Simon Schama’s Power of Art

SIMON SCHAMA’S POWER OF ART

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It is beautiful. Fascinating. Emotions are running high. All of the above are encompassed by art. Only a few are powerful. The works that lift you off your feet in their sheer artistry, they forever alter the human psyche. Power of Art shows the history of visual imagination through the ages, from the murder of baroque Rome to the paranoia of revolutionary Paris, from the carnage of civil-war Spain to the paradoxes of 1950s New York. The viewer is transported back to the intense moments that great works were conceived and born with a combination of dramatic reconstruction, spectacular photography and Simon Schama’s unique, personal style of telling stories. The eight works of art are: Caravaggio’s David and Goliath, Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, David’s Death of Marat, Turner’s The Slave Ship, and Van Gogh’. A collection of hour-long films on eight seminal artists and their works, which originally aired on British television, is as entertaining as it is enlightening. Each portrait of the artist weaves biography and historical context to help explain the true power of his works. Theo was about to put his brother on the artistic map when he saw Van Gogh’s painting of Wheat Field With crows. Within weeks, Van Gogh had killed himself. Why would he want to do that? Then she narrates the tale of the answer. The viewer gains new appreciation for Van Gogh’s works along the way. There is nothing left about these organisms landing violently from a burning sun. The cumulative effect of the reenactments is a new appreciation of the work and the man. The French opera scene in the David episode, for instance, was cast using just 20 French extras and then the rest was created by computer-generated imagery, which works better than the film King Kong.