Who Tells Your Story?

What did “free speech” mean before the Civil War...and what did it cost? Today, I'm exploring how Americans have debated the meaning of liberty through words, images, and even violence beginning with Samuel Jennings’s 1792 painting 'Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences' in 17 ...  Show more

In the final installment of our Impressionism primer, we meet the artists who broke away from light and surface to paint something deeper. From Van Gogh’s turbulent skies to Gauguin’s mythic Tahitian scenes, Cézanne’s geometric still lifes to Seurat’s scientific dots, the Post-Im ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People. In 1830 revolution once more overtook France, when a popular uprising toppled the French king Charles X. A few months later, the artist Eugene Delacroix immortalised the events of the July Revolu ...  Show more

The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) was more than just a rake or a cad - based on his egregious conduct, he clearly belonged in prison, and one sympathizes with the father who aimed a pistol at Sade's chest and pulled the trigger, hoping to end the demon's life. (The gun misfired.) B ...  Show more

Here’s a preview from a new podcast, Death of the Artist, that explores a tragedy in the art world. For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming ar ...  Show more

Jeanne de la Motte was an 18th-century French confidence artist. She eventually hoodwinked the members of the royal family in such a dramatic fashion, it ultimately contributed to the fall of the monarchy, and hastened the French Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi ...  Show more