Moving Pictures

Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes us to Paris in the 1880s and a popular music hall, the Folies-Berg耀re. A barmaid stares out of the painting, surrounded by bottles of beer and champagne. Behind her, a fashionable crowd gossip and flirt.

It's easy to think we know her, given how often she pops up on biscuit tins, mouse-mats and mugs. But take a closer look.

Cathy FitzGerald and her guests discover the secrets and delights of ɀdouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Berg耀re, now held in the collection of The Courtauld, London.

To see the super high-resolution image of the work made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore the high-resolution image of A Bar at the Folies-Berg耀re.

Interviewees: Karen Serres, Barnaby Wright, Leah Kharibian, Colin Jones and Emily Beeny.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art History Consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Picture credit: ɀdouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Berg耀re, 1882, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Courtauld

Each thirty-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

The new series starts with a closer look at a pointillist masterpiece - George Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (The Art Institute of Chicago). Painted in the 1880s, it depicts a group of day-tripping Parisians enjoying the sunshine by the river Seine. Each is a character in search of a story - the boater smoking his pipe, the shop-girl with her novels, the elderly invalid, shivering despite the sun, and the soldiers, standing to attention.

Cathy takes a wander in the park and hears how Seurat created his shimmering, glimmering, light-filled work.

Interviewees: Gloria Groom, Leah Kharibian, Colin Jones, Colin Wiggins.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Georges-Pierre Seurat. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884-86). The Art Institute of Chicago.

Take a walk in Georges Seurat's shimmering, glimmering Parisian park.

This episode explores Ambulance Call by the great American artist, Jacob Lawrence. We're on the sidewalk in Harlem, New York, in the 1940s. A crowd gathers as a patient is stretchered away. But not just a crowd - a community... captured in all its tender humanity by one of its own. Lawrence notices the everyday moments that are so often overlooked and gives them back to us in bold, brilliant style.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Ambulance Call.

Interviewees: Austen Barron Bailly, Jen Padgett, Turry Flucker, Leslie King-Hammond and Brittany Webb.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Picture credit: Jacob Lawrence, Ambulance Call, detail, 1948, tempera on board. © The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2023. Image courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.

A long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in extraordinary detail.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer. This episode – Ambulance Call by Jacob Lawrence.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork – and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode explores Ambulance Call by the great American artist, Jacob Lawrence. We're on the sidewalk in Harlem, New York, in the 1940s. A crowd gathers as a patient is stretchered away. But not just a crowd - a community... captured in all its tender humanity by one of its own. Lawrence notices the everyday moments that are so often overlooked and gives them back to us in bold, brilliant style.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Ambulance Call.

Interviewees: Austen Barron Bailly, Jen Padgett, Turry Flucker, Leslie King-Hammond and Brittany Webb.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Picture credit: Jacob Lawrence, Ambulance Call, detail, 1948, tempera on board. © The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2023. Image courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.

A long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in extraordinary detail.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer. This episode – Ambulance Call by Jacob Lawrence.

Each thirty minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes a closer look at a fresco by Francesco del Cossa that adorns the wall in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. The fresco takes us from the realm of the gods - a garden of love presided over by Venus - to the city far below, where the region's ruler, Borso d'Este, shows off both his magnanimity and his elegant pins. We meet the court jester, go to the races, and discover why Renaissance princes liked to shimmer.

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore April.

Interviewees: Carol Plazzotta, Ita Mac Carthy, Timothy McCall, Kristen Lippincott and Giorgia Mancini.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Engineer: Mike Woolley

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: (c) Musei di Arte Antica di Ferrara

Each thirty-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes us to a Greek island at sunrise, where Ariadne has been abandoned on the shore. But then the god, Bacchus, appears and everything changes.

Titian captures their exchange of glances in his extraordinary painting, now viewed as one of the greatest depictions of love at first sight in art-history. Take a closer look at this intensely sensual and intimate masterpiece, with its invitation to us, as viewers, to join the bacchanal.

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore Bacchus and Ariadne.

Interviewees: Matthias Wivel, Carol Plazzotta, Leah Kharibian, Anne-Marie Eze.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Exec producer: Sarah Cuddon

Engineer: Mike Woolley

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

NG35: Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520-3, (c) The National Gallery, London.

Each thirty-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes - or in this case, the pull and pucker of every stitch.

In the last programme of the series, we pay a visit to Japan's floating world. The collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum contains a very unusual uchikake, or outer kimono, which features embroidered scenes from a kabuki play. The design includes stunning golden shishi (mythical lions), vibrant peonies and characterful figures with glass eyes and actual hair, taken from an animal.

