Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 129: Ancient Roman Roads, Theaters, Arenas, and Aqueducts
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Much of the “art and architecture” of ancient Rome could be found in its infrastructure.
Much of the “art and architecture” of ancient Rome could be found in its infrastructure and engineering. It was a society of builders, and its vast empire was held together with no-nonsense infrastructure (always solid, useful, and beautiful) and its propaganda.
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Rick Steves' Europe
Art Bites 129: Ancient Roman Roads, Theaters, Arenas, and Aqueducts
Clip | 5m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Much of the “art and architecture” of ancient Rome could be found in its infrastructure and engineering. It was a society of builders, and its vast empire was held together with no-nonsense infrastructure (always solid, useful, and beautiful) and its propaganda.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThe Romans were infrastructure geeks and engineering wonks.
If an ancient Roman tourist came to America, their sightseeing bucket list would include a freeway interchange and the Golden Gate Bridge.
In many ways, the “art” of Rome was engineering: building the no-nonsense infrastructure of empire and adding to that propaganda to celebrate that empire and keep people in line.
As Rome expanded, they built elaborate waterworks—Aqueducts you can see to this day—bringing fresh water into the great cities of the empire: to Nimes in France, Segovia in Spain, and of course into the city of Rome itself.
They built roads to connect their conquests and facilitate trade and communication.
The Appian Way, Rome█s gateway to the East, was the grandest and fastest, a wonder of its day.
Very straight — as Roman engineers were fond of designing — it stretched 400 miles past Naples and on to Brindisi, from where Roman ships sailed to Greece and Palestine.
These are the original stones.
By the first century BC, you could have traveled from Jerusalem all the way to Spain on Roman Roads like this through an empire enjoying unprecedented stability and peace.
Whether you were a traveling tin merchant, a postal carrier, or the commander of some Roman legion, this network of roads made doing your work much easier.
The emperor█s agenda was to Romanize his people--to create a populace that was thoroughly Roman.
Wherever they lived in the empire, people expected and got the standard features of a Roman city: roads, running water, arenas, and theaters.
And this was for good reason.
It was a bribe: conquered people would accept Roman rule in exchange for the infrastructure of good living.
Rome█s legacy shines to this day in huge construction projects across its vast empire.
Wherever they conquered, they built: and that included walls to protect it all.
This once mighty wall, built by Emperor Hadrian, stretched 70 miles across northern England—close to today█s border with Scotland—to protect Britannia and mark the northern-most reach of the empire.
Water infrastructure was a Roman engineering forte█and vital for the empire.
The Pont du Garde (in southern France) is just one of many ancient aqueducts surviving across Europe.
They heralded the greatness of Rome, reminding the far-flung empire█s subjects how fortunate they were to be on the winning team.
This perfectly preserved Roman bridge supported a canal or aqueduct on the very top.
The Pont du Gard was a critical link, helping keep a steady river of water flowing cross-country and across this river.
Remarkably, it was engineered so that the water dropped only one inch for every 300 feet for 30 miles, harnessing gravity to flow all the way to the city of Nimes.
A chance to walk through the top level shows how it all worked.
This is what Roman aqueducts were all about.
This is part of a 30-mile long channel — a man-made river flowed through this for 400 years.
You can still see the original stones, a thin layer of mortar that waterproofed the channel, and, after centuries of use, a thick mineral build up.
The Pont du Gard█s main arch is the largest the Romans ever built.
The bridge itself has no mortar — just ingeniously stacked stones.
Taking full advantage of that Roman specialty--the round arch, the structure is held in place by gravity.
Simple as it may seem, the round arch was key to Roman architectural greatness.
Previous structures were limited by two vertical posts spanned by a lintel—which was structurally weak.
A round arch could span a much wider gap.
And once the central keystone is placed, the arch can support just about whatever you want to build on top of it.
Without the round arch, none of Rome█s greatest structures would have been possible.
Arenas, like this one in southern France, are another fine example of Roman engineering█ and Roman propaganda.
In the spirit of “give the masses bread and circuses,” admission to arenas and theaters was free█ another perk for subjects of “Team Rome.”
