Video Teaching Programs

Video

20th-Century American Art

The National Gallery of Art's collection of 20th-century art on view includes paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by American artists.

20th-Century European Art

Among the collections of the National Gallery of Art are outstanding paintings and sculpture by 20th-century European artists Henri Rousseau, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Henry Moore.

American Art 1785–1926

This DVD and viewer's guide focuses on seven American artists of the nineteenth century, including John James Audubon, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Moran, John F. Peto, and James McNeill Whistler.

Egyptian & Greek Art

This DVD explores location footage made in conjunction with special exhibitions on art and cultures of ancient Egypt and Greece.

Art from Asia

This DVD explores the art and cultures of China, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Japan.

European Art

Among outstanding European paintings at the National Gallery of Art are Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and masterworks by Giovanni Bellini, Raphael, Johannes Vermeer, and Anthony van Dyck.

19th-Century European Art

The final decades of the 19th century witnessed the development of new art forms and styles as a reaction to the academic traditions that have prevailed for over a century.

Making Art

This DVD features behind-the-scenes experiences filmed in studios, laboratories, and museum galleries.

New World Archaeology

This DVD includes two programs, on the ancient Olmec and Maya, including live footage of major sites in Mesoamerica.

About the NGA

This DVD provides detailed views about the National Gallery of Art and its history, development, and construction; founder Andrew W. Mellon; and architects John Russell Pope and I. M. Pei.

A Place To Be

This film traces in detail the creation of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, from idea to completion by architects I. M. Pei and Partners with participation from various contemporary artists.

All About Prints

All About Prints invites novices and experienced collectors alike to explore the art of printmaking from the perspective of influential curators, collectors, dealers, artists, and printers.

Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's imaginative combinations of fruits, vegetables, and flowers create allegorical portraits and witty caricatures.

David C. Driskell

A tribute to David C. Driskell, one of the world's leading authorities on African American art.

Diaghilev & Ballets Russes

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music celebrates one of the most dazzling cultural enterprises of the 20th century.

Drawing in Silver & Gold

Used by artists since the Middle Ages, metalpoint involves inserting gold or silver wire into a stylus to make drawings on paper prepared with an abrasive coating.

Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, one of America's most admired artists, captured the shared realities of American life with poignancy and enigmatic beauty.

El Greco

Narrated by Adrien Brody, El Greco, An Artist's Odyssey was made in conjunction with the exhibition El Greco in the National Gallery of Art and Washington-Area Collections: A 400th Anniversary Celebration.

Forward, 54th!

Through interweaving monologues and Civil War–era music, this dramatic interpretation honors the rich stories of the people and events remembered in Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Shaw Memorial.

Chester Dale Collection

Chester Dale assembled one of the finest art collections in America during the early 20th century that was later gifted to the National Gallery of Art.

Gauguin: Maker of Myth

More than 100 works by Paul Gauguin—including many of his most sumptuous, appealing colorful images—appear in Gauguin: Maker of Myth.

George Bellows

George Bellows depicted America on the move. In a 20-year career cut short by his untimely death at age 42, he painted the rapidly growing city of New York.

Dwan Gallery

Virginia Dwan organized groundbreaking exhibitions of movements as diverse as abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, conceptualism, and land art.

Miró: Ladder of Escape

Celebrated as one of the greatest modern artists, Joan Miró developed a visual language that reflected his vision and energy in a variety of styles across many media.

Pompeii & the Roman Villa

This film explores art and culture around the Bay of Naples before Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Seeing Color

The DVD includes the film Seeing Color, plus additional background information about the artists featured, pigments, optics, and more.

Stuart Davis

Narrated by John Lithgow, this film surveys Davis's career and his exuberant, colorful compositions that echo the dynamism of the American scene and the rhythms of jazz, the artist’s lifelong passion.

Tintoretto

These two documentaries examine Tintoretto’s career, with original footage of his works in the churches and palaces of Venice.

J. M. W. Turner

One of the greatest landscape painters of all times, Joseph Mallord William Turner rendered the subtle effects of light and atmosphere in revolutionary ways.

Verrocchio

Explore the work of Andrea del Verrocchio, one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance.

