Ambient Art DVD: Reviews and Awards

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Professional Reviews

"...this is highly recommended." --R. Pitman, Video Librarian

As in earlier acclaimed releases such as Rules of the Road (VL-7/02), The 2003 Encyclopedia of Boating Tips (VL-3/03), and Cases in Controversy: The 14th Amendment (VL-5/04), Jumby Bay Studios' latest--Ambient Art: Impressionism--takes full advantage of the interactivity/versatility features built into the DVD format.

Showcasing the work of 11 Impressionist masters (not all of whom--as the narration points out--are technically, or best remembered as, Impressionists)--including Cézanne, Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Seurat, and Van Gogh--the program allows viewers to select either widescreen or full screen formats, after which they can play "all" or individual artist segments, with commentary (biographical details and career highlights) and classical music or with music only, performed once or in a continuous loop.

And that's not all, folks. Viewers can also create a customized slideshow from the over 340 paintings included on the DVD (with options to set the interval from 15 seconds up to three minutes), use their remotes to access detailed information on each painting and even "zoom" in for close-ups. In addition, the disc includes a DVD-ROM accessible PC "wallpaper" option to make any painting into a desktop background.

An impressive, inexpensive, multifunctional survey that allows viewers to--as those famed business philosophers at Burger King put it--have it their way, this is highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P.

"The visual quality is exceptional." --Meghann R. Matwichuk, University of Delaware, School Library Journal

Over 340 paintings representing the work of 11 artists associated with the Impressionist movement are featured. This versatile program can be viewed in movie mode where the paintings are showcased (including crisply detailed shots scanning the canvases) and accompanied by an unobtrusive classical music soundtrack.

Instructors can also select optional audio commentary describing the life and work of each artist. Alternately, users can program a slide show in which they control the duration of each slide and whether or not detailed information about the painting (artist’s name, year of birth and death, title of the work, year painted, medium, and where the work is currently located) is shown onscreen.

The visual quality is exceptional; the paintings are rendered clearly and give viewers a sense of the interplay of light, color, and emotion for which this particular artistic movement is known. The roster of artists represented includes major players in the Impressionist, Neo-impressionist (or Pointillist), and Post-impressionist Movements such as Van Gogh and Renoir, as well as lesser-known artists such as Sisley and Morisot.

The audio commentaries offer a sense of how the different artists related to each other and the effect that their works, considered radical departures from the more classical styles of their predecessors, had on the art world.

The DVD will be useful in a variety of art classroom settings, providing visual focus for lectures, testing purposes, and student presentations.–Meghann R. Matwichuk, University of Delaware, Newark

"This DVD provides a calming environment, is a great reminiscent tool, as well as offers an opportunity ...to study the masters." --Pegi Schlis, Creative Forecasting Magazine

Ambient Art is a 68-minute DVD that features over 340 paintings from 11 artists. The paintings have been digitally re-mastered, and an audio commentary is provided for each artist (Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and seven more) in this impressionist art gallery. You can build your own slide show and choose the artist and duration of the show or you can put it in the movie mode to take the viewers on an informative tour of the virtual art. Residents can look at the paintings while listening to background music of Mozart or Rossini. This DVD provides a calming environment, is a great reminiscent tool, as well as offers an opportunity for residents to study the masters.

"If you have a large screen (32" or larger) display, you will wig out at the impressive display of this great art on your screen!" --J. Sunier, Audiophile Audition

This DVD is a bit different from the others. It features over 340 paintings from 1 Impressionist painters, making your video display an exclusive art gallery. The artists are Van Gogh, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and Seurat. You can select to display all of them for a given time on the screen, or you can select your favorite artist and just display his paintings. The Top Menu gives you choice between a slide show or movie. The slide show displays the entire painting, with letterboxing of course for all those which are not of a 16:9 ratio dimension. The movie option zooms in and out on each painting for more interest and excitement, but in the process sometimes loses a portion of some paintings. With this option you can select an audio commentary on each artist, recorded by an art expert, very similar to the recorded commentaries top art galleries provide you for a price. Or you can just relax and have some great music of Mozart or Rossini accompany your own perusal of the great paintings. The highest 9Mbit encoding was used to provide the best resolution achievable on NTSC DVDs today. If you have a large screen (32" or larger) display, you will wig out at the impressive display of this great art on your screen! What would Van Gough have thought of this?