Originally broadcast on television in 2006.

Contains 8 episodes from the television series.

"Due to contractual restrictions, certain edits have been made to the originally transmitted programs."

Special features: audio commentaries with Simon Schama, Clare Beavan, David Belton & Andy Serkis ; interview with Simon Schama (disc 3).

Photography, Gary Clarke ... [et al.] ; editor, Gary Dollner ... [et al.] ; music, Peter Salem ... [et al.]

Presentor, Simon Schama.

Paul Popplewell as Caravaggio, Andrea Gherpelli as Bernini, Aubrey Wakeling as David, Mark Hyde as Turner, Andy Serkis as Van Gogh, Pep Cortes as Picasso, Alan Corduner as Rothko.

Focusing on eight iconic works of art, this series reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages. A combination of reconstruction, photography and storytelling transport the viewer back to the intense moments when great works were conceived and born: the murderous, messianic world of Baroque Rome; opulent, parvenu Amsterdam; paranoid, revolutionary Paris; Victorian England suffocating beneath riches and righteousness; the madhouses and brothels of Provence; the carnage of civil war Spain; 1950s New York, caught between Cold War jitters and Manhattan glitter. In each place, a great artist is backed into a corner, facing a crisis, given a chance to confound his rivals, enemies and critics one more time.

"Major funding for the PBS broadcast of this series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; Dorothy and Lewis Cullman; the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation; Judith B. Resnick; Rosalind P. Walter; Ralph W. Voorhees, in memory of Barbara B. Voorhees; the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, and PBS."

DVD, region 1, widescreen (16:9, enhanced) presentation; Dolby Digital stereo., DVD9, NTSC.

English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired.