This meticulously animated short by the Chinese new-media artist and educator Cao Shu traverses some five millennia of art in a single minute. As flickering images move chronologically, in flipbook fashion, through a parade of styles and artistic movements – from Ancient Egypt, to the Impressionist era, to the 20th century avant-garde – a gender-shifting character makes a series of simple movements, seemingly ambling through the history of art.
A jaunt through five millennia of art history in just one minute
Director: Cao Shu
23 March 2018

videoDesign and fashion
Beyond fortune-telling – the enduring beauty and allure of tarot
16 minutes

videoHistory of ideas
How to read ‘The School of Athens’ – a triumph of Renaissance art
25 minutes

videoArt
Finding the spirit of Haiti through a tour of its contemporary art
20 minutes

videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes

videoNature and landscape
After independence, Mexico was in search of identity. These paintings offered a blueprint
15 minutes

videoMathematics
Spiral into the ‘golden ratio’ – and separate the myths from the maths
4 minutes


