Heavenly vaults but made by the earthly hand of man. The imagined form of the universe: a circle, no beginning, no end, just wheeling eternity. Domes had appeared in antiquity and the medieval centuries but never with such compulsive grandeur. Simon Schama, Civilisations V: The Triumph of Art
The great flowering we call the Renaissance owed much to Arab scholars … the outpouring of creativity would flow both ways between Islamic East and Christian West. ibid.
St Peter’s: Michelangelo toiled away into his 80s on this. ibid.
Cellini’s outrageous miracle in bronze … Perseus, head down … with the ultimate trophy … Cellini is a sorcerer, an alchemist. ibid.
On the outer wall of Lahore Fort, Jahangir set a vast display of mosaic tiles. ibid.
Caravaggio was a bisexual murderer with major anger management issues … but if he acted like a devil he painted like an angel. ibid.
Velazquez produced images of the royals on demand … with sparkling naturalism. ibid.
When civilisations meet each other for the first time there is always the danger of conflict … but time and again these momentous meetings sparked great artistic energy. David Olusoga, Civilisations s1e6: First Contact
The Benin bronzes: they are now regarded as one of Africa’s greatest treasures. ibid.
An encounter that would prove to be one of the most cataclysmic events in all human history. On the eve of Spain’s arrival, Central America was dominated by the Aztecs. ibid.
The very first Europeans to reach Japan arrived by accident. ibid.
Amsterdam was the testing ground for modern capitalism. Through its stock exchange, the Dutch East India Company became the world’s first publicly traded company … The modern art market was born. ibid.
Europe’s imperial ambitions came to dominate the globe. ibid.
Think of the Gothic cathedral and you think of the austerity of stone. Rows of saints and angels, and angels ushering the righteous into heaven and thrusting the damned into the halls of hell … The whole of the architectural design was meant to optimize that flood of heavenly-coloured light. Shining down on you in Chartres cathedral were the stories of the Bible. Simon Schama, Civilisations 1e7: Radiance
The first great colourist to set Venetian art on this path and to do it with the dazzling luminousness of oils on wood was Giovanni Bellini. ibid.
The largest ceiling fresco ever painted: painted in the 1750s by Venetian artist Giambattista Tiepolo it’s a vision of Apollo the sun-god. ibid.
Another culture’s rapturous embrace of colour … the ancient Hindu festival of Holi. ibid.
The black paintings seem to me to be an endgame for Goya. ibid.
Eventually, a new generation of Western artists would put colour back into European art. But their inspiration would come from another culture on the other side of the world – Japan. ibid.
It was Vincent van Gogh who’d reach most feverishly towards an even more radiant redemptive in paint. ibid.
In the 19th century the world was transformed by a powerful idea: a belief among Europeans that their civilisation represented the pinnacle of human progress. It was idea driven by the modernising forces of science and industry. David Olusoga, Civilisation s1e8: The Cult of Progress
The Industrial Revolution first emerged in the English Midlands. Its most potent symbol was a new kind of architecture: the factory ... Industry forced nature to bow before the ambitions of mankind. But from now on industry would also demand human beings submit to the needs of the machine, working in shifts around the shop. ibid.
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Turkish Bath 1863: These were European fantasies. ibid.
J M W Turner: Dudley Worcestershire 1832: The great thinker and art critic John Ruskin saw in the picture an indictment of how the old way of life was being destroyed by the factory and the machine. ibid.
What can art do when horror comes calling? What can art do when civilisation itself is lost? Simon Schama, Civilisations s1e9: The Vital Spark
Is the art of our own time just so much buzz and fashion? A hot investment for the rich? Or is it an absolutely necessity? A light from humanity’s vital spark? ibid.
It wasn’t until autumn 1914 that Mondrian had the epiphany which would bring true abstraction into the world. ibid.
Abstraction pumped up with the vitality of expressionism: Jackson Pollock’s pictures were monumental in scale and ferociously physical in execution. ibid.
