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Watch Civilizations
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.
Watch Video from Episode 2 of Civilizations
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.
Clip
1m 39s
Clip
The Most Enduring Art Form
1m 39s
Our compulsion to create images of ourselves is one of the most intimate and defining statements on who we think we are.
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Clip
Recording Social Norms
38s
Though it may have been an unintended consequence, Athenian vase painters recorded and then re-enforced ideas of what wive
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Preview
How Do We Look?
30s
Explore the many functions of the human image in art. Portraits, paintings and sculptures, both life-size and colossal, pe
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Full Length
How Do We Look?
53m 20s
Explore the many functions of the human image in art. Portraits, paintings and sculptures, both life-size and colossal, pe
Show More
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Exploring Thomas Cole's 'The Course of Empire'
by PBS | June 26, 2018
Sacred Blue: An Appreciation of Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne
by PBS | June 19, 2018
Exploring Li Cheng's A Solitary Temple Amid Clearing Peaks
by Sam Laney | June 12, 2018
Rembrandt's Declaration of Liberty: 'The Night Watch'
by PBS | May 15, 2018
Lisbon: The 16th Century Melting Pot
by PBS | May 08, 2018
The Basilica of San Vitale: How a Space Imbues Divine Status
by PBS | May 01, 2018