Suggestions for European archeology, history & art documentaries?

If your public library subscribes to Kanopy, you may find quite a few good options there from The Great Courses. If Kanopy no longer has them, the company streams at least some of its courses through Wondrium (whatever that is).

I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Beard’s series of programmes about Ancient Rome. Many of them are on You Tube. She is a classics professor at Cambridge and is a wonderful personality, elderly and slightly dotty, she will think nothing of kneeling on a sidewalk to read the inscription on a repurposed stone set into the bottom of a wall. Wonderful shows and an interesting speaker.

I have learned a lot from the British Institute in Florence's zoom history of art classes (these cost money) and its free Wednesday lectures (also available on youtube). Also, for art history, Elaine Ruffolo's free Sunday zoom lectures (which you can see recordings of for a couple days afterward) and Rocky Ruggiero's free Tuesday zoom lectures and also his own classes and his guest speakers' classes ($$).

You say you have seen all the RS videos.Does that include this terrific series? https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/art. Just checking, it’s very good.

• "The Ornament of the World" on PBS/Amazon. The mixing of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in medieval Spain
• The "Secret Cities" Series with Alastair Sooke on Amazon. Two historians/art historians visiting different cities. Really fantastic. Anything else you can find with Alastair is also going to be brilliant.
• "Full Steam Ahead" series -- YouTube, maybe elsewhere? Ruth Goodman and her two sidekicks are so fun and informative. This is about the dawn of the railroad in Great Britain. "Bigger than the Internet," Ruth says!
• "Lucy Worsley Investigates" on Amazon. Another British-focused series by another great presenter.
• Probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy
• Agree anything with Mary Beard and Ancient Rome is worth watching
• NOVA did a couple episodes last year that were very interesting and travel related -- one on Venice; one on Notre Dame. Again, through PBS/Amazon
• An oldie but goodie, 1990s "Paris is Burning" still stands up to a rewatch if you are interested in other sides to Paris (queer, counterculture)
• Finally, a bit of a cheat because it is a docudrama not documentary, but this year's Tetris on Apple TV offers a great look at the Soviet Union teetering on the brink in 1988. Plus a lot of fun to watch

Happy viewing!

So many hours of fun viewing ahead, thank you all SO much! It's given me a long list & I will check up on library resources as well. Weirdly, we had not seen RS's series on art, how did we miss it?!

I forgot one on Roman civilization, lots of information on specific Roman sites & museums. “Ancient Rome Live”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XLChHJ6lSw

Indeed, Happy viewing!

Hi Sandancisco -

I note that much of Michael Wood’s ‘In Search of the Dark Ages’ is now available on You Tube, but anything by him is really good, be it Troy, China, India, Dark Ages England (programmes on Beowulf, or a more factual one on the remarkable Aethelflaed, Lady of the Saxons, to name but two). He covers the sort of obscure but really interesting history they don’t seem to teach you in school.

Ian

Thanks again. Given how little I was taught about European art & history (how sad is that?), all of these ideas are even more value-added!

The Peabody Museum at Harvard posts a lot of its public lectures online, like this:

https://peabody.harvard.edu/video-type/archaeology

and many other schools do similarly.

https://www.youtube.com/@ArchaeologyTV
https://www.youtube.com/@gettyresearch
https://www.youtube.com/@britishmuseum
https://www.youtube.com/@FlintInstituteofArts

That's just scratching the surface, of course.

If your interest is truly serious, a la college freshman over-view type course, look at the offerings from the Great Courses company. Full course lecture series from selected professors. A number of relevant topics. Several platforms. My library has some courses available on DVD (and CD).

I like Sister Wendy's art talks, they're a bit dated but she's just so adorkable! They're on YouTube and also likely at your local library. I also recommend the documentary "Rape of Europa" about the Nazi's stealing (and destroying) art during WWII. The related book, Monuments Men by Robert Edsel, is also fantastic read (I don't recommend the Clooney movie version though, it wasn't good). Occasionally the New York Times has a "close read" column that takes a deep dive into an artwork, including some European art. Here's a sample of one done on a Dürer painting (I hope...it should be gifted and not behind paywall).

Hi, thanks for all these great ideas! @avirosemail - Just subscribed to a few of the Youtube channels, that will keep me going for quite awhile... I had only subscribed to the British Museum channel in the past. @ORDtraveler - I hadn’t thought of Great Courses, we have a wonderful library so I’m looking there first, thanks! @CL SO right about those NYT articles! I had forgotten about them, here’s another I really liked, let me know if you can't open it.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/08/arts/design/dutch-still-life.html

I wanted to add a YouTube docuementary channel on Greek & ancient Roman history I've found since starting this thread. BY FAR the most interesting & slightly 'out there' documentary is 'Briefed', which is far from brief. I learned so much, & the historical depictions are accurate as far as I could tell, & he's a great storyteller. All this in spite of being slightly long winded, sometimes using bad language & references I didn't understand to either young film stars or cartoon characters. But I'm still recommending it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V21Tag5K9Hs

I second the Kanopy recommendation.