The Art That Made Mexico: Paradise, Power and Prayers , artist Alinka Echeverria explores the three major forces – nature, power and faith – that have shaped Mexican art, and Mexico itself. Alinka Echeverria reveals the way in which Mexican artists shook off European artistic influence to find a distinctive voice, expressed through landscape painting, and reconnected with pre-Hispanic subject […]
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The Art of Russia is a series in which art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon tells the incredible story of Russian art – its mystery and magnificence – and until now a story untold on British television. The Art of Russia Part 1: Out of the Forest He explores the origins of the Russian icon from its roots in Byzantium
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Documentary in which Ros Savill, former director and curator at the Wallace Collection, tells the story of some incredible and misunderstood objects – the opulent, intricate, gold-crested and often much-maligned Sevres porcelain of the 18th century. Ros brings us up close to a personal choice of Sevres masterpieces in the Wallace Collection, viewing them in intricate and intimate
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In Civilisations episode 9, Simon Schama begins Civilisations with this premise: that it is in art – the play of the creative imagination – that humanity expresses its most essential self: the power to break the tyranny of the humdrum, the grind of everyday. Art, then, makes life worth living; it is the great window into human potential. And societies
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If David Olusoga’s first film in Civilisations is about the art that followed and reflected early encounters between different cultures, his second explores the artistic reaction to imperialism in the 19th century. David shows the growing ambivalence with which artists reacted to the idea of progress – both intellectual and scientific – that underpinned the imperial mission and followed the
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In Civilisations episode 7, Simon Schama starts his meditation on colour and civilisation with the great Gothic cathedrals of Amiens and Chartres. He then moves to 16th century Venice where masterpieces such as Giovanni Bellini’s San Zaccaria altarpiece and Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne contested the assumption that drawing would always be superior to colouring. As the Baroque took
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In the 15th and 16th centuries distant and disparate cultures met, often for the first time. These encounters provoked wonder, awe, bafflement and fear. And, as historian of empire David Olusoga shows, art was always on the frontline. Each cultural contact at this time left a mark on both sides: the magnificent Benin bronzes record the meeting of an ancient
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Think Renaissance and you think Italy. But in the 15th and 16th centuries the great Islamic empires experienced their own extraordinary cultural flowering. The two phenomena did not unfold in separate artistic universes; they were acutely conscious of, and in competition with, each other and mutually open to influences flowing both ways. The fifth film in Civilisations goes
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In Civilisations episode 3, Simon Schama explores one of our deepest artistic urges – the depiction of nature. Simon discovers that landscape painting is seldom a straightforward description of observed nature – rather it is a projection of dreams and idylls, as well as of escapes and refuges from human turmoil, the elusive paradise on earth. Simon begins
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Civilisations episode 1 – The Second Moment of Creation: the first film by Simon Schama looks at the formative role art and the creative imagination have played in the forging of humanity itself. The Second Moment of Creation The film opens with Simon’s passionate endorsement of the creative spirit in humanity and the way in which art can
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A journey through the dramatic and destructive years of the French Revolution, telling its history in a way not seen before – through the extraordinary story of its art. Our guide through this turbulent decade is the constantly surprising Dr Richard Clay, an art historian who has spent his life decoding the symbols of power and authority. Dr
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Alastair Sooke takes an in-depth look at the art of the Roman Empire. The Romans were brilliant engineers and soldiers, but what isn’t as well known is that they also gave us wonderful artistic treasures. Treasures of Ancient Rome part 1 In this three-part series, Alastair Sooke argues that the old-fashioned view that the Romans didn’t do art
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