Alastair Sooke explores the riches and unique legacy of Greek art. | dHNfd1RKQTY0OWo0U0U
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00:00It was the ancient Greeks who shaped our ideas of what art should look like.
00:16No other civilisation has played such an important role in creating our vision of artistic perfection,
00:27of beauty, of realism.
00:38Today we take the idea of realistic art for granted, but in fact it was the ancient Greeks
00:43who invented it.
00:45In a fundamental sense, they taught us how to see.
00:52And while we're taught that Western civilisation was born here in ancient Greece, its art emerged
00:58from a much darker, stranger place, an older world of myths, monsters and the imagination,
01:07with roots in unexpected places, a world that's still being revealed even now.
01:16Over a period of a thousand years, the idea of Greece would emerge from a handful of kingdoms
01:23scattered across the Mediterranean.
01:27And art would be instrumental in bringing the Greek people together.
01:35From a fascination with the natural world, the intricacies of geometric design, heroic
01:45tales of gods and monsters, to a passion for the human form, and the triumph of Athens
01:58and the classical style.
02:03In this programme, I'll be piecing together what we know about those earliest influences
02:10and separating history from myth, drawing on the epics of Homer and the discoveries
02:18of the 20th century, to reveal how the miracle of Greek art came into being.