Today's story is "Jack and the Beanstalk" (trad.)

with Peter Woods
Weather

Each week Europa looks at what the Continent's 400 million television viewers are seeing.
Introduced by Derek Hart

"My painting will last for five hundred years."
This was the boast of Germany's greatest artist, and the truth of his claim can be seen in tonight s film which marks the 500th anniversary of his birth.

Albrecht Durer was the son of a Nuremberg goldsmith. When he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece it cost as much as a house. Among his friends and patrons he counted Martin Luther, Erasmus and the Holy Roman Emperor. He was a master of portraiture and the first artist to become absorbed by his own image. He was the first German painter to draw inspiration from the Renaissance.

He painted watercolour landscapes centuries before this medium became an accepted art form. He was also the first man in northern Europe to attempt to formulate a scientific basis for the creation of beauty in art. He found himself standing at a crossroads in the cultural development of Europe and could not decide which way to turn. His work is the story of his life.

A BBC and Bavarian Television Service co-production

Translated and adapted by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin from the play "The Italian Straw Hat" by Eugene Labiche and Marc Michel
Starring Patrick Cargill as Fadinard
with guest stars Maxine Audley as the Baroness, Paul Whitsun-Jones as Nonancourt

(Colour)

with Joan Bakewell, Michael Dean, Tony Bilbow, Sheridan Morley