Dropping in on Renaissance Artists

This new program in writer Pam Stephens and animator Jim McNeill's nicely-produced, fact-filled Dropping in on… art appreciation series follows Puffer the penguin as he visits Florence, Italy to learn about Renaissance art. Using the framing device of Puffer meeting with an art student friend named Polly, who consults an informative book to answer his exhaustive questions, Dropping in on Renaissance Artists kicks off with a detailed look at Renaissance art's roots in ancient Greek and Roman art, architecture, and writing. Noting the combination of old ideas with new realism techniques, the program focuses on the lives and art of Leonardo di Vinci (mentioning his habit of following and drawing people on the street, while also taking a look at his Mona Lisa and Five Grotesque Heads), Michelangelo (who studied as a stonecutter and had a patron in Lorenzo the Magnificent; his profiled works include the famed ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the statue The Pietà), and Raphael (a super-popular expert on perspective who incorporated the other two artists in his famous painting The School of Athens). Highly recommended. Aud: E, I, P. (J. Williams-Wood)