Sister Wendy's Grand Tour Discovering Europe's Great Art

Following the popularity of Sister Wendy's Odyssey, a highly acclaimed PBS television series and book, Sister Wendy Beckett's love of art has now taken her further afield on a Grand Tour of ten of continental Europe's cities of art. Like the eighteenth-century travelers who embarked on the Grand Tour before her, Sister Wendy delighted in the opportunity to see in reality great works of art she had previously seen only in books. Her journey encompassed masterpieces by Velazquez and Goya in Madrid, Bruegel and Titian in Vienna and Kandinsky in St. Petersburg, among many others, but her aim was always to choose art she could share with people at home. Sister Wendy finds huge pleasure in the "total visual experience of the real world" afforded by Cezanne's The Bathers in Paris. In Amsterdam she captures the essence of van Gogh's personal tragedy in her interpretation of Artist's Bedroom, and in Antwerp she finds extraordinary grace in a simple carving by an unknown fifteen-century sculptor. Florence, Venice and Rome, milestones of any Grand Tour, offer further delights: the joyous work of Botticelli; a rarely seen Giorgione, The Tempest; and Michelangelo's awesome Pieta, a work expressing immense anguish and love.