Civilisations
The story of art from the dawn of human history to the present day—for the first time on a global scale. Inspired by Civilisation, Kenneth Clark’s acclaimed landmark 1969 series about Western art, this series broadens the canvas to reveal the role art and the creative imagination have played across multiple cultures and civilizations.
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Trailer
CIVILIZATIONS | Official Trailer | PBS
Where to Watch(AU)
Streaming data provided by JustWatch via TMDB.
Cast
Seasons
Survey the history of art, from antiquity to the present, on a global scale. Civilizations reveals the role art and creative imagination have played in forging humanity, and introduce viewers to works of beauty, ingenuity and illumination across cultures. Liev Schreiber narrates.
1.Second Moment of Creation
4.917-04-201853mExamine the formative role of art and the creative imagination in the forging of humanity itself. Images and artifacts found in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia and South America te...
2.How Do We Look?
3.924-04-201853mExplore the many functions of the human image in art. Portraits, paintings and sculptures, both life-size and colossal, perform a role—assuaging loss, expressing strength, inspirin...
3.God and Art
2.001-05-201853mTrace the relationship between religion and art, which has inspired some of the most ingenious, affecting, majestic and breathtaking works of art ever made. Yet beneath great works...
4.Encounters
2.508-05-201853mSee how advances in seafaring and a thirst for trade and exploration sent human beings around the planet. Distant and disparate cultures met for the first time, and art became the...
5.Renaissances
2.815-05-201853mTravel east and west to explore the connections and rivalries between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic empires that experienced their own cultural flowering in the 15th and 16th c...
6.Paradise on Earth
1.012-06-201853mExplore one of humanity’s deepest artistic urges: the depiction of nature. But landscape painting is seldom a straightforward portrayal of observed nature; it's a projection of dre...
7.Color and Light
1.019-06-201853mExplore the story of light and color in art—both in the search for greater realism and spiritual ecstasy. Journey from Gothic cathedrals and Indian courtly painting to modern art.
8.The Cult of Progress
1.026-06-201853mExamine the rise and fall of “progress” as an ideology, and see how the “civilizing” project that arose from Enlightenment ideas was fraught with contradictions that troubled Europ...
9.What is Art Good For?
1.303-07-201853mExplore art in the age of revolution, war and profound scientific change and consider the question: Should art create a separate realm, a place of escape, or should it plunge into...
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