Laura Cumming
Art critic and author, serving as the episode's expert on paintings and visual mysteries, providing detailed analysis of Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait.
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26 snips
Feb 11, 2026 • 6min
Greatest Paintings: The Ghost of Spain – Velázquez’s Las Meninas
Laura Cumming, art critic and author, offers a personal take on Velázquez’s Las Meninas and reads from her book The Vanishing Man. She describes first encounters with the painting and its lifelike figures. Conversations explore how the work blurs viewer and artwork, hints at a fading Spanish Golden Age, and foreshadows later painting styles.
22 snips
Feb 4, 2026 • 10min
Greatest Paintings: Dawn of the Dutch Golden Age - The Arnolfini Portrait
Laura Cumming, art critic and author, guides a fresh look at Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait with a short, vivid mini bio. She teases the painting’s famed mysteries, its hyper-real technique, the puzzling identities and gestures, and the many symbolic objects like the mirror, dog and oranges. Several historical twists and provenance questions are hinted at.
