Civilizations | KCET

Civilizations
Survey the history of art, from antiquity to the present, on a global scale. Programs reveal the role art and creative imagination have played in forging humanity, and introduce viewers to works of beauty, ingenuity and illumination across cultures.
Full Episodes
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Civilizations
Civilizations
What Is Art (Good for)?
Explore art in the age of revolution, war and profound scientific change and consider the question: Should art create a separate realm, a place of escape, or should it plunge into the chaos, transforming the way we see and live in the world?
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Civilizations
Civilizations
The Cult of Progress
Examine the rise and fall of "progress" as an ideology, and see how the "civilizing" project that arose from Enlightenment ideas was fraught with contradictions that troubled European artists in different ways.
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Civilizations
Civilizations
Color and Light
Explore the story of light and color in art both in the search for greater realism and spiritual ecstasy.
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Civilizations
Civilizations
Paradise On Earth
Explore one of humanity's deepest artistic urges: the depiction of nature.
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Civilizations
Civilizations
Renaissances
Travel east and west to explore the connections and rivalries between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic empires that experienced their own cultural flowering in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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Popular Videos
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California’s Native peoples have lived with drought cycles for millennia and today, the Paiute are shepherding conversations around access to water resources, raising key questions about how our snowpack, streams and aquifers are used and maintained.
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During World War II, three renowned photographers captured scenes from the Japanese incarceration: outsiders Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams and incarceree Tōyō Miyatake who boldly smuggled in a camera lens to document life from within the camp.
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Parents are willing to spend thousands to get the competitive edge in the college admissions process, but at what cost? Socal Connected takes a revealing look at the high stakes world of the for-profit education consultant business.
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Los Angeles’s water sources run as far as hundreds of miles away.
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Griffith Park is one of the largest municipal parks in the United States. Its founder, Griffith J. Griffith, donated the land to the city as a public recreation ground for all the people — an ideal that has been challenged over the years.
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After many years for neglect, the Gardens Conservancy and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area have begun a multi million-dollar restoration of the gardens. Huell gets a special look at this almost forgotten part of our history.
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Phryne investigates the death of a young female worker in a factory 'accident' and soon learns that the woman's death might not be the misadventure the police think it is.
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"Mother of the Earth" takes a look at Hayedeh Shirzadi and her husband's attempts to put an end to the dumping and burial of urban garbage in their city.
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George crisscrosses Laos to witness a nation entering the modern world.