Simon Schama recounts moments of drama in the making of great works of art. How Britain's greatest painter, JMW Turner, created one his most powerful paintings, The Slave Ship.

Simon Schama investigates what drove Van Gogh to paint Wheat Field with Crows.

Simon Schama on the making of eight great works of art. The story of Picasso's Guernica, from the bombing massacre that inspired it, to Picasso's artistic response. Show more

Mark Rothko believed that tradition was all used up, that figurative art could no longer connect us, viscerally, to the human tragedy. So he set himself - and New York - a test. Show more

Why did one of the world's greatest artists cut up his own masterpiece? Simon Schama tells the story of Rembrandt van Rijn's rise and fall in glittering 17th-century Amsterdam. Show more

Simon Schama recounts the story of eight moments of high drama in the making of eight masterpieces. How Caravaggio changed the way artists portrayed religious icons.

Simon Schama wonders how Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Ecstasy of St Thereza, which depicts a nun in the state of orgasmic bliss, was ever allowed to get past the censors. Show more

Simon Schama recounts the story of eight moments of drama in the making of eight great works of art. He looks at Jacques Louis David's revolutionary painting Death of Marat.