MoMA: 50 Masterworks From The Collection [Blu-ray]

"MoMA 50 Masterworks From The Collection" blu-ray displays images of 50 paintings from The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Various styles are represented and many paintings have vivid and bright colors. Paintings may be bold, sublime, curious, strange, and/or exotic. The video includes some well-known paintings, including Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" which is depicted on the front cover of the blu-ray.

Each image of a painting is displayed for about 28 seconds before moving on to the next image. The total time is 25 minutes. Then, the blu-ray goes on in a continuous loop of the paintings again.

Pleasant music is played on the sole audio option, DTS-HD Master.

There are three video options. One may play the images with no credits or with credits which include the name of the artist and other brief biographical information, as well as a very brief description, quote, and/or commentary. The third option is to create your own playlist of your favorite paintings.

Here are the artists and their paintings.

van Gogh. The Starry Night
Matisse. The Red Studio
Klee. Cat and Bird
Monet. Water Lillies
Chagall. Birthday

Cezanne. Still Life with Fruit Dish
Derain. Bridge over the Riou
Bernard. Iron Bridges at Asnieres
Kline. Chief
Matisse. The Moroccans

Pollock. One: Number 31, 1950
Munch. The Storm
Bonnard. The Bathroom
Rousseau. The Dream
Seurat. Evening, Honfleur

Duchamp. Landscape
Vuillard. Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist
Kandinsky. Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 4
Matisse. Dance (1)
Pollock. The She-Wolf

de Chirico. Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure)
Johns. Map
Klimt. The Park
Miro. The Birth of the World
Rousseau. Sleeping Gypsy

Signac. Setting Sun. Sardine Fishing. Adagio. Opus 221 from the series The Sea, The Boats, Concarneau.
Kirchner. Street, Dresden
Chagall. I and the Village
Cezanne. Chateau Noir
Popova. Painterly Architectonic

Monet. Poplars at Giverny, Sunrise
Hopper. Gas
van Gogh. The Olive Trees
Leger. Three Women
Marc. The World Cow

Seurat. Port-en-Bessin, Entrance to the Harbor
Modigliani. Anna Zborowska
Kandinsky. Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 2
Dali. The Persistence of Memory
Matisse. The Piano Lesson

Miro. Hirondelle Amour
Kokoschka. Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat
Leger. Contrast of Forms
Schwitters. The Cherry Picture
Boccioni. Dynamism of a Soccer Player

Gauguin. The Seed of the Areoi
Braque. Still Life with Tenora
Kandinsky. Picture with an Archer
Cezanne. L'Estaque
Matisse. Goldfish and Palette

On the full screen images, a small part of the top and bottom of the paintings are cut off on my screen. I'm not sure if it is my TV or player, or if it is intentional by the designers of the blu-ray.

Nevertheless, these images of the paintings on blu-ray are excellent.

I have been painting for close to 40 years, have had some success showing in NY, taught art at two universities, authored a book on a major artist's print work, no need or intention to go on and on with my story - but the point is I honor and support the great museums of NY and MoMA has one of the most important bodies of work anywhere. This bad video mocks us. The selections chosen is inadequate, the music is mind numbing and has no relationship with anything contained in this video. And most importantly nearly all of the work has been cropped! The paintings are missing tops, sides, bottoms - how in the world could the video maker AND MoMA permit this? This is insane. For example, Jasper John's great painting of the map of the U.S. is cut off at North Carolina to the south, equally unbelievable cuts are made to the north, east and west. Each artist's very idea of what their work should look like has been corrupted by DVD maker Screen Dreams who puts their copy write symbol on all their text pages. Do NOT purchase this video. You will not be getting what you think it promises to be. CD ROMs of the past were superior to this by far. There is no order to the presentation of material, no logic to the shuffling of content, what is not and who is not represented on this disk is absolutely unfathomable. Can you believe there are no works from Picasso or Warhol? Please realize that a blu ray disk is capable of storing an amazingly high amount of material, sadly it is so under used for this short presentation. What a sham, and what a shame to all involved in the making and the distributing of this disk.