I know you're so grand.ĬONAN: And every once in a while we work with an audience and it's followed by applause. Professor SIMON SCHAMA (Art Historian Author, 'The Power of Art'): Thank you, Neal. And Simon Schama, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION. He joins us today from the studios of the BBC broadcasting house in London. And the e-mail address is Simon Schama is also professor of art history and history at Columbia University in New York City. Can the work of great artists be separated from their lives, their politics, their moment in history? Is great art necessarily a challenge? What piece changed the way you look at the world? Join the conversation. He's been director of the National Hurricane Center for the past six years.īut first, the power of art. Later this hour, Max Mayfield joins us for an exit interview. In particular, he examines how each created a transcendent masterpiece under enormous stress, and along the way he hopes to answer the question: What's art really for? In a new book that accompanies a series of BBC TV documentaries called 'The Power of Art,' Schama examines the life and work of eight of the greatest names in Western art history: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, Jacques-Louis David, Turner, Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Mark Rothko. In fact, he argues, they're thugs that force us to see the world in new ways, whose purpose isn't too soothe but unsettle. We usually look at art in the hushed, reverential surroundings of museums and galleries, and that, writes art historian Simon Schama, can fool us into believing that great works of art are polite.

The power of art by simon schama