The Secret Mona Lisa

May 6, 2012

★ 0.0

Overview

The Mona Lisa by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci is the most famous painting in the world. What is the secret behind the "real" Mona Lisa? It draws legions of visitors to the Louvre in Paris to contemplate her enigmatic expression. In this "detective story," historians tell us how Leonardo developed the painting and uncover the long-hidden identity of the smiling woman.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Prounen Film

Epo-Film

The Secret Mona Lisa Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Narrator

Cornelius Obonya

Narrator

Peter Faerber

Narrator

Matthias Euba

Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.

8.0

Phantasia

Mar 13, 2024

X-ray images were invented in 1895, the same year in which the Lumière brothers presented their respective invention in what today is considered to be the first cinema screening. Thus, both cinema and radiography fall within the scopic regime inaugurated by modernity. The use of X-rays on two sculptures from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum generates images that reveal certain elements of them that would otherwise be invisible to our eyes. These images, despite being generally created for technical or scientific purposes, seem to produce a certain form of 'photogénie': they lend the radiographed objects a new appearance that lies somewhere between the material and the ethereal, endowing them with a vaporous and spectral quality. It is not by chance that physics and phantasmagoria share the term 'spectrum' in their vocabulary.

0.0

Black Is the Color: African-American Artists and Segregation

Jul 7, 2016

Black Is the Color highlights key moments in the history of Black visual art, from Edmonds Lewis’s 1867 sculpture Forever Free, to the work of contemporary artists such as Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Ellen Gallagher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Art historians and gallery owners place the works in context, setting them against the larger social contexts of Jim Crow, WWI, the civil rights movement and the racism of the Reagan era, while contemporary artists discuss individual works by their forerunners and their ongoing influence.

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Be Still

Oct 6, 2021

Already a successful portrait photographer, Hannah sets to reinvent this art form. Abandoning herself to a creative process that might easily be mistaken for madness, she's soon visited by mirror images of herself, as well as her daughter's ghost. Inspired by the life of photographer Hannah Maynard (1834-1918).

6.9

Dark Star: H. R. Giger's World

Oct 23, 2014

An account of the life and work of Swiss painter, sculptor, architect and designer H. R. Giger (1940-2014), tormented father of creatures as fearsome as they are fascinating, inhabitants of nightmarish biomechanical worlds.

7.2

The Cinematograph: Birth of an Art

Oct 17, 2021

Throughout the 19th century, imaginative and visionary artists and inventors brought about the advent of a new look, absolutely modern and truly cinematographic, long before the revolutionary invention of the Lumière brothers and the arrival of December 28, 1895, the historic day on which the first cinema performance took place.

0.0

Ugly Beauty

Jan 9, 2010

Documentary in which art critic Waldemar Januszczak argues that beauty is still to be found in modern art, despite several recent books claiming the contrary.

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Die Brücke: The Birth of Modern Art in Germany

Jan 1, 1972

This movement marks the beginning of modern art in Germany. It is the German equivalent of French Fauvism, from which it draws its main inspiration, but it carries an Expressionist and social emphasis that is characteristic of Nordic 'angst.' The artists of Die Brucke were restless creatures, over-sensitive, haunted by religious, sexual, political or moral obsessions. Dramatic landscapes and nudes, mystical and visionary compositions, scenes of the countryside, the streets, the circus, the cafe-dansants and the demi-monde were their principal subjects. Their pure colours blaze in acid stridency, encompassed by rough, dry contours which show the influence of African art and primitive woodcuts. The work of the following is shown: Kirchner, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Otto Muller, Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein.

6.9

M. C. Escher: Journey to Infinity

Apr 12, 2018

A portrait of the visionary Dutch artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972), according to his own words, taken from his diary, his correspondence and the texts of his lectures.

6.5

Anamorphosis

Apr 9, 1993

The Quays' interest in esoteric illusions finds its perfect realization in this fascinating animated lecture on the art of anamorphosis. This artistic technique, often used in the 16th- and 17th centuries, utilizes a method of visual distortion with which paintings, when viewed from different angles, mischievously revealed hidden symbols.

7.6

Lee Miller: A Life on the Frontline

May 2, 2020

A documentary celebrating Lee Miller, a model-turned-photographer-turned-war reporter who defied anyone who tried to pin her down, put her on a pedestal, or pigeonhole her in any way.

7.5

Hidden Sex: Art and Shame

Jan 15, 2023

The representation of genitalia in the fine arts was censored for centuries: sexual organs were discreetly hidden among fig leaves, pearls or sheets; and it is still a taboo today. From Antiquity to the present day, the history of puritanism applied to art and the tricks used by artists to circumvent censorship.

0.0

Seven Images of Disappearance

Sep 1, 2023

Seven images, each staging their own disappearance.

5.5

Looking for Modern Art: Rethinking Art History

Nov 16, 2018

Many twentieth century European artists, such as Paul Gauguin or Pablo Picasso, were influenced by art brought to Europe from African and Asian colonies. How to frame these Modernist works today when the idea of the primitive in art is problematic?

7.2

Francisco de Goya: The Dream of Reason

Dec 1, 2019

French writer Jean-Claude Carrière traces the life and work of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).

7.5

Goya, Carrière & the Ghost of Buñuel

Sep 21, 2022

French writer Jean-Claude Carrière (1931-2021) traces the life and work of Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).

4.0

The Cultural History of Museums

May 3, 2022

From the cabinets of curiosities created in Italy during the 16th century to the prestigious cultural institutions of today, a history of museums that analyzes the social and political changes that have taken place over the centuries.

0.0

Palin on Redpath

Dec 15, 1997

Michael Palin travels to France in search of the Mediterranean view on his wall, captured by his favourite artist, Scottish painter Anne Redpath. He travels from a London bank, via a chateau in Cap Ferrat and a monastery in Edinburgh.

8.0

Klimt & The Kiss

Oct 30, 2023

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognised and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown embracing couple has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it? Delving into the details of real gold, decorative designs, symbolism and simmering erotica, a close study of the painting takes us to the remarkable turn of the century Vienna when a new world was battling with the old.

The Secret Mona Lisa

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

The Secret Mona Lisa Trailers