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 Show less