American Visions - The Epic History of Art in America

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Arts Documentary hosted by Robert Hughes, published by BBC in 2002 - English narration

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American Visions American Visions, an eight-part series on American art written and narrated by Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, is both an account of American life and a tribute to American art that will likely propel thousands of the not-yet-converted into museums and galleries, antiques shows and auction rooms to see (and inevitably shop) for themselves. Filmed in 100 locations around the country, covering everything from Quaker to Shaker, George Washington to Bierstadt, Remington to Warhol, and the skyscrapers of New York City, Hughes has applied his considerable wit and imagination to the problem of revealing how art records and preserves both points of view and ways of life. It is American history told through art, not merely a history of art. It offers a perspective that is refreshingly elevating and inclusive. With the same voracious wit and opinionated brilliance that have characterized his criticism for Time magazine, this tour-de-force spans three centuries of events, movements, and personalities that have shaped American society and its art.

[edit] The Republic of Virtue

Robert Hughes charts the foundation of a national identity that sought architectural inspiration from Greece and Rome. He also looks at America's earliest major painters.

[edit] The Promised Land

Robert Hughes explains how America was shaped by Europeans - Spaniards in the south west, Pilgrims in the north east and struggling cavaliers in Virginia - who saw the New World as both paradise and hell.

[edit] The Wilderness and the West

Art critic Robert Hughes looks at America's majestic landscapes, exploring how artists have contributed to the religious and patriotic connotations of nature.

[edit] The Gilded Age

Robert Hughes considers how the Civil War industrialised society, bringing steam power, the Brooklyn Bridge, plutocrats and an urban underclass. Nostalgia for loss entered the culture and brought the Museum Age.

[edit] The Wave from the Atlantic

Mass immigration at the turn of the century confirmed America as a multicultural society, but also brought increased poverty and slum life. Robert Hughes examines how this was often reflected in art.

[edit] Streamlines and Breadlines

Robert Hughes considers America during the 1920s and 30s, including the skyscraper as the image of modernism, the Depression, regionalist art and black art.

[edit] The Empire of Signs

Robert Hughes examines America's development into the art capital of the West between 1945 and the late 1960s, with the advent of abstract expressionism and pop art.

[edit] The Age of Anxiety

Robert Hughes focuses on work that responded to the Vietnam War and civil strife. He traces the development of minimalism and ends up on top of an extinct volcano.