The Only Way Is Up Pompei!!!

I doubt it's widely known how art in all it's forms over the centuries has shaped and influenced life on earth, without such ingenuity as cave drawings and the hieroglyphics of ancient civilsation how could we have ever known the origins of human communication and how language developed. The Roman's taught so much about how life on earth developed through their own existence, perhaps not all good but nonetheless significantly changing life on earth.

From the stone-age gesticulations grunts and mumbling, so limited was their knowledge of speech, to this century's advanced forms of communication where language differences are no longer a barrier. This progression was indeed recorded by artistry throughout history giving us the knowledge today to learn and better understand our ancestry.

Key figures such as the author George Orwell so often quoted as being the soothsayer of his generation, in particular his novel '1984' that doomsters like to cite when predicting the future of life on earth - perhaps not a good example as his book was only a novel, not a prophecy.

Now Leonard da Vinci could certainly be thought of as a true prophet of his era, he was drawing machines around c.1500 before locomotion was conceded by the scientific minds of early day mechanical engineers. Reverting to Orwell's novel approach to the future it's not unreasonable to consider the many works of science fiction in books and films that today enthrall the more adventurous human minds that come to be a reality in terms of futuristic visions.

Iconic works of art preserved for longevity in places of worship and the glories of such as Michelangelo's adornment of the Sistine Chapel - a veritable masterpiece, there really is no end to examples of the masters of artwork that teach us about our predecessors and how they lived. Egyptian civilisation carefully crafted and preserved for posterity by the hands of it's people so vastly different from modern civilisation in every way and yet they all play an important part of who we are today.