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Art Bites 195: Social Realism, the Art of Communism
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Clip | 1m 51s | The art of Communism diligently promoted the heroic symbols of the state as propaganda. (1m 51s)
Art Bites 194: Picasso’s "Guernica"
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Clip | 2m 54s | With the large Cubist-inspired painting, Picasso put a human face on “collateral damage.” (2m 54s)
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Clip | 1m 36s | With heavy outlines and brilliant colors, Chagall celebrated nature and its creator. (1m 36s)
Art Bites 192: Surrealism and Salvador Dalí
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Clip | 2m 34s | Surrealists explored the subconscious painting everyday images in jarring juxtapositions. (2m 34s)
Art Bites 191: Edvard Munch and Expressionism
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Clip | 2m 6s | Expressionism captured emotions, trauma, and cynicism with distorted and garish works. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 190: Romanticism and Romantic Era Painting
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Clip | 2m 43s | Epic, melodramatic canvases, images that stir the emotions, and an embrace of nature. (2m 43s)
Art Bites 189: Pablo Picasso: Cubism, "Guernica," and Much More
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Clip | 5m 14s | Picasso invented Cubism, captured the horror of warfare, and found freedom in abstraction. (5m 14s)
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Clip | 1m 35s | Gustav Klimt, with paintings like “The Kiss” captured a simmering hedonism in Vienna. (1m 35s)
Art Bites 187: Toulouse-Lautrec
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Clip | 1m 46s | Toulouse-Lautrec painted the turn-of-the-century bohemian scene on Paris’ Montmartre Hill. (1m 46s)
Art Bites 186: Modern Art and the Isms of the 20th Century
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Clip | 4m 31s | 20th-century art was a parade of isms: Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism. (4m 31s)
Art Bites 185: Art Nouveau, Mucha, and Gaudí
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Clip | 5m 3s | Art Nouveau went organic with willowy maidens, melting eaves, and an embrace of nature. (5m 3s)
Art Bites 184: Vincent van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 1s | Van Gogh’s wild brush strokes and vivid colors portrayed the world he felt so intensely. (3m 1s)
Art Bites 183: The Post-Impressionists: Seurat, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh
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Clip | 3m 51s | Dots, slabs, primitive Tahitian scenes, wild brush strokes, and vivid colors. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 182: Claude Monet and His Waterlilies
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Clip | 2m 10s | The true subject of Monet’s “Waterlilies” is the changing reflections on the pond. (2m 10s)
Art Bites 181: Rodin, Impressionism in Sculpting
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Clip | 1m 27s | Auguste Rodin brought Impressionism to stone with iconic statues like “The Thinker.” (1m 27s)
Art Bites 180: Impressionism, Monet, Renoir, and Degas
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Clip | 6m 20s | The Impressionists revolutionized art with a focus on nature: light, shadow, and color. (6m 20s)
Art Bites 179: Northern Baroque Painting: Hals, Steen, Vermeer
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Clip | 4m 53s | Hals, Steen, Vermeer painted slices of regular life and group portraits of city bigwigs. (4m 53s)
Art Bites 178: Baroque Music, Bernini for Your Ears
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Clip | 2m 5s | This mini piano concert demonstrates how Baroque music can be like Bernini for your ears. (2m 5s)
Art Bites 177: Rubens, a Master Painter of the Northern Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 28s | Rubens painted mythic battles, Catholic miracles, bloody hunts, and “Rubenesque” women. (3m 28s)
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Clip | 1m 53s | Gritty realism, stark lighting, and drama gave Caravaggio’s art an emotional punch. (1m 53s)
Art Bites 175: Bernini and Baroque Sculpture
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Clip | 5m 37s | Rome was Bernini’s gallery where you can see his squares, fountains, and finest statues. (5m 37s)
Art Bites 174: Baroque Art as Propaganda
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Clip | 3m 29s | Baroque art was propaganda for the state or for the Church. (3m 29s)
Art Bites 173: Baroque Art, the Catholic Church, and the Virgin Mary
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Clip | 3m 42s | Pro-Vatican Baroque featured big canvases, dramatic statues, and exuberant architecture. (3m 42s)
Art Bites 172: The Reformation and the Baroque Age
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Clip | 5m 6s | The roots of Baroque go back to the 1500s when it told the story of the religious wars. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 171: Neoclassical Art, the Age of Revolution, and Napoleon
