The Distinction Between Craft and Genius
University of London scholar Jerry Brotton discusses how the the Renaissance creates a contrast between ars and invenio.
The Madonna Di Loreto
At the Church of San Agostino in Rome, Caravaggio breaks the social and aesthetic rules of his generation.
Building the Suleymaniye Mosque
Mimar Sinar became the greatest military engineer of his day, but he always felt himself destined for something greater than being the builder of bridges and fortresses.
Renaissances
Travel 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 centuries. Both spheres were open to influences flowing both ways.
Montezuma and Cortes
As the Spanish met the Aztecs in Central America, the riches intended to buy off the Spanish only intensified their lust for gold and conquest.
Paving the Way for Maruyama Okyo's Masterpiece
In what's regarded as Maruyama Okyo's greatest work, "Cracked Ice" combines everything Okyo knew from both Eastern and Western traditions.
Maria Sibylla's Encounter with the Natural World
Through illustration, Maria Sibylla explained and painted their life cycle, their metamorphosis from caterpillar to chrysalis, to butterfly.
Encounters
See 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 great interface by which civilizations understood each other.
The Lion Man
One of the oldest objects of an imaginary being ever discovered, it was carved over hundreds of painstaking hours.
New Forms of Spirituality
Today, especially in the West, art has found new ways to engage with our spiritual impulses, even when the audience is often secular.
The Day of the Dead
The Conquistadors attempted to eradicate all traces of indigenous Mexican culture and religion. But some glimmers of its past artistic and creative impulses remained.
God and Art
Trace 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 of religious art often lie conflict, intrigue and divine mysteries.
The Most Enduring Art Form
Our compulsion to create images of ourselves is one of the most intimate and defining statements on who we think we are.
Recording Social Norms
Though it may have been an unintended consequence, Athenian vase painters recorded and then re-enforced ideas of what wives were meant to do.
The Sacred Mountain
One of the most spectacular places where the symbolism of the sacred mountain has been turned into a work of art is found deep in the jungle interior of Cambodia.
How Do We Look?
Explore 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, inspiring fear—and were instrumental in depicting the human body today.
The Cognitive Revolution
The cognitive revolution stirred early humanity from its creative slumber, and the images it produced continue to humble even our greatest modern artists, including Pablo Picasso.
An Early Step on the Road to Civilization
Cave paintings in Castillo Spain represent some of the first paintings made by humans.
The Protector of Civilization
ISIS destroyed ancient artifacts in the city of Palmyra, Syria, and museum curator sacrificed his life trying to save them.
The Lady of Brassempouy
Host Simon Schama argues this 25,000 year-old sculpture found in France represents the dawn of the idea of beauty.
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