Civilisations Stories S01E02 - Art, Us and the Truth

Meteorologist Tomasz Schafernaker reveals his passion - and talent - for the art of portraiture and discovers that our 21st-century obsession with image is nothing new. In this tour of some of the south of England's art treasures, he learns how artists down the ages have subtly shaped and manipulated our opinions of their subjects, and the times in which they lived, by enhancing some aspects of their features and erasing others.

He discovers how, 2,000 years ago, Celtic Britons looked to Roman coins for tips on how to appear as Roman as possible and that Renaissance artists in the 1600s effectively photoshopped their subjects in oil paint to convey the right public image, and the captivating portraits of pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron inspire him to take more risks with his own art.