Power of Art

Simon Schama's delectably paradoxical look at some of the great names in art uses a humanistic approach in viewing The Great Masters that at once humbles their genius as flawed humans and exalts their glorious talent. At once witty, sardonic, and sexy, Schama's approach to art couples socio-historical scholarship with the pure joy in viewing something that invigorates the eye, the brain and the heart.

The Power of Art utilizes Schama's wonderfully written narration he brings to so many of his BBC documentaries, as well as beautifully staged and acted mini-dramas to capture the artist's historical context.

By appealing to the everyman's enjoyment of beautiful art, the scholar's love of history, and the artist's appreciation for the myriad influences and subtleties of the craft, Schama's Power of Art is simply lovely.

I saw 3 episodes of this series, the one on Bernini, Caravaggio and Rothko. The paintings are awesomely lit and Shama's observations are interesting and original but I could definitely go for less dramatization. The repeated shots of the Caravaggio's impersonator panting, sweating while fencing on his own are totally indulgent and don't add much to the story; the actor playing Rothko annoyingly trying to seem intense and interesting; these are unnecessary visuals that cheapen the content of the show. Do the producers think we need to see the artist's lives play-acted to engage us? Do they think their art is not enough for the viewer? I find that this approach is condescending and dumbs down the audience. The art, Shama's commentary and narration of the artist's history would have been excellent enough.

Simon Schama's introduction to Caravaggio -- who he was, what he was doing, how other people felt about that -- is sometimes rudimentary, but truly hypnotic. The hypnosis is only broken when Schama looks closely at a painting (his looking NOT being rudimentary) and says something super gut-busting with his weird cadences and intimacy.

For instance, in the Caravaggio ep, Schama dives into The Musicians, a piece featuring a cupid, a boy sadly tuning a stringed thing and baby Caravaggio himself, at the back of what Schama calls "this tight little group". Schama's ensuing analysis of the painting includes the lines "The lead singer is crying his eyes out, and he's just tuning up," and "(intruder) Oh yes, four youths in a closet. Exuse me, so sorry, don't mean to intrude! (tight little group) No no, come on in, darling, pull up a cushion, join us, we're just rehearsing." All of this is said in the most coy VO anyone has ever produced. He calls the painting "fleshy" and "claustrophobic". Really he just crushes it.

This series is worth watching for the re-enactments (many, many good re-enactments), but worth suggesting for Schama's magnetism and keen observations. We should probably make sure this is finding the farthest reaches of space. 9/10!

Update: I know some viewers are hot and cold on his unfolding of Bernini, but Schama's comments on the folds of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa ARE enjoyable and that ep. IS dope.

Update 2: He calls Rembrandt "Mr. Clever Clogs"!

Update 3: Make it to the end of this series and you get to actually watch someone reenact Simon Schama himself as a 20 y/o ruffian staring at a Rothko. This man is a genius.

Whose Van Gogh is more nauseous, Kirk Douglas's or Andy Serkis's? Oh dear lord, how I wish I would have stopped watching this episode of Simon Schama's series, much as I stopped watching "Lust for Life"! How long before I can again look at one of his paintings without thinking of one of the worst examples of British overacting ever recorded? On top of this despicable performance, we are subjected to frenetic editing and oppressive sound effects. Deafening slurping of paint, pounding the canvas with the brush--I know painting and this is not painting. This is cheap pastiche after the video in the movie "The Ring". What a grotesque version of what was surely a beautiful-beautiful thing. Lastly and most reprehensibly, Mr. Schama takes advantage of the ignorant by presenting subjective opinion as fact. Van Gogh's Wheatfield is really the first piece of modern art? You say it so confidently it must be true--gimme a break. This is art history gone horribly wrong.

Schama's series is highly watchable, and I enjoyed his History of Britain as well, but I must vehemently protest to his Bernini episode, which is, admittedly, visually rich, masterly filmed - but Schama makes the unforgivable mistake of basing his biographical material (which takes up half of the episode) on 17th century muckraker Filippo Baldinucci. Baldinucci, who aspired to be another Vasari, generously lent his ear to all the most envious gossip about the artist, and he went out of his way to be spectacular. Thus, we are treated to the disgraceful story of a megalomaniac Bernini whose genius went to his head, who nearly killed his own brother in a jealous rage, and arranged for a bravo to slash the face of Costanza Bonarelli, Bernini's unfaithful mistress, to ribbons, as Schama so vividly puts it. A Bernini whom even his own mother detested. All of this, however, is based on Baldinucci's low-minded attempt to vilify Bernini, and is written, not as Schama seems to suggest, by a biographer who closely followed his subject around in Rome, but by a biographer who was two years old at the time of the Bonarelli scandal related in so vivid details, and Baldinucci's scandalous book was not published until two years after Bernini's death - for very good reasons. It is totally inadmissible. Even the unsympathetic Pope Innocent X was forced to exclaim: "They say bad things about Bernini, but he is a great and rare man". Man - not only artist. For a truthful biography on Bernini, we must go to Howard Hibbard (who carefully gleans from Baldinucci all that is trustworthy). Among the despicable features of Bernini, Schama & Baldinucci report that he never credited his co-workers - the people doing the hard work for the artist - but which artist did? Michelangelo? Rembrandt? Da Vinci? Certainly not. An art historian like Schama should know that the artist was always turned into a brand name, and never laid claim to wield the chisel or the brush himself.

It's a shame about Schama's episode, for his treatment of Bernini as an artist is admirable, and I do agree that Bernini - as Schama says - transcended dualism and deliberately put erotic aspects into his portraits of saints, simply to show a transport that people can relate to. But the biographical yellow press diatribe of the program, collected with immoderate glee from fishwife Baldinucci - really, historian Simon Schama ought to know better!