving footage of historically significant Byzantine churches in Greece. Set to the music of Byzantine hymns and chants, the film evokes the original context of many works of art in the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections at the National Gallery of Art, October 6, 2013–March 2, 2014. Produced by the Department of Exhibition Programs at the National Gallery of Art. This film was made possible by the HRH Foundation