Kahlil Gibran's The Madman"You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen, the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives, I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me..."
The 20th century saw ordinary Britons upturning ancient power structures and class hierarchies. The catalyst was the First World War, which embroiled the whole nation and called traditional values into question. The result was an ever-growing democratisation of culture, with art coming off gallery walls, becoming an instrument of self-expression at the service of the individual. David Dimbleby looks at some of the great masterworks of modern British art, but also champions lesser appreciated art forms like broadcasting and domestic design.
The story of the British Empire from 1750 to 1900, revealed through its art and treasures. David Dimbleby travels through Britain, America and India, tracing the descent from adventure and inspiration into moral bankruptcy as the Empire became a self-serving bureaucratic machine.
David Dimbleby charts a landmark history of Britain’s greatest art and artefacts over 2000 years in Seven Ages of Britain. Produced in partnership with The Open University, Seven Ages of Britain looks at our extraordinary past through the Arts - both as treasures that have often played a decisive part in events and as marvels of their age.
David Dimbleby charts a landmark history of Britain’s greatest art and artefacts over 2000 years in Seven Ages of Britain. Seven Ages of Britain looks at our extraordinary past through the Arts - both as treasures that have often played a decisive part in events and as marvels of their age. From painted images and monuments of stone and gold to religious relics, weapons of war, instruments of science and works of art; often they are artefacts of great beauty and craftsmanship, but sometimes they are simple, everyday things which have a powerful story to tell.
