Arts & Ideas

As new shows featuring the Post-impressionist, Pierre Bonnard and the video artist, Bill Viola, open in London, Laurence Scott and his guests discuss the way we experience art from the current vogue for slow looking to the 30 second appraisal scientists say is the norm for most gallery goers. How do small details reshape our understanding of paintings? What about looking more than once? Does digital art require more or less concentration ? Kelly Grovier's book A New Way of Seeing: The History of Art in 57 Works is out now.Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory runs from 23 January to 6 May 2019 at Tate Modern. It will show 100 works of art by the French painter created between 1912 and 1947 and will include special evenings of "Slow Looking". Bill Viola / Michelangelo Life Death Rebirth runs at the Royal Academy in London from 26 January — 31 March 2019 The Free Thinking Visual Arts Playlist with interviews including Tacita Dean, Chantal Joffe and Sean Scully amongst others is here https://bbc.in/2DpskGS Producer: Zahid Warley

Matthew Sweet and critics Catherine Bray and Ryan Gilbey look at films making waves as the Academy announces this year's nominations. Writer Jan Asante and cultural theorist Bill Schwarz assess James Baldwin's legacy in the light of the film adaptation of his novel If Only Beale Street Could Talk. Language historian John Gallagher gets to grips with the dialogue in period dramas including The Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots. Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Do our heroes and heroines have to be perfect? How do religious ikons link to iconoclasm and the labelling of film idols & politicians "icons of our time". Matthew Sweet is joined by film historian Pamela Hutchinson, bioethicist Tom Shakespeare, historian Julia Lovell and psychotherapist Mark Vernon. Julia Lovell’s book Maoism a Global History is out soon Mark Vernon’s book A Secret History of Christianity is out soon.For more information about the BBC TV series of programmes profiling modern icons from sport, cinema, politics, exploration .... go to bbc.co.uk/icons Producer: Luke Mulhall

The must see sights on the Grand Tour, in Cold War Moscow & tourist hot spots now. Rana Mitter is joined by Roey Sweet, Sarah Goldsmith, Nick Barnett, Cindy Yu and Simon Calder.Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Novelist John Lanchester, journalist Tim Marshall and historians David Frye and Kylie Murray join Anne McElvoy to discuss why we build walls rather than bridges and what it says about civilisations past, present and future from Persia to Berlin, the USA to a dystopian vision. John Lanchester's latest novel is called The Wall. David Frye has written Walls: A History of Civilisation in Blood and Brick is out now Tim Marshall's book Divided: Why We're living in an Age of Walls is out nowProducer Jacqueline Smith

Shahidha Bari, Josh Cohen, Madeleine Bunting, Lisa Baraitser, Rachel Long, and Sam Goodman explore the value of doing nothing and our wider experience of time.Josh Cohen is the author of Not Working: Why We Have to Stop. Lisa Baraitser is Professor of Psychosocial Theory at Birkbeck, University of London and co-creator of Waiting Times, a research project on waiting in healthcare http://waitingtimes.exeter.ac.uk/ Madeleine Bunting is a novelist and writer Rachel Long is a poet New Generation Thinker Sam Goodman from Bournemouth University has been studying the drinking culture in Colonial India. You might also be interested in BBC Radio 3's Words and Music exploring the idea that we are Creatures of Habit https://bbc.in/2E72xV0 Producer: Luke Mulhall

The social campaigning, engineering and writing of three Victorians - art critic and philanthropist John Ruskin, poet and assistant to Florence Nightingale Arthur Hugh Clough and the builder of London's sewer system Joseph Bazalgette. Greg Tate, Suzanne Fagence Cooper , Stephen Halliday and Kevin Jackson join Laurence Scott to debate the way these 3 Victorians changed the way we look at the world and shaped our understanding of the Victorians.Producer: Zahid Warley

Lucy Porter, Neil Brand and David Quantick join Matthew Sweet to talk about Cric e Croc or Flip i Flap or even Dick und Doof though, if you're not Italian, Polish or German, it's far more likely that Hollywood's most famous comedy duo will be known to you simply as Stan and Ollie. Laurel and Hardy to give them their more formal title won the hearts of cinema goers all over the world in the '30s and '40s with films such as Way out West, Sons of the Desert and The Music Box, the sublime short which is the focus of this edition of Free Thinking. With the release of a new film about their life Stan and Ollie - starring John C Reilly and Steve Coogan, and a month long season of their work already underway at the British Film Institute in London - Matthew Sweet is joined by the standup comedian, Lucy Porter, the Emmy award winning writer, David Quantick and playwright and musician, Neil Brand to pay tribute to their achievement and enduring appeal.Producer: Zahid Warley Lucy Porter begins a nationwide tour of her show - Pass it On - in February 2019. The BFI Laurel and Hardy season is on now at London's Southbank and runs until 26th January 2019.

What’s the connection between Jane Austen’s particular choice of words in an afternoon in 1812, the oldest manuscript of Beowulf, fake news in 17th century England, and high definition digital photography? Laurence Scott talks to Kathryn Sutherland of St Anne’s College, Oxford, Noah Millstone of the University of Birmingham, and Andrew Prescott of the University of Glasgow about new possibilities for research opened up by digital technology.Producer: Luke Mulhall

An ecological fable about a perfect society which terrified children when it was first animated. Matthew Sweet reads Richard Adams' classic as a new version arrives on UK TV screens. He's joined by Dr Diana Bell, conservation biologist at UEA; Victoria Dickenson, author of Rabbit, a cultural history of rabbits; Brian Sibley, adaptor of the novel for a radio version and New Generation Thinker Lisa Mullen to debate rabbits both real and fictional. First published in 1972, Adams' novel follows rabbits escaping the destruction of their warren. Adams said that he told the tale to his daughters on car journeys and he rejected comparisons with the Bible tale of Moses and other religious symbolism. What do portrayals of rabbits in literature and film, from Peter Rabbit to Bugs Bunny, tell us about our own society? Matthew Sweet remembers being scared by the first animated film released in 1978. Now a new one from BBC TV and Netflix features the voices of James McAvoy, John Boyega and Gemma Arterton. Producer: Harry Parker