Art

Art That Made Us episode 7: Art goes to war during the first half of the 20th century: war with the old imperial order, war with convention and war with the very idea of what it means to be human. This is a story of artists grappling with the destruction, fighting back and transforming the culture of the Isles.       Actress Michelle Fairley performs WB Yeats’s poem Easter 1916, with its resonant phrase ‘a terrible beauty is born’ marking a turning of the tide against the British Empire. Contemporary war photographer Oliver Chanarin traces the story of William […]

Art That Made Us episode 6: The 19th century saw a decisive shift in power from the countryside to the cities. With the industrial revolution transforming the British Isles, a divide opened up between the urban and the rural, forcing artists to respond to the upheaval to lives and the landscape. Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson reflects on the inspiration of JMW Turner, arguably the first environmental artist, and we encounter Penry Williams’s attempt to capture the beauty of industry with paintings like Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night.     Some artists attempt to capture the poverty and squalor caused by

Art That Made Us episode 5: This episode traces the story of Britain during the 18th century, a period that saw an explosion of creativity and a country with enough money, from trade and conquest, to pay for it. But the money had a dark side: sculptor Thomas J Price visits Harewood House to see the elaborate Robert Adam-designed interiors, Joshua Reynolds portraits and Thomas Chippendale furniture that were paid for by the slave trade.     This was also the great age of mockery, and artist Lubaina Himid reflects on William Hogarth’s scabrous exposure of upper-class hypocrisies, while comedian

Art That Made Us episode 4: A splintering of politics and religion in the British Isles under the Stuart kings leads to more questioning art, new science and architecture. Architect Amanda Levete climbs the Tulip Stairs in the Queen’s House, Greenwich, and reassesses Inigo Jones’ elegant and innovative design, while portrait artist Tai Shan Schierenberg encounters Van Dyck’s monumental portrait of the Earl of Pembroke’s family and finds signs of the dysfunction and tensions which point to the civil war to come.     This was a war that would be waged across three kingdoms, and artist Rita Duffy explores

Art That Made Us episode 3: In the 16th century, the British Isles experienced a religious revolution, as the kingdoms of England and then Scotland turned Protestant. Artists and experts today reveal how, during the reign of Elizabeth I, Protestants and Catholics used art, language and new technology to wage a battle for power in the Isles, creating surprising and often radical works.     Author Stephanie Merritt reassesses John Foxe’s grisly Book of Martyrs as a work of history and nationalist propaganda, with passages performed by actress Morfydd Clark, and we meet the indefatigable William Morgan, who undertook the

Art That Made Us episode 2: An alternative history of the Black Death of the Middle Ages and its bitter – but profoundly creative – aftermath. Contemporary artists and performers, alongside historians and curators, reveal how a century of creative renewal emerged from the chaos of plague as survivors found their voice, questioning authority and challenging status and class. Above all, writing in English was revived by works including Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, William Langland’s angry satire The Vision of Piers Plowman and breakthrough works by women like the spirited pilgrim Margery Kempe.     Poet laureate Simon Armitage

Art That Made Us episode 1: This episode immerses us in the turbulent era that followed the Roman occupation of Britain. Once known as the ‘dark’ ages, in reality it’s a time of glittering art and extraordinary cultural fusions. This alternative history of the British Isles, told through art, brings together encounters between contemporary artists and ancient art, and interviews with experts and curators, to trace how Celtic, Anglo-Saxon and Norse peoples fought for supremacy, leaving behind mysterious fragments of art that still haunt our landscapes and imagination.     Sculptor Antony Gormley meets Spong Man, a unique clay figure