But the robe is something of a mystery. Was it made for an actor? Or a courtesan, perhaps? Either way, it belongs to the floating world - a fantasy land of ritualised pleasure and entertainment which had a much darker, seedier side.

Interviewees: Anna Jackson, Andrew Gerstle, Paul Griffith and Lesley Downer.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Kimono (c) The Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Did a Japanese courtesan wear this robe? Cathy FitzGerald visits the floating world.

Each 30-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

Botticelli's 'Mystic Nativity' is a Christmas card favourite... which is strange, because it's a painting about the end of the world. In the 1490s, Florence was in the grip of the puritanical preacher Girolamo Savonarola, who called on its citizens to throw their 'decadent' belongings on the Bonfire of the Vanities. Botticelli may well have seen his own paintings burn. Yet this cryptic Renaissance masterpiece contains clues that suggest the artist found hope in the friar's apocalyptic visions. A closer look at one of the most beautiful and deeply mysterious paintings in the National Gallery's collection.

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore 'Mystic Nativity'.

Interviewees: Jennifer Sliwka, Caroline Campbell, Leslie Primo and Jonathan Nelson.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Engineer: Mike Woolley

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: NG1034: Sandro Botticelli, Mystic Nativity, about 1445-1510 (detail). © The National Gallery, London.

This episode takes us to Van Gogh's studio in Arles. It's a cold day and the artist's only just out of hospital, but he takes up his brushes and begins to paint. The result is one of the most famous self-portraits ever made. Get up close to the brushstrokes and hear what makes it so audacious - and so moving.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.

Interviewees: Karen Serres, Barnaby Wright, Nienke Bakker, Gloria Groom.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) ©? The Courtauld.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork – and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes us to Van Gogh's studio in Arles. It's a cold day and the artist's only just out of hospital, but he takes up his brushes and begins to paint. The result is one of the most famous self-portraits ever made. Get up close to the brushstrokes and hear what makes it so audacious – and so moving.

Picture credit: Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) ©︀? The Courtauld.

A long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in extraordinary detail.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer. This episode - Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent Van Gogh.

Each thirty-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

Episode two takes us to the ruins of a building on a cold, clear winter's day. That's the setting for Jan Gossaert's Flemish masterpiece The Adoration of the Kings from the collection of The National Gallery, London. The picture shows the three kings giving their gifts - Caspar kneels on the ground, Melchior stands behind him with his retinue and Balthazar is on the left. Above, the sky is full of angels, with fluttering, sunset-coloured wings and, in the far, far background, there are joyful shepherds and their sheep.

Get up close to this jewel-bright masterpiece and see how Gossaert recreates the king's sumptuous costumes and crowns in oil paint. Discover the mysterious character, so cleverly concealed by the artist, he was over-looked for years - the hidden angel.

Interviewees: Susan Foister, Paula Nuttall, Lorne Campbell and Leslie Primo.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Jan Gossaert, The Adoration of the Kings (c) The National Gallery, London. Bought with a special grant and contributions from the Art Fund, Lord Glenconner, Lord Iveagh and Alfred de Rothschild, 1911

Can you find the hidden angel in Gossaert's masterpiece? With Cathy FitzGerald.

Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes a closer look at a masterpiece in the collection of The Toledo Museum of Art. In The Campo Santo, Venice, JMW Turner gives us a warm day on the Venetian lagoon, where fishing boats bob and the city shimmers in the sun's glare. It's beautiful - somehow lit from within - and full of rewarding details, from a mysterious gondola passenger to Turner's ridiculously audacious, playful use of paint.

To see the super high-resolution image of the work made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore the high-resolution image of The Campo Santo, Venice.

Interviewees: Ian Warrell, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, Franny Moyle, Christine Riding and Larry Nichols.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix Engineer: Mike Woolley

Art History Consultants: Leah Kharibian and Robert Schindler

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Picture credit: J.M.W. Turner, The Campo Santo, Venice detail, 1842, Toledo Museum of Art, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1926.63

Each thirty-minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

This episode takes a closer look at the 'Detroit Industry Murals' by the Mexican artist, Diego Rivera. The masterpiece covers four walls in the Detroit Institute of Arts and gives viewers a glimpse into Ford's massive industrial complex in Detroit, known as The Rouge. How did Rivera - communist activist - come to create an artwork for the Fords - one of the wealthiest families in the world?

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore Detroit Industry.

Interviewees: Benjamin Colman, Tyler Taylor, Mark Castro, Barbara Haskell

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art consultant: Leah Kharibian

Exec producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

With thanks to Renato Gonzကlez

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Diego M. Rivera, Detroit Industry Murals North Wall (detail), 1932-1933, frescoes. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Edsel B. Ford, 33.10.

