Main content

Michael Winterbottom, Painting Paradise, Spring with Fred D'Aguiar

John Wilson talks to Michael Winterbottom about The Face of an Angel. Emma Townshend visits garden art exhibition Painting Paradise. And Fred D'Aguiar chooses a poem of spring.

John Wilson talks to Michael Winterbottom about his new film The Face of An Angel, a fictionalised retelling of the trial of Amanda Knox after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.

Emma Townshend reviews Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, a new exhibition exploring how the garden has been portrayed and celebrated in art. Made up of works from the Royal Collection, it includes rare botanical studies by Leonardo Da Vinci and 16th century Persian miniatures, as well as paintings demonstrating how monarchs from Henry VIII to Queen Victoria designed their gardens.

This week the remains of Cervantes have been discovered. Art history sleuth Silvani Vicenti thinks he has identified the remains of the woman we know as the Mona Lisa. Next week the Archbishop of Canterbury will conduct the funeral of Richard III in Leicester Cathedral. In Front Row the sociologist Tiffany Jenkins will explain our fascination with bones of cultural and historic significance.

The Green Fuse, Front Row's series in which artists talk about their response to the spring, and choose a work which expresses spring for them, continues with the writer Fred D'Aguiar. He lives in the hills of Virginia and gets snowed in in the winter. Spring comes with a burst of energy he finds encapsulated by the first of Rilke's sonnets to Orpheus.

Presenter John Wilson
Producer Julian May.

Available now

30 minutes

Chapters

  • Michael Winterbottom

    Duration: 09:05

  • Painting Paradise

    Duration: 05:01

  • YA Book Prize

    Duration: 04:17

  • Cultural Bones

    Duration: 05:09

  • Spring with Fred D'Aguiar

    Duration: 04:09

Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden

is at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace until 11 October 2015.

Main Image: Marco Ricci, A View of the Cascade, Bushy Park Water Gardens, c.1715.ÌýRoyal Collection Trust / copyright Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Face of an Angel

The Face of an Angel

is in cinemas from Friday 27 March, certificate 15.


Richard III

Richard III

will be on Channel 4 on Thursday 26 March at 10am.


The Green Fuse - Fred D'Aguiar’s pick

The first of Rainer Maria Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Martyn Crucefix and published by Enitharmon Press.


There upped a tree. O absolute outstripping!

O Orpheus singing! O tall tree in the ear!

And all things hushed. Yet even under cover

came a new start, a sign, a transforming.

Ìý

From their stillness, creatures of lair and nest

pushing forward through the clear-lit forest

so quietly and this — not out of cunning,

not silenced by fear— but coming

Ìý

rather to listen. Bellow, shriek and roaring

shrank in their hearts. And where there stood

no more than a shed to receive them,

Ìý

a shelter in response to their darkest need

with its entrance, its door-frame shaken,

there you built them this Temple of Hearing.

Ìý

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter John Wilson
Interviewed Guest Michael Winterbottom
Interviewed Guest Emma Townshend
Interviewed Guest Tiffany Jenkins
Interviewed Guest Fred D'Aguiar
Producer Julian May

Broadcast

  • Thu 19 Mar 2015 19:16

±«Óãtv Arts Digital

The best of British culture live and on demand.

Inspire

Inspire

A season discovering where artists find inspiration and helping listeners get creative.

Podcast