You may also like

We look slightly down onto a crush of pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and streetcars enclosed by a row of densely spaced buildings and skyscrapers opposite us in this horizontal painting. The street in front of us is alive with action but the overall color palette is subdued with burgundy red, grays, and black, punctuated by bright spots of harvest yellow, shamrock green, apple red, and white. Most of the people wear long dark coats and black hats but a few in particular draw the eye. For instance, in a patch of sunlight in the lower right corner, three women wearing light blue, scarlet-red, or emerald-green dresses stand out from the crowd. The sunlight also highlights a white spot on the ground, probably snow, amid the crowd to our right. Beyond the band of people in the street close to us, more people fill in the space around carriages, wagons, and trolleys, and a large horse-drawn cart piled with large yellow blocks, perhaps hay, at the center of the composition. A little in the distance to our left, a few bare trees stand around a patch of white ground. Beyond that, in the top half of the painting, city buildings are blocked in with rectangles of muted red, gray, and tan. Shorter buildings, about six to ten stories high, cluster in front of the taller buildings that reach off the top edge of the painting. The band of skyscrapers is broken only by a gray patch of sky visible in a gap between the buildings to our right of center, along the top of the canvas. White smoke rises from a few chimneys and billboards and advertisements are painted onto the fronts of some of the buildings. The paint is loosely applied, so many of the people and objects are created with only a few swipes of the brush, which makes many of the details indistinct. The artist signed the work with pine-green paint near the lower left corner: “Geo Bellows.”

Educational Resource:  Exploring Identity through Modern Art

How do artists draw on memories and experiences to create art that reflects their identities? How does an artist’s connection to place spark inspiration? Through guided looking, sketching, and writing activities, students will consider how artists explore identity through their art.

Two women with pale skin look out at us from the other side of a rectangular window opening with a shadowy interior behind them in this vertical painting. On our right, in the lower third of the composition, one young woman leans toward us over her left arm, which rests along the window ledge. She bends her right arm and props her chin on her fist. She looks at us with dark brown eyes under dark brows. She has shiny chestnut-brown hair with a strawberry-red bow on the right side of her head, to our left. She has a straight nose, and her full pink lips curve up in a smile. She wears a gossamer-white dress with a wide neckline trimmed in dark gray, with another red bow on the front of her chest. Her voluminous sleeves are pushed back to her elbows. To our left, a second woman peeks around a partially opened shutter. She is slightly older, and she stands next to the first woman with her body facing us. She tilts her head and also gazes at us with dark eyes under dark brown brows. She has dark brown hair covered by an oyster-white shawl. She holds the shawl up with her right hand to cover the bottom half of her face. Her mouth is hidden but her eyes crinkle as if in a smile. Her left arm bends at the elbow as she grasps the open shutter. She also wears a white shirt pushed back to her elbows, and a rose-pink skirt. The frame of the window runs parallel to the sides and bottom of the canvas. The room behind them is black in shadow.

Educational Resource:  Spanish Art

During this two-building field trip, students explore and compare and contrast the style, subject matter, and technique of artists ranging from El Greco to Picasso.

Four people with black skin are squeezed into a narrow boat on bright, turquoise-colored water that nearly fills this stylized, square painting. All four sides of the unstretched canvas are lined with six gromets spaced along each edge. The boat approaches a carnival-like tunnel near the upper right corner. Cartoon ghosts loom at the tunnel entrance and a translucent, veil-like ghost hovers over the left half of the painting. The horizon comes almost to the top of the canvas, where white clouds float against an azure-blue sky. A long, lemon-yellow line curls back and forth in a tight, curving zigzag pattern that widens out from a tiny sun setting on the horizon. A red cross on a white field floats near the upper left. At the top center, the word “WOW” appears in white letters within a crimson-red, bursting speech bubble with long trailing tendrils, like an exploded firework. Below the boat and against the water to our right, the word “FUN” has been overlaid with a white square so the tall, white letters are barely visible. The words “GREAT AMERICA” appear in a curling banner across the bottom half of the painting.

Educational Resource:  Breaking the Rules

What is modern about modern art? Students investigate how artists "break the rules" when they depart from realistic representation, use innovative techniques, and engage the viewer as a partner in creating meaning-making.