Each 30 minute episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

We start this series with a masterpiece by Peter Paul Rubens, from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. Two metres high by nearly three metres wide, The Feast of Herod is painting on a grand-scale - its figures are almost life-size. The picture depicts an opulent banquet to mark the birthday of the ruler, Herod. His guests are adorned in sumptuous clothes and jewels; servants carry in elaborate dishes.

But beneath the surface of this fancy family dinner, something has gone terrifyingly wrong.

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore The Feast of Herod.

Interviewees: Tico Seifert, Ben Quash, Leah Kharibian, Betsy Wieseman and Michael Ohajuru.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Engineer: Mike Woolley

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: Sir Peter Paul Rubens; The Feast of Herod; (c) National Galleries of Scotland

Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

In this episode, we explore The Flagellation of Christ, now held in the collection of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples.

Out of the darkness - Christ tied to a black marble column, surrounded by three men, who prepare to whip him. It's a violent, intense, yet deeply intimate scene, carefully choreographed by the great artist, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, to stop us looking away.

To see the super high-resolution image of the work made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore the high-resolution image of The Flagellation of Christ.

Interviewees: Caroline Paganussi, Sylvain Bellenger, Ben Quash, Jennifer Sliwka and Letizia Treves.

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix Engineer: Mike Woolley

Art History Consultant: Leah Kharibian

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Picture credit: Caravaggio, Flagellation of Christ,1607. © Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples. On long-term loan from the Church of San Domenico Maggiore, property of the Fund for Ecclesiastical Buildings, 1972.

This episode takes a closer look at one of the treasures of the British Library collection, the Sherborne Missal. It's a titan of a manuscript, weighing as much as the average five-year-old child and containing more paintings than many art galleries, including numerous tiny portraits of the patrons who commissioned it and the monks who laboured over its decoration.

To see the high-resolution image, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures and follow the link to explore the Sherborne Missal.

Interviewees: Kathleen Doyle, Eleanor Jackson, Alixe Bovey, Paul Binski, Patricia Lovett

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Art consultant: Leah Kharibian

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: a decorated initial ‘R' containing a scene of the Resurrection of Christ, with a pheasant and the appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene in the border. Detail from the page for Easter Sunday in the Sherborne Missal, British Library, Add. MS 74236, p. 216 © The British Library Board.

We're out on the ice this episode - a frozen river in the Dutch Republic in the early 17th century. Avercamp gives us a people-watching delight, filling his scene with tiny figures, each with a story of their own. Sledding, shopping, a quick round of colf: it's an encyclopaedia of Dutch winter fun.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Winter Scene on a Canal.

Interviewees: Pieter Roelofs, Bianca du Mortier, Betsy Wieseman, Jonathan Bikker, Rosamund Oates and Leah Kharibian.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Sensitivity consultant: Jessamy Carlson

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: Hendrik Avercamp (Dutch, 1585-1634), Winter Scene on a Canal, Detail, about 1615, Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio), Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1951.402

A long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in extraordinary detail.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer. This episode – Winter Scene on a Canal by Hendrik Avercamp.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork – and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

We're out on the ice this episode - a frozen river in the Dutch Republic in the early 17th century. Avercamp gives us a people-watching delight, filling his scene with tiny figures, each with a story of their own. Sledding, shopping, a quick round of colf: it's an encyclopaedia of Dutch winter fun.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Winter Scene on a Canal.

Interviewees: Pieter Roelofs, Bianca du Mortier, Betsy Wieseman, Jonathan Bikker, Rosamund Oates and Leah Kharibian.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon

Mix engineer: Mike Woolley

Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian

Sensitivity consultant: Jessamy Carlson

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: Hendrik Avercamp (Dutch, 1585-1634), Winter Scene on a Canal, Detail, about 1615, Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio), Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1951.402

A long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in extraordinary detail.

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer. This episode – Winter Scene on a Canal by Hendrik Avercamp.

What's hiding in the undergrowth of Rachel Ruysch's bold and beautiful flower painting? Follow the link to explore the picture and you'll be able to zoom in and see the tiniest details as you listen. This is a world where buds hiss like snakes, poppies twirl and tiny insects devour - a vibrant, fecund jungle, full of uncanny life.

Cathy FitzGerald hears how this great Dutch artist was influenced by her unusual childhood as the daughter of Frederik Ruysch, maker of one of the world's great curiosity cabinets. Frederik Ruysch's weird tableaux - created from human skeletons and embalmed bodies, insects and plants - were hugely popular in 17th century Amsterdam and his young daughter Rachel was almost certainly involved in their creation. Is this what brings a touch of strangeness to her brilliantly observed vases and bouquets?

