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.
Director: Cao Shu
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
videoArt
A young Rockefeller collects art on a fateful journey to New Guinea
7 minutes
videoArchitecture
A lush tour of Fallingwater – the Frank Lloyd Wright design that changed architecture
14 minutes
videoArt
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes