Official Trailer
Preview: Season 1 | 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Examine the formative role of art and the creative imagination in forging of humanity.
Survey the history of art, from antiquity to the present, on a global scale. Programs reveal the role art and creative imagination have played in forging humanity, and introduce viewers to works of beauty, ingenuity and illumination across cultures. Civilizations, a nine-part series, premieres Tuesday, April 17 at 8/7c. Join the conversation with #CivilizationsPBS
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Official Trailer
Preview: Season 1 | 30sVideo has Closed Captions
Survey the history of art, from antiquity to the present, on a global scale. Programs reveal the role art and creative imagination have played in forging humanity, and introduce viewers to works of beauty, ingenuity and illumination across cultures. Civilizations, a nine-part series, premieres Tuesday, April 17 at 8/7c. Join the conversation with #CivilizationsPBS
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Civilizations
Civilizations is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
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Preview: S1 | 30s | Examine the formative role of art and the creative imagination in forging of humanity. (30s)
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Preview: Ep9 | 30s | Explore art in the age of revolution, war and profound scientific change. (30s)
The Multitudes of the Displaced
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Clip: Ep9 | 1m 43s | For artist Ai Weiwei, the calamity of our time is the disaster of the displaced. (1m 43s)
Mondrian's New Visual Language
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Clip: Ep9 | 2m 20s | In the autumn of 1914, Mondrian had an epiphany that would bring true abstraction. (2m 20s)
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Clip: Ep9 | 3m 9s | In December 1942, a Jewish teacher brings art supplies to children held by Nazis. (3m 9s)
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Clip: Ep9 | 3m 43s | Some of the strongest contemporary art has the magical power of transformation. (3m 43s)
Otto Dix's Definitive Artistic Statement
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Clip: Ep8 | 3m 44s | Otto Dix and his generation had borne witness to the horrors of World War I. (3m 44s)
Manet Twists the Conventions of Art
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Clip: Ep8 | 2m 30s | Edouard Manet created a masterpiece famed as a masterclass in visual subversion. (2m 30s)
George Catlin's Indian Portraits
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Clip: Ep8 | 2m 18s | Despite his interest in portraiture, Catlin he said the Native Americans must perish. (2m 18s)
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Preview: Ep8 | 30s | Examine the rise and fall of “progress” as an ideology. (30s)
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Clip: Ep8 | 4m 20s | Thomas Cole regarded the US landscape as being what he called the undefiled work of Gods. (4m 20s)
Venetians Embrace Color Over the Drawn Line
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Clip: Ep7 | 1m 56s | For Renaissance art theorists, drawing always came before color. (1m 56s)
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Clip: Ep7 | 2m 8s | Out of Hindu metaphysics comes the nearest visualisation you can get to of a trance. (2m 8s)
Japan's 18th Century Commercial Art Revitalizes Color
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Clip: Ep7 | 1m 53s | Ukiyo-e demonstrated that every day transitory objects could be considered art. (1m 53s)
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Clip: Ep7 | 2m 7s | Goya bares witness to the irrational forces unleashed by Napoleon's invasion of Spain. (2m 7s)
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Preview: Ep7 | 30s | Explore light and color in art in the search for greater realism and spiritual ecstasy. (30s)
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Preview: Ep6 | 30s | Explore one of humanity’s deepest artistic urges: the depiction of nature. (30s)
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Clip: Ep6 | 3m 1s | Albrecht Altdorfer sidesteps religious conflict by using nature. (3m 1s)
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Clip: Ep6 | 34s | In Li Cheng's landscape art escapes the natural world. (34s)
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Clip: Ep6 | 55s | In Islamic architecture, landscapes reflect a mastery over the natural world. (55s)
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Preview: Ep5 | 30s | Travel east and west— to Renaissance Italy and the contemporaneous Islamic empires. (30s)
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Clip: Ep5 | 1m 55s | In Rome, Caravaggio breaks the social and aesthetic rules of his generation. (1m 55s)
The Distinction Between Craft and Genius
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Clip: Ep5 | 2m 3s | The Renaissance creates a contrast between ars and invenio. (2m 3s)
Building the Suleymaniye Mosque
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Clip: Ep5 | 2m 26s | Mimar Sinar always felt destined for something greater than building bridges. (2m 26s)
Artemisia's Most Subversive Work
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Clip: Ep5 | 2m 8s | Artemisia rebels against any notion that women shouldn't speak until spoken to. (2m 8s)
Paving the Way for Maruyama Okyo's Masterpiece
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Clip: Ep4 | 2m 42s | "Cracked Ice" combines everything Okyo knew from both Eastern and Western traditions. (2m 42s)
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Clip: Ep4 | 4m 8s | The riches intended to buy off the Spanish only intensified their lust for gold. (4m 8s)
Maria Sibylla's Encounter with the Natural World
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Clip: Ep4 | 2m | Maria Sibylla's illustrations brought to light the true life cycle of insects. (2m)
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Preview: Ep4 | 30s | See how art became the great interface when distant cultures met for the first time. (30s)
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Clip: Ep3 | 4m 5s | Art has found new ways to engage with our spiritual impulses. (4m 5s)
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Clip: Ep3 | 1m 40s | One of the oldest objects of an imaginary being ever discovered. (1m 40s)
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Preview: Ep3 | 30s | Consider how religion has inspired art and art has inspired divine representation. (30s)
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Clip: Ep3 | 1m 42s | The Conquistadors attempted to eradicate all traces of indigenous Mexican culture. (1m 42s)
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Clip: Ep3 | 2m 58s | A spectacular place where the symbolism of the sacred mountain is embodied in art. (2m 58s)
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Clip: Ep2 | 38s | Athenian vase painters recorded and then re-enforced ideas of what wives were meant to do. (38s)
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Clip: Ep2 | 1m 39s | Our compulsion to create images of ourselves is a defining artistic motif of humanity. (1m 39s)
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Preview: Ep2 | 30s | Explore how we look at the human body in art. (30s)
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Clip: Ep1 | 2m 45s | A Syrian museum curator sacrificed his life trying to save artifacts in Palmrya. (2m 45s)
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Clip: Ep1 | 1m 38s | This 25,000 year-old sculpture found in France represents the dawn of the idea of beauty. (1m 38s)
An Early Step on the Road to Civilization
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Clip: Ep1 | 1m 11s | Cave paintings in Castillo Spain represent some of the first paintings made by humans. (1m 11s)
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Clip: Ep1 | 1m 49s | The cognitive revolution stirred early humanity from its creative slumber. (1m 49s)
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