BBC looks beyond the west to retell the story of civilisation

Civilisations – note the plural – reworks the classic 1969 TV series into a truly global history of art

The meeting had already eaten up the morning when Michael Jackson, executive producer of the BBC’s new art epic, Civilisations, challenged me to explain why Michelangelo needed to be in a world history of art for a 21st-century audience.

I gave, I thought, a passionate explanation: that Michelangelo invented the very idea of the artist as an imaginative genius, that without him, not to mention the European Renaissance that he epitomised, we wouldn’t see artists as heroes or even be interested in art itself as a special, magical thing but would just see it as a bunch of luxury craft objects or religious decor.

Related: Civilisations: new BBC series 'goes to the heart of human creativity'

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