大象传媒

Architect Amanda Levete climbs the Tulip Stairs in the Queen鈥檚 House, Greenwich, and reassesses Inigo Jones鈥� elegant and innovative design, while portrait artist Tai Shan Schierenberg encounters Van Dyck鈥檚 monumental portrait of the Earl of Pembroke鈥檚 family and finds signs of the dysfunction and tensions which point to the civil war to come.

This was a war that would be waged across three kingdoms, and artist Rita Duffy explores some of the poisonous propaganda it created in Wenceslas Hollar鈥檚 Teares of Ireland woodcuts, while photographer Platon examines the Puritan aesthetic through Samuel Cooper鈥檚 鈥榳arts and all鈥� miniature of Oliver Cromwell.

The battle between royalist and parliamentary forces brought bloodshed but ultimately the rise of a more questioning culture. Actor Anton Lesser performs excerpts of John Milton鈥檚 daring Paradise Lost, which laments the fall of the republic through the figure of a charismatic Satan rebelling against God, the king.

The restoration of the monarchy saw a new creative flourishing in works by playwright Aphra Behn and the intricate baroque carvings of Grinling Gibbons. But it is in the rise of a more scientific mindset that creativity would find greatest expression: artist Angela Palmer marvels at the artistry of Robert Hooke鈥檚 Micrographia, and sculptor Thomas Heatherwick reveals the brilliant architectural deceptions in Christopher Wren鈥檚 dome of St Paul鈥檚.