East Asia Art

From emakimono to manga, ukiyo-e to shodo, yamato-e to origami – the world of Japanese art is steeped in history, and it continues to amaze today. Our animated friend Norman steers an entertaining ride through the characteristics, history and cultural context of the main traditional forms of Japanese art, including some of the more unusual ones, and finishes with a look at art in modern Japan.

In the 1960s, archaeologists working in China made an extraordinary discovery. They unsealed the twelve-hundred-year-old tomb of a princess. Its walls were covered in magnificent murals - an unprecedented glimpse into life during the Tang dynasty. This documentary tells the fascinating story of the great Empire that made those murals, of the Silk Road that connected it to the world, and of the rebellions and disasters that brought the dynasty crashing down.