iPlayer: More British Landscape Painting

This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting is still available to view on iPlayer. It's available until12 February.

Documentary looking at how the British landscape has been depicted, from Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad.

It's also a repeat (and I've written about it before - see This Green and Pleasant Land) but if, like me, you rather like watching good programmes more than once - or you missed it last time around - you won't mind that!

In following up on it, I've discovered a new blog called Some Landscapes - which is being added to my blogroll

This site is about landscapes and the arts. It highlights ways in which landscape has been evoked, depicted or transformed in painting, photography, literature, music and film.

It includes a blog post about the programme called The Mountain That Had to Be Painted

The Mountain That Had to be Painted - in BBC iPlayer

Here's the link to The Mountain That Had to Be Painted on iPlayer - about the painters Augustus John and James Dickson Innes - it's available until 8th February.

Documentary about the painters Augustus John and James Dickson Innes who, in 1911, left London for the wild Arenig Valley in North Wales. Over three years, they created a body of work to rival the visionary landscapes of Matisse.

This Green and Pleasant Land

BBC iPlayer - This Green and Pleasant Land - The Story of British Landscape Painting

If anybody else, like me, forgot that tonight was the night that This Green and Pleasant Land - The Story of British Landscape Painting was on here's the iplayer link for the download

I caught the last half an hour and was gutted that I missed the beginning - until I remembered the joy of the BBC iPlayer!

Here's the blurb - which will surely make all those who can't get iPlayer as sick as parrots!

400 years of art history in 90 minutes? This film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life, including artists, critics and academics, out into the countryside to take a look at how we have depicted our landscape in art, discovering how the genre carried British painting to its highest eminence and won a place in the nation's heart. 

From Flemish beginnings in the court of Charles I to the digital thumbstrokes of David Hockney's iPad, the paintings reveal as much about the nation's past as they do the patrons and artists who created them. Famous names sit alongside lesser-known works, covering everything from the refined sensibilities of 18th-century Classicism to the abstract forms of the war-torn 20th century with a bit of love, loss, rivalry and rioting thrown in. 

Contributions come from a cast as diverse as the works themselves, including filmmaker Nic Roeg, historian Dan Snow and novelist Will Self, who offer a refreshingly wide range of perspectives on a genre of art which we have made very much our own.

I'm now off to bed with my iPad to watch it from the beginning!

[Update (the next morning!): A brilliant programme on all sorts of levels - the photography is absolutely stunning.  Plus it was an intelligent summary of how landscape developed as a genre at the same time as covering several important artists drawing and painting landscapes with really insightful comment.  I'm going to watch it all over again!]