How Art Made the World

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DVD details

Actor: David Attenborough, George Miller, Nigel Spivey
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Mark Molesworth
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 290 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-08-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Warner

DVD Reviews of How Art Made the World

DVD Review: The Power of Art
Summary: 5 Stars

Wonderful photography and lighting make this program outstanding. The psychology, including some experiments done to back it up, was thought provoking and overall reminiscent of Joseph Campbell's series: The Power of Myth - also highly recommended. David Attenborough only appears in one episode, for about 10 minutes, both in the present and in some footage from the 1960s, which is a special treat for his fans. This is not a history of art, but an exploration of its meaning and impact through the ages and today. A bit uneven and overly dramatic at times, I think it is worth viewing and I plan on buying it eventually.

DVD Review: Another excellent BBC production
Summary: 5 Stars

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!

DVD Review: A view of "How Art Made the World"
Summary: 4 Stars

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.

DVD Review: art rules
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

DVD Review: Mystery to uncover
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

Description of How Art Made the World

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.

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

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