For the first time in almost 400 years King Charles I’s art collections, one of the greatest ever assembled, is reunited for a once in a lifetime exhibition here at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Brenda Emmanus, Charles I’s Treasures Reunited, BBC 2018
Charles’s royal palaces were bursting with 2,000 art works that would bring a taste of the Renaissance to Britain. ibid.
Conmen: the most devious of all criminals. Charming, cruel and calculating, they betray trust and devastate lives yet remain a complete enigma. Conman Case Files s1e1: John Myatt & John Drewe, 2007
The 20th century’s biggest art fraud: a struggling artist was drawn into a con which would make millions, with the artist and conman secretly working together for almost a decade. ibid.
Drewe: his masterstroke was the infiltration of the British art archives. ibid.
‘We reckon he’d done about 200.’ ibid.
The art world and the police were gathering evidence. ibid.
When civilisations meet each other for the first time there is always the danger of conflict … but time and again these momentous meetings sparked great artistic energy. David Olusoga, Civilisations s1e6: First Contact
The Benin bronzes: they are now regarded as one of Africa’s greatest treasures. ibid.
An encounter that would prove to be one of the most cataclysmic events in all human history. On the eve of Spain’s arrival, Central America was dominated by the Aztecs. ibid.
The very first Europeans to reach Japan arrived by accident. ibid.
Amsterdam was the testing ground for modern capitalism. Through its stock exchange, the Dutch East India Company became the world’s first publicly traded company … The modern art market was born. ibid.
Europe’s imperial ambitions came to dominate the globe. ibid.
In the 19th century the world was transformed by a powerful idea: a belief among Europeans that their civilisation represented the pinnacle of human progress. It was idea driven by the modernising forces of science and industry. David Olusoga, Civilisation s1e8: The Cult of Progress
The Industrial Revolution first emerged in the English Midlands. Its most potent symbol was a new kind of architecture: the factory ... Industry forced nature to bow before the ambitions of mankind. But from now on industry would also demand human beings submit to the needs of the machine, working in shifts around the shop. ibid.
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Turkish Bath 1863: These were European fantasies. ibid.
J M W Turner: Dudley Worcestershire 1832: The great thinker and art critic John Ruskin saw in the picture an indictment of how the old way of life was being destroyed by the factory and the machine. ibid.
Tabasco State Mexico: There are many places where you can come face to face with the ancient world. But I have to say this is hard to beat. This colossal stone head is almost 3,000 years old. Mary Beard, Civilisations II: How Do We Look, BBC 2018
When civilisations first made art they made it about us. ibid.
One of the most distinctive things about the Athenian culture was an intense focus on a youthful athletic body. ibid.
Terracotta Army: The biggest tableau of sculpture made anywhere in the planet ever. ibid.
This is the figure of Ramesses II who ruled Egypt around 1200 B.C. He was the pharaoh who invested more in his image than any other. His figure is found all over Egypt. ibid.
The Boxer: The body beautiful was not so very far from the body brutalised. ibid.
A barometer of civilisation itself. ibid.
Angkor Wat: It’s religious art at its most spectacular. Mary Beard, Civilisations IV: The Eye of Faith
For millennia, art has been used to bring the human and divine together. And it’s given us some of the most majestic and affecting visual images ever made. ibid.
How can a perfect and indivisible God give up a part of himself to create a son? … Were Jesus and God made of the same substance? ibid.
Islam is absolutely not an artless religion. ibid.
In 1857 Britain’s biggest ever art exhibition was put on show: Manchester Cricket Club had obligingly vacated their ground and in place of the stumps and the nets vast halls of iron and glass were erected to hold more than 16,000 works of art. Mary Beard, Civilisations on Your Doorstep, BBC 2018
By the mid-19th century you didn’t have to go to India, Egypt or Italy to experience the art of the world: you could see it here in Britain. ibid.
Were we civilising others or civilising ourselves? ibid.
Castle Howard wasn’t alone: aristocrats all over the county succumbed to what was called marble mania. ibid.
Ford Madox Brown: The Manchester Murals 1879-93: to celebrate the history of their proudly mercantile industrial civilisation. ibid.
Masterpieces follow power and money. ibid.
There are an awful lot of naked bodies in Western art. And they are often causing trouble even now. Whether it’s demonstrating against sexual violence or a case of concealment to preserve diplomatic relations. Or simply being taken down. The nude stands on some of the deepest fault lines running through society now, speaking directly to issues of men and women, gender and sex. Well actually that’s nothing new. Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude I, BBC 2020
Throughout history, desire has shaped the way we see and respond to the nude. ibid.
Titian: Venus of Urbino 1534: one of the every first reclining nudes in Western art. ibid.
[Artemisia] Gentileschi put strong women centre frame. ibid.
This is totally in your face Greek male nudity … What does that all that acreage of Greek naked male flesh – what does it actually all mean? ibid.
For most of his [David] history, cover-up was the order of the day. ibid.
Picasso: Les Demoiselles D’Avignon 1907. ibid.
The naked human has taken different forms in cultures across the world. ibid.
I have to warn you, it’s not always a pretty sight … Nudes that try and fathom some of the most difficult but fundamental issues of who we are … to see whether nude matters. Mary Beard’s Shock of the Nude II
Jesus: the human and divine body ... Ludwig Krug: Christ as the Man of Sorrows 1510. ibid.
The tortured form of Jesus has been one of the most common subjects of Western art. ibid.
Sir Stanley Spencer: Double Nude Portrait: The Artists and his Second Wife 1957. ibid.
Egon Schiele: the naked body, how it is represented, and what it means. Schiele painted his own body again and again in an act of repeated self-reflection. ibid.
There’s still plenty of art that most of us for all sorts of reasons don’t get to see … There’s always been a virtual secretum. Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art I: Vile Bodies, BBC 2022
What if anything goes too far? ibid.
December 19 1966 Leeds: This was the last occasion in Britain a painter was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. ibid.
For decades after their discovery, ancient statues were kept away from the public gaze in the secretum, whether in Italy or in Britain. ibid.
However much they prefer not to look at images of dead and oozing bodies, I don’t think many people would see them as unethical. ibid.
Works that show the living body in pain take these issues a whole step further. ibid.
What we really need to be asking is where each of us draws out own boundaries and why. ibid.
We live in hazardous times for art especially for statues. A plinth is a dangerous place to be. Mary Beard’s Forbidden Art II
It’s about history and hysteria. To vision and dissent, and about art’s role in some of the greatest social, political and religion conflicts in our time or of any. ibid.
Art has been weaponised in ideological conflicts before. ibid.
‘A picture of the Moors’ murderer Myra Hindley made with children’s hand-prints has been vandalised. The painting, part of the Royal Academy’s Sensation exhibition had paint and an egg thrown at it.’ ibid. BBC news
Tens of thousands of figurative artworks right across Europe were destroyed or debased by protestants who saw this sort of sacred art as idol worship. ibid.