晚明时期，品类繁多的“物”在中国文化中扮演了过去所不曾享有的重要角色，关于物的分类、使用、品评，以及对它们所感到的不安或褒贬，成为晚明士人关注的话题。
牛津大学教授柯律格的名著《长物》，以明代文震亨《长物志》一书为例，从物品视角切入艺术史，同时也跨越学科界限，参照社会文化理论，讨论明代的“多余之物”——绘画、书法、青铜器、瓷器、玉雕以及其他明代士绅精英所拥有的文玩用品，考察它们如何被鉴赏、使用，如何成为被消费的商品，以怎样的方式流通、被接受，以及它们在明代社会生活中的意涵，是一部有关晚明文化消费的经典著作。

作者一向主张对古代中国的研究要跨出传统的专业局限，从史学、考古、美术史、古地理学、思想理论等方面进行跨学科的整合，而此书正是他本人所做的一次最彻底的试验。本书利用考古学、人类学、历史学和神话学的各种材料，对中国文明的起源和它早期的特征作了精辟的阐述，可以看作是作者一生研究古代中国的综合性成果。近三十年来，先后有英、中、日三种文字的译本在世界各地流传。

八集BBC年度巨献纪录片《艺术的力量》，将为您详细讲述卡拉瓦乔、贝尼尼、伦勃朗、雅克、透纳、梵高、毕加索以及罗斯科八位艺术家的生平，重现这八位艺术大师的创作历程。八位艺术大师拥有自成一派的创作风格和鲜明的个性，本片将全面剖析艺术大师们孕育和诞生艺术品时扣人心弦的故事。在主持人西蒙‧沙玛独特而富有个性化的叙事下，这将是一次饱览艺术大师们所创作的最伟大作品的饕餮盛宴。戏剧化的艺术重塑，壮阔华美的摄影画面，八位艺术界巨匠背后鲜为人知的故事被刻画得曲尽其妙，或扼腕叹息或拍手称快，这便是艺术的力量。
这部独特而极具震撼力的纪录片《艺术的力量》，荣获国际艾美奖最佳艺术节目、2007年第60届英国电影电视艺术学院奖最佳摄影纪实类等多项国际大奖。

本书作者高居翰是著名中国艺术史专家，美国加州伯克利大学荣休教授；黄晓、刘珊珊为北京清华大学建筑学院博士研究生。三人的“远程合作”造就了本书。
本书纪念的是一个业已逝去的世界。往昔的胜景不在，但幸由中国古代的那些伟大画家，借助他们的杰作，我们得以感受那些美好乐园的流风余韵。三位作者一起首次对中国绘画作为视学记录和美学再创造的功能做了探讨，该功能在书中的落实点——便是中国园林。

Gang of Four
Episode 1 of 4
Duration: 1 hour
Art writer Waldemar Januszczak explores the revolutionary achievements of the Impressionists. In the first episode, Waldemar delves into the back stories of four of the most influential Impressionists - Pissarro, Monet, Renoir and Bazille - who together laid the foundations of the artistic movement. He finds out what social and cultural influences drove them to their style of painting, how they were united and how ultimately they challenged and changed art forever.
Waldemar journeys from the shores of the West Indies, to the progressive city of Paris to the suburbs of South London, where these four artists drew inspiration from the cities and towns in which they lived. Whether it be the infamous spot on the river Seine - La Grenouillere - where Monet and Renoir beautifully captured animated people, iridescent light and undulating water or the minimalist, non-sensationalised illustrations of Pissarro's coarse countryside paintings, Waldemar discovers how the Impressionists broke conventions by depicting every day encounters within the unpredictable and ever changing sights around them.
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Painting outdoors
Episode 2 of 4
Duration: 1 hour
Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists by taking us outdoors to their most famous locations. Although Impressionist pictures often look sunny and relaxed, achieving this peaceful air was hard work. Trudging through fog, wind and rain, across treacherous coastal rocks and knee-deep snow, Waldemar shows how the famous spontaneity of the Impressionists is thoroughly misleading.
This episode visits the French riverside locations that Monet loved to paint, and where Renoir captured the bonhomie of modern life. Waldemar also introduces a number of technical and practical developments of the age which completely revolutionised Impressionist painting - the invention of portable easels; the use of hog's hair in paint brushes; as well as the introduction of the railway through France. And a scientific demonstration in a Swedish snowdrift explains just how right the Impressionists were to paint brightly coloured shadows in their winter scenes, despite being accused of 'hallucinating' at the time.
Finally, Januszczak explains Cezanne's part in the Impressionist story from his dark and challenging early work to his first rural landscapes in France, and then his departure from Paris and separation from the Impressionist gang.
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Painting the People
Episode 3 of 4
Duration: 1 hour
Waldemar Januszczak continues his investigation of the Impressionists, focusing this time on the people they painted and in particular the subjects of Degas, Caillebotte and the often forgotten Impressionist women artists. The Impressionists are famous for painting landscape but they were just as determined to paint people.
Looking closely at one of Impressionism's finest painters, Edgar Degas, Waldemar reveals how he consistently challenged traditions and strove to record real life as it appeared in the city, from sculpting the contorted movements of horses in motion at the Longchamp race course in Paris to encapsulating extravagant 3D viewpoints of the ballet dancers at the Paris Opera.
Waldemar also uncovers the intoxicating haziness the pastel produced in Degas' work when visiting his supplier Pastels de Roche. He also reveals the unusual viewpoints and dramatic perspectives of Caillebotte's paintings from the Place de L'Europe and the rebellious and revolutionary art of Morisot, Bracquemond and Cassatt, three impressive female artists who were eagerly embraced by the progressive movement of Impressionism
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Final Flourish
Episode 4 of 4
Duration: 1 hour
This episode takes a closer look at the late years of Impressionism, using the last show these artists did together as a starting point.
Waldemar looks in considerable depth at the work of Georges Seurat, taking into consideration his academic training at the Beaux-Arts School in Paris and the artists that influenced him, such as Piero della Francesca and Puvis de Chavannes.
There is also an insight into the complex but fascinating world of optics and art, and the ways in which the Impressionists were using the new discoveries in light and eyesight to influence their work. A fascinating 'after-image' experiment brings to life the ways in which our own eyes see colour, both in its presence and its absence.
Van Gogh's time in Paris, a period very little is known about, is also covered, charting the incredible journey the artist made from his brown and dull canvases to the splendid colour and light that pervaded his work on the cusp of his departure for the South of France.
The film finishes with a revisiting of Monet and his later waterlily paintings in the Orangerie in Paris. Waldemar investigates how a bad case of cataracts was responsible for a seismic shift in his colour palette and his brushstrokes. Spending time with an ophthalmologist, he finds out how old age and a fairly common ailment of the eyes caused Impressionism to shift and become radical again at the turn of the century and into the 20th century