Cathy talks to art-experts, garden historians and artists and asks why this brilliant painter - one of the most sought-after of her age - is so little known today.

Image: Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an urn on a Stone Ledge by Rachel Ruysch, c.1680s, from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Photograph by Google Arts and Culture.

Presenter and Producer: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

What is hiding in the undergrowth of Rachel Ruysch's brilliant, beautiful flower painting?

What would it be like to walk the streets of 17th century Kyoto? In this week's episode, Cathy FitzGerald explores a sumptuous pair of Japanese screens that depict the historic city in incredible detail. Follow the link to zoom in and examine the artwork as you listen.

Temples, shrines, castles, shops and homes - the image is crammed with tiny scenes. A man in a barber's shop examines his new hair cut in a mirror. People peer down into the street to watch a parade pass. Weary pilgrims sit on a verandah, sharing fruit. Men and women of every age and every social class appear, more than 1,800 in all.

Cathy FitzGerald hears how these glittering screens - a genre known as 'rakuchû rakugai-zu' or 'scenes in and around Kyoto' - were made and what they tell us about everyday life in the 17th century Japanese city.

Presenter and Producer: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Image: Sights in and around Kyoto, Artist Unknown, Mid Genna era (1615-24). From the collection of the Shimane Museum, courtesy of the Bureau of Public Enterprise, Shimane Prefectural Government. Photograph by Google Arts and Culture.

Cathy FitzGerald takes a walk around 17th-century Kyoto.

In this first episode, immerse yourself in Pieter Bruegel the Elder's masterpiece The Harvesters, in the company of Cathy FitzGerald and experts from the artist's Flemish homeland. Follow the link to explore a high-resolution image of the painting and you'll be able to zoom in to see the tiniest details as you listen - even examine Bruegel's brushstrokes.

It's a hot, dry day in 16th century Flanders. Labourers grab a break from bringing in the harvest, they eat lunch and snooze under a tree. Behind them, the peaceful countryside is full of life. Scrumpers steal from an orchard, villagers enjoy harvest games on the green, monks escape the heat with a wild-swim.

Cathy FitzGerald takes a walk through the landscape and then hears how the masterpiece may have brightened up a wealthy Antwerp merchant's dinner parties.

Image: The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographed by Google Arts and Culture.

Presenter and producer: Cathy FitzGerald

Original music: Joe Acheson and Tomas Dvorak

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Scything, scrumping and swimming - experience harvest time with Bruegel.

The average length of time spent looking at a painting in a gallery is 28 seconds. On Moving Pictures, we like to take a little longer. Each thirty-minute episode is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to an extraordinary high-resolution image made by Google Arts and Culture. Zoom in and you can see more than the artist - the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

In the first programme of this series, stroll along the high-street of a market town in Regency England - as imagined in a one-of-a-kind patchwork hanging, held in the collection of the V&A Museum. This needlework masterpiece features tiny applique scenes of everyday life - children flying kites, chimney sweeps heading home from work, a fishwife off to market. Cathy asks if one of the little characters might be the maker herself.

Interviewees: Jenny Lister, Kerry Taylor, Deb McGuire, Linda Seward, Tracy Chevalier

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Ann West, Coverlet (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Acquired with the support of the Friends of the V&A.

Episode two takes us to the Brooklyn docks in New York on an icy day in 1912. That's the setting for George Bellows' Men of the Docks, an extraordinary masterpiece from the collection of The National Gallery, London. The picture shows longshoremen waiting for work in the steely shadow of a cargo ship. Get up close and see how Bellows creates his cold and misty world - working quickly and fearlessly and using brushes, knives, and even his fingers, to manipulate the paint.

Cathy FitzGerald hears why the artist wanted his masterpiece on display to greet the arrival in New York of the greatest ship in the world - The Titanic.

Interviewees: Chris Riopelle, Melissa Wolfe, Rob Snyder, James Heard

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

George Bellows, Men of the Docks (c) The National Gallery, London. Bought with a grant from the American Friends of the National Gallery, made possible by Sir Paul Getty's fund, and by a donation from Mark Getty KBE, 2014.

This third programme of the series explores the dark, demonic landscape of a 17th century Flemish masterpiece - The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Joos van Craesbeeck (Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe).

A giant screaming head dominates the painting. From its mouth pour tiny devils and the forehead has been peeled back to reveal a miniature artist working inside the brain.

Cathy FitzGerald takes a closer look at Craesbeeck's strange critters in the context of the early modern fascination with curiosity cabinets, monsters - and the devil.

Interviewees: Joseph Koerner, Lelia Packer, Stuart Clark, Wes Williams, Holger Jacob-Friesen

Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4

Joos van Craesbeeck, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c) Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.