Yet it’s this visual greediness which has made contemporary art such a hit: the sense that the quality of the art and its subtlety isn’t necessarily compromised by its playfulness. ibid.
The strongest contemporary art has this magical power of transformation. ibid.
Ai Weiwei: Law of the Journey 2017 … Cast adrift on an infinite ocean of terror and despair. ibid.
Few cultures just kept going all by themselves. They steal rivals’ ideas. Andrew Marr’s History of the World IV: Into the Light, BBC 2012
The diseases of despair that have plagued American society, the pathologies that rise out of a decaying culture. Chris Hedges, lecture Seattle University 2018, ‘Corporate Totalitarianism: The End Game’ *****
Soon The Beatles had conquered much of the world. But back in the USSR the repressive old men in the Kremlin tried to resist the Fab 4. They were defeated by their children. This is the untold story of how The Beatles helped to destroy communism. Storyville: How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin, BBC 2019
Across the USSR The Beatles virus spawned hundreds of tribute bands. ibid.
Reviled by the Soviet authorities as Western pollution. ibid.
Summer 1939: A golden age of exploration and archaeology is coming to an end. It was an era that saw adventurers set out to explore the remotest corners of the globe in search of clues to unlock our ancient past. And it was during that last summer of peace as the world stood on the precipice of a war that threatened to end civilisation itself, that three extraordinary treasures were discovered, treasures that would radically change our understanding of the origins and diversity of human culture. And bring us closer to our distant past. Janina Ramirez, Raiders of the Lost Past I, BBC 2019
The discovery of an incredible Anglo-Saxon ship burial in Suffolk, dating from the early seventh century A.D. The final resting place of a supremely wealthy warrior king. ibid.
The single greatest archaeological discovery ever made in England: the Sutton-Hoo hoard. ibid.
Ship burials are incredibly rare in Britain: there are only two others ever discovered at this time. ibid.
Oserberg ship, Norway, excavated 1904-1905. ibid.
Treasures of unimaginable quality emerged thick and fast. ibid.
These Saxons and Angles came together and gave us the basis of the English language. ibid.
A pair of spectacular shoulder clasps. ibid.
The miraculous story of the hoard’s survival. ibid.
This was Page One of England’s history. ibid.
I’ll be on the trail of a cast of remarkable archaeologists each a product of their era: from a self-taught amateur to a pair of charismatic adventurers. And an academic driven by a dark political agenda. They are fascinating tales of intuition, eccentricity and luck. Janina Ramirez, Raiders of the Lost Past II
I come to the caves of southern Germany where just a week before hostilities began, an ice-age treasure from our distant past emerged from the gloom … Carved from a single piece of mammoth ivory, this half-human half-animal is a modest work of art by modern standards, but it makes a revolution in the human story. ibid.
Numerous chance discoveries across eight decades, discoveries that at times seem to defy belief … The oldest known representational work of art in human history. ibid.
Volgelherd Cave 1931 excavation: It seems we were brilliant artists from the very beginning … There are exquisitely carved mammoths, and powerful muscular lions, an array of tiny masterpieces. ibid.
In the late 1950s as Germany rebuilt after the War, Robert Wetzel was back at the Stadal cave … He completely ignored the exciting find made by his team in the summer of 1939. ibid.
What would become known as the Lion-Man … It caused a sensation … It required a high degree of technical skill. ibid.
In the caves of the Swabian Jura archaeologists have uncovered not only the earliest examples of representational art but the first evidence we have of music. ibid.
I’ve come to Mexico where just before the outbreak of war stunning examples of Meso-American art began to emerge from the jungle … These remarkable colossal heads heralded the discovery of a lost world. It was a culture that turned out to be larger and more magnificent than anyone could have imagined. Nothing like this had ever been found in the Americas before. Janina Ramirez, Raiders of the Lost Past III