Civilisations - Season 1 Episode 3

Simon Schama looks into the artistic history of depictions of landscapes, both natural or idealized and man-altered. While often represented ad background, nature would only become a full Western genre in its own right during the religious wars between Catholics and protestants with Altendorfer, while in China it was ancient, especially in the form of cartoon-like scrolls. IN Islamic art, with its ban of depicting living creatures -still exceptions were allowed, as in Persian tapestry- nature was rather suggested in geometric motives and color patterns. The mills-won land was a subject of particular pride for the Dutch, the scenery of pioneer exploration and conquest in America from the Hudson Valley (NY) school of painting and again in photography especially around Yosemite Valley (California).