How Art Made the World :: Education by Design Store

Customer Reviews

art rules

2008-06-02
I like the author's perspective that art tells the story of history, that we are creative beings and our creativity is what to follow to find out about how we think. Great stuff.

Mystery to uncover

2008-05-07
This movie will change your way of receiving information from visuals. A phicological trip to the meaning of art. The story will tell you not only how but rather why the art was created and used.

Mediocre Minds Opine on the Evolution of Art

2008-04-25
Over ambitious project presents wild conjectures as truth, without proof. Slick exploitation of claims upon subject matter bolstered by sound and fury in place of substance. Intellectually vapid. NOT art history, and only half a step above those well researched revelations splayed on the pages of the National Inquireror. That the filmmakers believe they are performing the equivelant of translating the Rosetta Stone here-with-in is quite evident by the hubris of including their "Special Features" section, which consists of the filmmakers talking about setting up certain shots; what kind of a self-important mind could conceive that anyone would want to waste their time watching them relate that their camera crane showed up late one night. Who cares?! I am very disappointed that I wasted my time and money on this immature work of floppy-doodle.

How Art Made The World

2008-04-07
I originally rented this Documentary on a whim, at a public library and was so blown away by it's content, cinematography and scope, that I immediately went to [...] to purchase several! It has been filmed literally ALL OVER the world, and the time line is comprehensive and thorough. I would recommend this for public schools and colleges as the one course (5 hrs) to broaden anyone's appreciation of the uniquely human phenomena of decorating our world (no matter how small). From caves to cathedrals, it's an incredible journey.

Absolutely Superb!

2008-03-28
This is a very insightful and informative series about the all encompassing affect that art and imagery has had on western civilisation. This series has some new and different ideas that I have not seen elsewhere. It would be great to use in school with an art history or comparative Civ. class. For some reason the main writer and presenter is left off the description, Nigel Spivey. He reminds me greatly of Simon Schama. If liked this you'd probably also enjoy his work too.

Basic and Misleading Treatment of World Art

2008-01-12
Why does our world look like it does? That great modern mystery is spectacularly unraveled in this international landmark series and epic quest across five continents and 100000 years via some of the greatest treasures of the ancient world -- to the heart of human creativity. Encompassing everything from cave paintings to ceramics and pyramids to palaces How Art Made the World probes the global trend for unrealistic depictions of the human body; the secret powers of the feature film; how politicians manage to manipulate people so easily; visions of death and the afterlife; and crucially why we use imagery at all.Running Time: 290 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MISCELLANEOUS/SPECIAL INTEREST UPC: 794051245724 Manufacturer No: E2457

How Art Made the World

2007-12-11
Loved the series, thought provoking and outrageous conclusions about art. Most interesting was how mankind took a three dimensional world and lost one dimension to paint on caves and rocks, abstraction in an early form. Most outrageous were his premises and conclusion about the power of pending death has on art.
I would recommend this DVD to anyone interested looking for an introductory offering to art history. But I would view with a skeptical eye.

Ugh

2007-11-29
"Yes, you heard him. He did say `Seagulls'." It's statements like these that make this an insipidly condescending documentary. As if that weren't enough, the narrator seems to think he can hide his bland vacuousness by jerking and nodding his head to every one of his banal syllables. These poor people also seem to think that they can improve a crappy documentary with fancy special effects. Many will no doubt fall for the trick. It's documentaries like these that confirm my feeling that some establishment out there is bent on destroying the world's IQ.

interesting but weak assertions

2007-11-05
David Attenbourough presents a lot of interesting educational information in this DVD. The major problem is that his assertions about the importance, impact and universality of art are very very weak. This is not to say
that all his assertions are false either. He just makes very weak arguments for his case. I noticed he also has a book "How Art Made
the World". Perhaps he does a better job there presenting his information.
Besides, this major flaw, I found the DVD intersting and did learn some history from it.

Nice break from too much reading, reviewing.

2007-10-28

I bought this along with several books for a grad student studying for exams. It provided an interesting alternative to endless reading.