Art of America

Episode 1

Looking for Paradise

53 mins

Andrew Graham-Dixon deplores that the Precolombian native cultures I the Americas were annihilated by the European colonists, and mostly inadvertently by epidemics the Indian cultures lacked immunity against, so even what was preserved is usually impossible to appreciate expertly. Colonial art largely aped Europe, albeit generally in the modest price class, and recorded the glory of the New World's nature, and alas its progressive demise of pristine diversity as the West was won and railroads laid the tracks for a rise to wealth heralding the Boston Tea Party conflict leading to the War of Independence. The new nation used art -foremost in the brand new capital- to pose as an equal with great powers, and to cover up injustice, especially towards the gradually chased natives. Finally at recorded the near-suicidal Civil War.