BBC - The High Art of the Low Countries (2013) Part 3 Daydream and Nightmares

The High Art of the Low Countries

Series in which Andrew Graham-Dixon tours the Low Countries, exploring how history has influenced the area's art, architecture and culture. A history of the ground-breaking works that emanated from The Netherlands and Belgium. Van Eyck, Vermeer, Rubens, Franz Hals, Rembrandt, Hieronymus Bosch, Van Gogh, Mondrian and Magritte; it's a shifting culture of early adopters, new technology, piety cut through with hellish visions, portraits of friendship and madness and new ways of seeing.

Part 3: Daydreams and Nightmares

Following a brief period of decline, the entrepreneurial and industrious region of the Low Countries rose again to become a cultural leader in the modern age. Despite its small and almost insignificant size it produced important forward-thinking artists like Van Gogh, Mondrian, Magritte and Delvaux, who changed the face of art forever. Andrew's journey takes him to a remote beach in north west Holland that inspired Mondrian's transition to his now-renowned abstract grid paintings. Andrew digs deep into the psychology and social history of the region, exploring how the landscape of the past has informed the culture and identity of the Low Countries today and the impossibility of the Dutch drive to turn the philosophy of Mondrian's geometric order into a way of living.

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