Sister Wendy - The Complete Collection (Story of Painting/Grand Tour/Odyssey/Pains of Glass) Reviews

its hard to critique a nun who loves to talk about art.

what makes sister wendy's shows special is her approach to looking at art. she knows her stuff...she's well studied. there is a bit of hesitation that one has about the perspective of a nun looking at what can be controversial, even erotic, works. sister wendy does not hesitate to dive in and talk about these things...she almost seems to enjoy how beautiful her god has made these very human qualities available for our enjoyment. she's pretty radical...almost hippie like...for a nun. hell she's less goody goody than bob ross was and hes like the patron saint of stoner artists!! still, her ability to tackle these subjects is impressive but what makes her special is how she asks the viewer to approach any subject...any work of art...she simply asks that we look, think about what it could mean or what it means to us, and hopefully enjoy it.

the different places and works she visits are all interesting and her perspective is always knowledged.

the first dvd shows her looking at and talking about lascaux cave...unfortunately this is likely the most disappointing point in all her dvds. she is in the man made cave with reproductions of lascaux paintings and the film never shows even other source material from the original caves. honestly if i were the makers of this show, i would have eliminated that segment or shot it in caves that were more available for that kind of production. she is after all talking about cave are in general, albeit lascaux is truly the most amazing of that. the fake/reproduction cave is a blemish on the seriousness of the rest of the work...and its right at the beginning of disk 1. (to her credit she does mention that she is in the reproduction cave and not the real one)