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Intelligent, gripping, innovative, Robert Hughes' eight-part exploration of modern art. First shown on BBC Two in the 1980s, the series looks at different themes rather than presenting the art chronologically.
Ben Lewis: "It is the greatest series on art ever made"
The Mechanical Paradise - Episode 1
Traces how developments in technology inspired art between 1880 and the end of WWI, leading to movements like cubism and futurism.
The Powers that Be - Episode 2
Hughes explores the interplay between art and politics, seeing how artists were affected by the development of mechanised warfare and ideologies like fascism and communism.
The Landscape of Pleasure - Episode 3
The French artists who attempted to reconcile man with nature, from the determination of the impressionists to paint outside to Matisse's vibrant use of colour.
Trouble in Utopia - Episode 4
How modern architects in the wake of the Bauhaus aspired to change societies with their designs, a move represented both by Le Corbusier and the plans for the city Brasilia.
The Threshold of Liberty - Episode 5
The art movement that gripped its exponents with the fervour of a religion: surrealism. Artists like Di Chirico, Ernst, Miró and Dalí; brought the subconscious to the fore and attempted to tap into innocent and irrationality.
The View From the Edge - Episode 6
Expressionism sprung out of the harsh, secular atmosphere of the 20th Century and evolved, through the strong colours and often sombre moods of artists like Munch, to the non-figurative work of Pollock and De Kooning.
Culture as Nature - Episode 7
Artists began to take man-made images as their inspiration, leading to the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as well as Stuart Davis' collages inspired by jazz.
The Future That Was - Episode 8
The final episode in the series explores the decline of modernism and how various artists have reacted to the consequent commercialisation of their art. |
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