Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17518 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Synopsis
'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality...' With the same disarming force, "Power of Art" jolts us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, as Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art forever.The embattled heroes - Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko - each in his 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.With powerfully vivid story-telling, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of civil-war Spain.

Most compelling of all, "Power of Art" traces the extraordinary evolution of eight world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such 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?"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous and revealing
I loved the TV series and I loved the book!

This has beautiful illustrations and tells the story of the lives of the different artists in an involving and familiar way. It is incredibly accessible for anyone with even a passing interest in art, and has resulted in me studying art history because I found it all so fascinating.

Schama's passion for the subject shines through, and this makes the whole book a joy to read. An excellent introduction to art!

A Godsend
Often art books can be rather highbrow and aimed at people who already know what they're talking about. The joy of Schama's work is that it is readable, interesting and understandable to the average person without ever being patronising or just plain dumb. Doing a course on art history I had to tackle the paintings of Mark Rothko, which is not easy for a beginner. Schama's fine chapter on Rothko gave me a way in to start looking at and actually making sense of the paintings. The chapters on David and Pollock were equally illuminating. The illustrations are of an excellent quality and a good size, so you can really get up close to the pictures and I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Beautifully printed and written
This is a delightful book: the BBC has produced a real gem. While the format sems to be caught between two stools (part coffee-table book, part bed-side book), it manages to capture two types of reader: the browser for the sensational prints and close-ups of the paintings, and the reader: for the snappy prose of Schama. You can hear is slightly derogatory tone coming off the pages. he has managed to construct good stories around the painters and situate their work within their lives to give the book a bit of momentum. Hats off.