The Renaissance Unchained, BBC 4, 9pm, 15 Feb.

[Stanley Stewart]

Fascinated by Waldemar Januszczak's (WJ) two-page spread in Sunday's (7Feb) ST Culture magazine, headed Unearthly delights - 'Move over, Leonardo - the hardcore art of Hieronymus Bosch is what the Renaissance was really about' and the mounting of an exhibition, 20 paintings of Hieronymus Bosch - Visions of Genius, Noordbrabants Museum,
's-Hertogenbosch, Holland, from 13 Feb-8 May 2016.

Fortuitously, this will also be accompanied by a 4 part series,
The Renaissance Unchained, 60 mins each. presented by JW; Part I, BBC 4, 9pm, Mon, 15 Feb, as scheduled in the Radio Times. In turn, this also refers to a feature item, page 29, headed with the programme title, and WEDNESDAY,(sic) 9pm, BBC4! Oh dear, oh dear! I'll stick with the Monday schedule as the Wed programming features the Bermuda Triangle. I'll leave it to the editorial staff to apportion a victim for this blunder as I was more amused by the arguments with 'the BBC promotion people' because they didn't want to put images of nudity out before the watershed. A 15th-century manuscript...! Mumbled expletives here.

The gist of the opener is WJ's assertion that we've had it wrong for centuries, thanks to a 'Michelangelo groupie' who wrote "the most influential art book ever written". Vasari's, Lives of the Artists, ignored the bubbling cauldron of Northern creativity that gave us Van Eyck and his ilk, when it was the Flemish artists who re-energised art in the 1400s.

Surprisingly, - perhaps Tony Hall's plans for coverage of the arts is beginning to bear fruit - the documentary feature will be followed at 10pm with Botticelli's Venus: The Making of an Icon, (30 mins), presented by Sam Roddick.

I predict a lively discussion in the press over the next four weeks.

The Renaissance Unchained will also be repeated at 02.50am, Tues, 16 Feb, BBC4.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh dear. In the past I haven't been able to handle Waldemar J's television persona. At all....

[vinteuil]

Oh dear. In the past I haven't been able to handle Waldemar J's television persona. At all....

... O I have rather liked the programmes of his that I have seen so far. And I'm certainly looking forward to this series.

Of course he's no Jonathan Meades,,,,

[Nevilevelis]

No problem with Waldemar, at all. Looking forward to it.

[johncorrigan]

Oh dear. In the past I haven't been able to handle Waldemar J's television persona. At all....

Me neither, Cal; and Mrs C won't have him on in the any room she is in.

[doversoul1]

I’m afraid I am not at all familiar with Waldemar Januszczak but I am very much looking forward to this week’s Saturday Classics presented by Januszczak.

Ahead of his BBC4 series Renaissance Unchained, art critic Waldemar Januszczak conjures up the sound world of this epoch of huge passions and powerful religious emotions across all of Europe. The term 'Renaissance', or 'rinascita', was coined by Giorgio Vasari in 16th-century Florence, and his assertion that it had fixed origins in Italy has since influenced all of art history. But what of Flanders, Germany and the rest of Northern Europe? Waldemar presents music from the time of the Renaissance greats: Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo and El Greco.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0702y8k

[jean]

These programmes on the visual arts always short-change the music - in extreme cases, they're even accompanied by music of the wrong period altogether.

So congratulations to whoever had the idea of giving WJ a whole two-hour slot just to concentrate on the music! He's doing very well I think.

(I had never realised that Josquin came under the influence of Savonarola. Now I'll hear that wonderful Miserere with new ears.)

[jean]

Here's Waldemar again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070cnxv

Interesting points about what Renaissance should mean - what's actually being reborn?

[gurnemanz]

I can see why not everyone takes to his style but I have always found Waldemar Januszczak to be good value. I liked his Channel 4 series on Van Gogh a few years ago. He is not obviously a finely-tuned athlete and I can remember being amused by him re-enacting the daily walk from Brixton to Covent Garden which Vincent used to undertake when he was in London as an art salesman.

[eighthobstruction]

....Looking forward to this prog'....I now enjoy watching WJ scuttling around like a badger/ mole; unearthing things....(straight out of the Wind in the Willows)....

[Serial_Apologist]

Here's Waldemar again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070cnxv

Interesting points about what Renaissance should mean - what's actually being reborn?

Trust in logic at the expense of superstition, was what I've assumed, jean.

[Richard Tarleton]

....Looking forward to this prog'....I now enjoy watching WJ scuttling around like a badger/ mole; unearthing things....(straight out of the Wind in the Willows)....

He has been known to refer amusingly to his physique - something to do with a long line of Polish woodcutters, I forget the exact words. I love his biog on his website - see para 2 of Career. I had a similar experience - I took Midnight's Children along as holiday reading in 1982 shortly after it won the Booker, only to discover after a few pages it was unreadable. Puerto Pollensa's (it was a birding holiday) only bookshop yielded a Spanish translation of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Juan Salvador Gaviota) which was much better. I once saw Waldemar bumbling along in North London clutching his copy of the Sunday Times.

[jean]

Trust in logic at the expense of superstition, was what I've assumed, jean.

Interesting - but it doesn't really work for everything we use the term for, does it? The Mass settings of Palestrina, for example.

Neither does it work fro the visual arts, though it's easier to see how the 'rebirth' of Greek and Roman structure and ornament found expression in architecture.

It works best when used of the rediscovery of Classical texts, especially Greek ones.

The problem is that if you think of the Renaissance as an advance on what went before, you can easily find yourself thinking of Northern Europe, where Gothic forms persisted for longer, as somehow more primitive. This makes Waldemar FURIOUS. (He really has it in for Vasari).

But do listen to the programme, either later this evening or on iPlayer. He sounds almost like an ordinary human being, and you can't see his rings.

[Serial_Apologist]

Interesting - but it doesn't really work for everything we use the term for, does it? The Mass settings of Palestrina, for example.

Neither does it work fro the visual arts, though it's easier to see how the 'rebirth' of Greek and Roman structure and ornament found expression in architecture.

It works best when used of the rediscovery of Classical texts, especially Greek ones.

The problem is that if you think of the Renaissance as an advance on what went before, you can easily find yourself thinking of Northern Europe, where Gothic forms persisted for longer, as somehow more primitive. This makes Waldemar FURIOUS. (He really has it in for Vasari).

But do listen to the programme, either later this evening or on iPlayer. He sounds almost like an ordinary human being, and you can't see his rings.

You mean you can't date him?

God retained his special dispensation during the various Renaissances, it seems. His bad press has been quite recent.

[Keraulophone]

Tonight the scuttling badger was a most diverting caricature of himself. What will he pack in his battered suitcase next time, I wonder?