Civilizations (2018)

The Cult of Progress (1x8)

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This episode is about the "Progress" as an ideology, and how the "civilizing" project that arose from Enlightenment ideas was fraught with contradictions. During a time when many artists turned to non-Western art and culture for inspiration, artists like Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin and Gottfried Lindauer’s captured very different representations of the relationship between Europeans and indigenous subjects. We explore how some artist followed in the footsteps of American Civil War photographers; with photojournalists like Jacob Riis turning the camera lens on the urban poor to help turn photography into a documentary art. U.S. version narrated by Liev Schreiber.