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Clip | 5m 6s | The French Revolution came with art that celebrated liberty, equality, and brotherhood. (5m 6s)
Art Bites 170: Neoclassical Art and Architecture, the Age of Enlightenment
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Clip | 5m 49s | Neoclassical was a stern, no-frills style that celebrated a new age of science and reason. (5m 49s)
Art Bites 169: Rococo Art and Architecture, Baroque Gone Wild
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Clip | 2m 7s | Rococo art featured aristocrats playing in their Baroque palaces and bucolic backyards. (2m 7s)
Art Bites 168: Royal Palaces of the Baroque Age and Versailles
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Clip | 5m 36s | Versailles, with its heavenly painted ceilings, was the ultimate Baroque palace. (5m 36s)
Art Bites 167: Royal Portraits and Velázquez
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Clip | 3m 33s | Painters, such as Velázquez, were paid to make royals look more divine than they were. (3m 33s)
Art Bites 166: Rembrandt, The Great Dutch Master
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Clip | 3m 51s | Rembrandt earned a living painting and told Bible stories with a subtle mastery of drama. (3m 51s)
Art Bites 165: Sandro Botticelli
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Clip | 2m 24s | Botticelli painted big colorful celebrations of the Renaissance like a fertile springtime. (2m 24s)
Art Bites 164: The Medici Family, Patrons of the Florentine Renaissance
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Clip | 3m 27s | The Medici family nurtured and employed the great Florentine Renaissance artists. (3m 27s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | A humble monk, Fra Angelico frescoed exquisite sacred scenes for his monastery. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 162: Early Renaissance Painting: Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico
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Clip | 5m 26s | These painters brought art from medieval two-dimensional to more life-like 3-D. (5m 26s)
Art Bites 161: Donatello and Early Renaissance Statues
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Clip | 3m 12s | The sculptor Donatello gave his proud statues unprecedented realism and emotion. (3m 12s)
Art Bites 160: Renaissance Artists: Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello
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Clip | 4m 58s | Florence, home of the Renaissance, was also home to three early artistic heroes. (4m 58s)
Art Bites 159: The Renaissance Defined
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Clip | 3m 30s | For two centuries, the Renaissance was an explosion of secular learning, art, and culture. (3m 30s)
Art Bites 158: Hieronymus Bosch and "The Garden of Earthly Delights"
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Clip | 2m 7s | Bosch’s three-paneled masterpiece takes you from earthly delights to a nightmarish Hell. (2m 7s)
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Clip | 2m 6s | Weyden’s exquisitely detailed Last Judgment is filled with symbolism. (2m 6s)
Art Bites 156: Pieter Brueghel the Elder for a Slice of Flemish Life
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Clip | 2m 14s | Brueghel was a master of slice-of-life scenes capturing country folk at play. (2m 14s)
Art Bites 155: Oil Painting, an Improvement over Tempera
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Clip | 2m 9s | Oil paints freed artists like Jan van Eyck, Raphael, and Leonardo to raise the bar. (2m 9s)
Art Bites 154: The Northern Renaissance, Flemish Painting, and Jan van Eyck
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Clip | 3m 10s | Flemish paintings were happy slice-of-life scenes, feel-good, and affordable. (3m 10s)
Art Bites 153: Albrecht Dürer, Realism, Humanism, and the Master Engraver
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Clip | 1m 54s | Albrecht Dürer’s meticulous attention to detail was ideal for his work as an engraver. (1m 54s)
Art Bites 152: El Greco and Mannerism
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Clip | 4m 8s | El Greco painted supernatural visions, faces that flicker, and otherworldly altarpieces. (4m 8s)
Art Bites 151: The Age of Discovery: Portugal and Spain
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Clip | 5m 52s | Portugal had lacy Manueline architecture and Spain’s emperor had far-flung tastes. (5m 52s)
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Clip | 6m 53s | Michelangelo sculpted “David,” painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and designed St. Peter’s. (6m 53s)
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Clip | 3m 36s | Raphael’s sweet Madonnas set a new standard in High Renaissance painting. (3m 36s)
Art Bites 148: Building a Gothic Cathedral Out of 13 Tourists
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Clip | 2m 2s | Gothic church design is best illustrated by building one with 13 travelers. (2m 2s)
Art Bites 147: Gothic Church Architecture, the Pointed Arch and More Light
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Clip | 6m 51s | The Gothic Age was famed for its towering churches filled with glorious stained-glass windows. (6m 51s)
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