Description
Why does our world look like it does? That great modern mystery is spectacularly unraveled in this international landmark series and epic quest across five continents and 100,000 years?via some of the greatest treasures of the ancient world?to the heart of human creativity. Encompassing everything from cave paintings to ceramics and pyramids to palaces, How Art Made the World probes the global trend for unrealistic depictions of the human body; the secret powers of the feature film; how politicians manage to manipulate people so easily; visions of death and the afterlife; and, crucially, why we use imagery at all.

Amazon.com
As part of BBC’s agenda to generate public awareness about art history's relevance to contemporary culture, the documentary series How Art Made the World is a landmark. Host Dr. Nigel Spivey, a Classical Archaeology professor from Cambridge, asserts, over five episodes, that not only have cultures thrived according to their abilities to communicate visually, but also that, though art, we can historically trace human needs and desires because our minds drive us to create images. Questioning how and why art influences society, Spivey employs art criticism, archaeology, political theory, and anthropology in order to posit theories in each hour-long segment. Episode one, "More Human than Human," traces our obsession with the human body by analyzing the Venus of Willendorf, Egyptian art, and Ancient Greece's preoccupation with athleticism. "The Day Pictures Were Born" discusses the birth of cave painting. "The Art of Persuasion" contextualizes Tony Blair and George Bush's political communication strategies with those in ancient cultures. "To Death and Back" ponders our preoccupation with death. "Once Upon A Time," the highlight in the series, insightfully connects our fascination with feature films to the cultural beginnings of storytelling. Starting with Mesopotamia’s birth of the written tale, the Grecian invention of theater, and the Assyrian invention of pictorial narrative, this episode also stars BBC champion, David Attenborough, discussing the Australian Aborigine's use of art to trigger ancient cultural memories and myths. Potent, smart, and interdisciplinary, this series, filmed mostly on-location for full-effect, really does prove that culture dictates art. --Trinie Dalton

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 22 reviews)

Another excellent BBC production

Although I'm missing David's lovely voice in the commentary, this DVD, produced by the BBC folks that brought us many other topics, is again of outstanding quality. This fact alone made me confident that I would get my money back, and that I would get another topic to watch for the years to come.

As usual, we were not disappointed! There is something for everybody in this documentary, it has a logical build-up, with great photography and excellent camera work. The topic is clear, and presented lively, with many facts. I learned a lot.

Highly recommended!
November 02, 2008

A view of "How Art Made the World"

I used to teach a history of art class for non-majors at Colorado State University. This documentary covers many of the topics I incorporated into my course in order to bring my students into the world of art from their various majors. Cross-over view points such as portrayed throughout this program give people an opportunity to think about the world around them from a different paradigm. Many students today are so oriented on just taking a course for the sake of a grade, they are often blind to the actual interest of the topics being studied. I always felt that if I had simply wedged the door into the world of inquiry just a tiny bit wider, I had accomplished an important goal in 15 weeks. This documentary would be very helpful in inspiring learning for its own sake.
October 06, 2008

art rules

I like the author's perspective that art tells the story of history, that we are creative beings and our creativity is what to follow to find out about how we think. Great stuff.
June 02, 2008

Mystery to uncover

This movie will change your way of receiving information from visuals. A phicological trip to the meaning of art. The story will tell you not only how but rather why the art was created and used.
May 07, 2008

Mediocre Minds Opine on the Evolution of Art

Over ambitious project presents wild conjectures as truth, without proof. Slick exploitation of claims upon subject matter bolstered by sound and fury in place of substance. Intellectually vapid. NOT art history, and only half a step above those well researched revelations splayed on the pages of the National Inquireror. That the filmmakers believe they are performing the equivelant of translating the Rosetta Stone here-with-in is quite evident by the hubris of including their "Special Features" section, which consists of the filmmakers talking about setting up certain shots; what kind of a self-important mind could conceive that anyone would want to waste their time watching them relate that their camera crane showed up late one night. Who cares?! I am very disappointed that I wasted my time and money on this immature work of floppy-doodle.
April 25, 2008

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