How Art Made the World (2005)

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.

Programme One - More Human Than Human…
One image dominates our contemporary world above all others: the human body. How Art Made the World travels from the modern world of advertising to the temples of classical Greece and the tombs of ancient Egypt to solve the mystery of why humans surround themselves with images of the body that are so unrealistic.

Programme Two - The Day Pictures Were Born
The discovery of prehistoric cave paintings in the last century led to the shocking realisation that humans have been creating art for over 30,000 years. Episode two reveals how the very first pictures ever made were created, and how images may have triggered the greatest change in human history.

Programme Three - The Art of Persuasion
The visual devices used by Tony Blair and George Bush to get themselves elected and maintain power, come not from modern times, but a world that is thousands of years old. How Art Made the World ventures back to the creation of Stonehenge and the reign of Alexander the Great to reveal how imagery became an indispensable weapon in every leader's political armoury.

Programme Four - Once Upon a Time
Each year over seven billion people across the world are drawn to see the latest feature films in the cinema. This episode reveals how the most powerful storytelling medium ever created exploits visual techniques invented by artists in the ancient world.

Programme Five - To Death and Back
Today in the 21st Century people see fewer real dead bodies than at any time in history. Yet in the modern world we seem almost obsessed with images of death. In an investigation encompassing ancient Jericho, Aztec America, and classical Italy, How Art Made the World discovers what it is that has compelled human beings to surround themselves with images of death for thousands of years.