Mona Lisa: This is perhaps the most famous image in history. Millions of people cross the world every year to visit it but very few look at the painting directly. Most stare instead into their camera-phones, or use their precious seconds with the Mona Lisa to photograph themselves. James Fox, Age of the Image I: A New Reality, BBC 2020
A revolution in visual culture that has turned us into a population of image addicts. We now take more photographs every minute than were made in the entire 19th century, and spend an average of 6 hours a day gazing into screens. ibid.
And in a digital age revealing them in eye-opening detail. ibid.
Why do images give us such pleasure? How do we make sense of them? Where do they get their power? And ultimately, can we trust them? ibid.
I see Cezanne’s clumsy masterpiece as the beginning of a new visual age. An era of unprecedented speed, and change, where traditions expired, certainties dissolved, and solid ground seemed to crumble beneath one’s feet. ibid.
The democratisation of image-making. ibid.
In my opinion the first great master of the snapshot was not only an amateur but a child: Jacques Lartigue … Lartigue’s photographs were intimate objects. ibid.
Lartigue fell in love with the velocity of modernity. ibid.
A monochrome miracle, a reminder of the beauty that hides in plain sight. ibid.
Futurist artists portrayed the dematerializing dynamism of modern life. ibid.
Frank Hurley: Hurley’s photographs had undeniable impact. In the hundred years since they were taken they’ve inspired paintings, film sets, and poster designs. Making the First World War unimaginable without them. When we see the conflict we see it through Hurley’s eyes. ibid.
The American cinema industry had grown rapidly. ibid.
Surrealism erupted in Paris in 1924. Many of its members loved Buster Keaton’s film. To them nothing was more surreal. ibid.
Dali’s scientific interests may feature in arguably his most celebrated painting: The Persistence of Memory, 1931 … Dali’s soft clocks have oozed their way into our collective consciousness. ibid.
Nowadays we all use images to penetrate the mysteries of time and space. ibid.
Science and technology rewrote the rules of physics, and inevitably changed our perspective on the world. ibid.
Stalin manipulated images throughout his rule because he understand that if he controlled what people saw, he could control how they thought. And he was not alone. In the 20th century new technology and mass communication gave images immense power. James Fox, Age of the Image II: Power Games
[Marlene] Dietrich was of course doing it deliberately. In her films as well as her life Dietrict’s image wasn’t just a fashion statement, it was a political statement. ibid.
[Leni] Riefenstahl’s task was to film the Nazi Party rally of 1934. Which took place here in Nuremberg. Riefenstahl was given bountiful resources: she had a crew of almost 200. ibid.
Francis Bacon was a magpie collector of images. His studio was strewn with that pictures he’d cannibalised and consumed. ibid.
Here in Britain a group of politically committed filmmakers emerged using the medium to raise urgent social issues and campaign for political change. Among them was Ken Loach. ibid.
Television could deliver a message to so many people and directly into their homes. It had found a powerful social purpose. ibid.
Images are seductive. From childhood onwards when we stare into our first picture books we are hooked on them. And it’s an obsession we never lose. James Fox, Age of the Image III: Seductive Dreams
In the second half of the twentieth century, images became more seductive than ever. ibid.
New worlds, fantasy worlds, into which a veraciously visual public could escape. ibid.
Advertising: A fantasy world in which we are happier, healthier and more successful. ibid.
No artist reflected on this obsession more relentlessly than Andy Worhol. He’s most famous for his screen-prints of the era’s biggest stars. ibid.
All of us long for a better life. One where we’re free to pursue our dreams. This is brought David Hockney, who was born in Bradford, to Los Angeles. He arrived at the city for the first time in 1964 … ibid.
Hockney found in these homes and gardens a 20th century arcadia, which he went on to chronicle and crystallise in paint. ibid.
This is a story about our relationship to nature. For most of us the natural world is a place of beauty and wonder. Though all too often we are reminded of its terrifying force. But today more than any other time in our history our relationship with nature is in crisis. Human activity not only threatens our planet but our own survival. So how did it come to this? James Fox, Nature & Us: A History through Art I: Out of Nature, BBC 2021
We’ll explore the art of the ancient past: how our earliest ancestors invested the natural world with magic and power. But how we then tried to separate ourselves from nature and tried to control it. ibid.
Around 30,000 years ago, deep inside Chauvet Cave in France, Paleolithic artists created these images. ibid.
An important part of the animist worldview is that humans and animals are interconnected. ibid.
Agriculture marked the beginning of a long journey in which we separated ourselves from nature and tried to control it. And yet we have never been more at its mercy. So to make sense of that paradox, our ancestors turned to religion. ibid.
Many ancient belief systems were rooted in natural worship. ibid.
The Greeks had begun a pivot from natural worship to human worship. ibid.
I want to understand how humans tried to understand nature, and gaining knowledge led us to appreciate it in a whole new way. It’s a story driven by faith and by science. James Fox, Nature & Us: A History through Art II: Understanding Nature
So when did we start trying to understand nature? A clue lies in the art and culture of East Asia. ibid.
That relationship has been challenged by the urges of modern life. ibid.
Islamic artists pursued and expressed that knowledge in all of the arts. ibid.
In the 18th century many Europeans began to reshape the natural world around them. ibid.
Perhaps best expressed in the art of George Stubbs. ibid.
No romantic artist was drawn more magnetically to the wild forces of nature than Joseph Mallard William Turner. ibid.
Yosemite gained legal protection in June 1864, followed just 8 years later by Yellowstone as the first official national park. ibid.
I’m exploring the last hundred years, our own age. When we transformed nature and our relationship with it faster than ever before. We’ll see how modern art reflected the unstoppable march of human progress as people increasingly rejected the natural world. James Fox, Nature & Us: A History through Art III: Future Nature
The complete confidence of an earlier age began to fade away. ibid.
In the aftermath of the Second World War a new generation of artists turned their backs on what they saw as the illusion of progress, and re-engaged with nature in astonishingly direct ways. ibid.
They were often called Earth Artists or Land Artists and they made some of the largest and more memorable art work of the century. ibid.