Simon Schama's Power Of Art
On 大象传媒 TWO from Friday 20 October 2006, 9.00pm
Introduction
"Art is the enemy of the routine, the mechanical and the humdrum. It stops us in our tracks with a high voltage jolt of disturbance; it reminds us of what humanity can do beyond the daily grind. It takes us places we had never dreamed of going; it makes us look again at what we had taken for granted." Simon Schama
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Simon Schama recounts the remarkable story of eight moments of high drama in the making of eight masterpieces: Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath; Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa; Rembrandt's Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis; Jacques-Louis David's Marat; Turner's Slave Ships with Slavers Throwing the Dead and Dying Overboard; Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows; Picasso's Guernica; and Mark Rothko's suite of paintings for the Seagram Building restaurant, the Four Seasons in New York.
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In Power of Art, he returns to the intense moment of the work's original creation. In each case, the artist is backed into a corner, facing a crisis: given a chance to confound his rivals, enemies and critics one more time.
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However, this is more than a story about art and artists. Simon Schama takes us back to the birthplace of these masterpieces: to the murderous, messianic world of Baroque Rome; paranoid, revolutionary Paris; the madhouses and brothels of Provence, the carnage of civil war Spain, and the edgy glitz of Cold War Manhattan.
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In all these places and through the eyes of critics and their work, a very modern history of the Western world unfolds.
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Simon Schama follows the phenomenal success of A History of Britain with this explosive and challenging new television series and book, which explore the power, and ultimately, the whole point, of art.
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Jolting us from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists - Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko.
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Each in their own resolute way faced crisis with steadfast defiance. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness, and changed the way we look at the world.
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With powerfully vivid story-telling, Schama reveals the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through.
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Created in a bolt of illumination, these works "tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript - 'OK, OK, but what's art really for?"
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Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University in New York.
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Since 1995, he has been art and culture critic for The New Yorker and essayist for the Guardian.
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His award-winning books include The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age; Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution; Landscape and Memory; Rembrandt's Eyes; and the History of Britain trilogy.
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His most recent book, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, was published to critical acclaim in 2005.
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There is a book to accompany this series, published on 28 September (ISBN
0 563 48710 0).
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Simon Schama is available for interview.
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Online and Interactive
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The 大象传媒 and Arts Council England are working in partnership to deliver off-air interactive and online content to support The Power of Art.
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This content will allow audiences to take their interest beyond their television screens and into galleries and museums across the country.
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Through a series of interactive online maps, private views, and city guides, audiences will be sign posted to galleries across the UK where they can view work by artists from the series, as well as the work of contemporary artists which explore the themes of series.
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KG
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