We have a new favorite tv show in the MO household: The Private Life of a Masterpiece on Ovation. It's an hour-long show that focuses on one particular famous piece of art. The episodes are well-done and inevitably contain nifty little bits of trivia. Several of them have gone into forensic detail with x-rays and other analysis of these works, trying to determine original sizes, intentions, etc. The program about Degas' The Little Dancer was particularly interesting.
Of course, you have to suffer through some capital-a-art critics in the process, but part of the fun is yelling at them to just get over their bad selves already. Roger Kimball1 is a suggested antidote to these folks ;-)
1All credit to the MO for exposure to Mr. Kimball....
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