From Roman marbles and Egyptian mummies to Renaissance masterpieces and African sculptures, in this special accompanying programme to Civilisations, Mary Beard goes in search of extraordinary works of art from all over the world that can be seen here in Britain.
A look at the formative role art and imagination have played in the forging of humanity.
2018 • History
In this episode of Civilisations, Professor Mary Beard explores images of the human body in ancient art, from Mexico and Greece to Egypt and China.
2018 • History
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.
2018 • History
Professor Mary Beard broaches the controversial, sometimes dangerous, topic of religion and art. For millennia, art has inspired religion as much as religion has inspired art.
2018 • History
Think Renaissance and you think of Italy. But in the 15th and 16th centuries, the great Islamic empires experienced their own extraordinary cultural flowering.
2018 • History
In the 15th and 16th centuries distant and disparate cultures met, often for the first time. These encounters provoked wonder, awe, bafflement and fear.
2018 • History
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 Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
2018 • History
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.
2018 • History
From Roman marbles and Egyptian mummies to Renaissance masterpieces and African sculptures, in this special accompanying programme to Civilisations, Mary Beard goes in search of extraordinary works of art from all over the world that can be seen here in Britain.
2018 • History
A look at the formative role art and imagination have played in the forging of humanity.
1/10 • Civilisations • 2018 • History
February 24, 1956. During the Soviet Communist Party's twentieth Congress, Khrushchev stuns everyone by denouncing Stalin's crimes. Without denying the ideology, the USSR's new leader seeks to distance himself from his predecessor and open up to the outside world. "Mister K" is full of surprises. He drinks Pepsi with Nixon and insists on spending a day at Disneyland when he visits America... But behind this clown-like character, the "executioner of the Ukraine" hasn't gone soft. In 1956, he didn't hesitate to crush the uprising in Budapest in bloodshed. Now, he is preparing a co-existence with newly elected President Kennedy that will not be all peaceful: construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, and not forgetting the aid to Ho Chi Minh in the preparation of his new war for reunification... The Vietnam War is beginning. Kennedy tries to retaliate: in Vietnam, he sends military advisers to train the army of the south. And in Berlin, on June 26, 1963, he gave the famous speech of hope, declaring in front of an excited crowd: "Ich bin ein Berliner".
S1E5 • Apocalypse: War of Worlds 1945-1991 • 2019 • History
Marking the anniversary of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in wartime and the swift end it brought to World War II, this special features never-before-seen archival footage, long-suppressed colour film from the immediate aftermath of the bomb, and overlooked audio testimony from core protagonists and victims to provide a a unique and highly personal understanding of the most devastating experiment in human history. HIROSHIMA: 75 YEARS LATER aims to infuse humanity into one of the planet's darkest moments, allowing the figures who designed, built and detonated the bomb, as well as those who were caught in its wake, to narrate their own journeys through an astonishing story of scientific endeavor, unprecedented ambition and unyielding horror. Told entirely from the first-person perspective of leaders, physicists, soldiers and survivors, the documentary presents the moral, scientific and military conundrums of the atomic bomb as felt by those closest to it.
2020 • History
Cities of the Sky explores the creation of some of the ancient world's largest and most splendid cities. Were people across Native America inspired by celestial phenomenon to build their communities? Answers are revealed in American urban centers that bloomed from the Mexican jungle, a massive multi-cultural city in Central Mexico that is among the largest urban centers in history, and the capital of South America's greatest empire.
3/4 • Native America • 2018 • History
Flying across Egypt reveals how the ancients' achievements shaped the modern nation.
1/2 • Egypt from Above • 2019 • History
When the lost tomb of King Tut is opened in 1922, it's not only the famous Curse that is unleashed. Fashion, movies and architecture all come under the pharaoh's spell as the world goes mad for Tut-mania.
S1E5 • History By The Numbers • 2021 • History