I've been watching 'The power of art' by Simon Schama again.

It's not like his history of Britain documentaries it's more polished I think, the music and visuals are very good and most art programs are just some guy walking round an art gallery talking but this has more to it.

It's a bit different It goes through the artists life and mainly focusses on one piece and the events leading up to the creation but has others to. You get a sense of the time and the place and what's going on in the artists head too. A good example of the sense of history is in the David (pronounced Daveed) episode because he was linked closely to the french revolution and Robespierre.

There's actors playing the artists but they're used more in the background, in the Van Gogh one Andy Serkis (famous for playing Golum in LOTR) plays Van Gogh but I think it's probably the worst of the lot and Van Gogh's one of my favourite artists, mainly because of over reliance on the actor.

The Caravaggio one is awesome mainly because Caravaggio is a gangster nutter, I'd never really heard of Bernini before but he's an awesome sculpture, what he does with marble is insane, Michaelangelo is an amateur compared to him. I never really liked Rothko before but after watching this I do now.

Here's the BBC page for it BBC - Arts - Simon Schama's Power of Art
You can buy the DVD or there maybe other ways of getting it *wink wink nudge nudge