Monday Placeholder
Not much going on here lately, and for that I am extremely grateful. Although, I can vouch that the Wii shortage is real, at least in this neck of the woods.
Hat Watch, Day Whatever - A giant ear of corn. She looked like an agrarian unicorn. I can't WAIT until Christmas season...
This will horrify Marc, but Hublet and I Netflixed the Schama-fest "Power of Art," and have been rolling on the floor laughing at the History Channel style re-enactments, ham-fisted soundtrack, overwrought Schama-prose--seriously, who else would call Rembrandt a "Mr. Clever-Clogs?"--and thin Marxist veneer.
However, I'm still enjoying the series - it's like a Behind the Music for great art. Plus, I find I am much more able to appreciate the skill and genius involved in these creations now. I'd recommend the series just for the really beautifully lit masterpieces - you can always mute the Schama!
Hat Watch, Day Whatever - A giant ear of corn. She looked like an agrarian unicorn. I can't WAIT until Christmas season...
This will horrify Marc, but Hublet and I Netflixed the Schama-fest "Power of Art," and have been rolling on the floor laughing at the History Channel style re-enactments, ham-fisted soundtrack, overwrought Schama-prose--seriously, who else would call Rembrandt a "Mr. Clever-Clogs?"--and thin Marxist veneer.
However, I'm still enjoying the series - it's like a Behind the Music for great art. Plus, I find I am much more able to appreciate the skill and genius involved in these creations now. I'd recommend the series just for the really beautifully lit masterpieces - you can always mute the Schama!
Well, you hit each and every one of my weakspots. I have no choice but to rent this, now.
...Hublet and I Netflixed the Schama-fest "Power of Art," and have been rolling on the floor laughing...
Oh, dear. The Boyfriend asked for this and I bought it, but am waiting until Christmas to give it to him. Being British, he'll never notice the clever-clogs Marxist veneer. I'll have to avoid watching it with him.
How is it commenting "anonymously" if there's a place to leave my name 'n stuff?
How's that postcard project coming along?
Angie -
The vagaries of this commenting software totally escape me. For example, I have it set to allow ALL comments, and yet all "non-registered" or "anonymous" comments (even those with names attached are apparently considered anonymous unless you register, which doesn't make sense b/c of the settings above--arrrrgg!) get caught in the spam filter. Just - ARG!
I think the Boyfriend will enjoy the series - we definitely are. The history is fascinating, and knowing what we know about Schama makes the viewing experience a bit like being part of an inside joke.
Well, of course Schama says about every artist he profiles something along the lines of, "Unlike the other artists of his day, X broke all the rules and got to the nitty-gritty-dirty-dusty-99% irredeemably-blood and guts-awful truth about life," and this truth usually involves the corruption of the powerful and privileged. But occasionally even he can't ignore the spiritual questions raised by the masterpieces he talks about, and he really does tell a good story.
If I was asked to speculate, I would guess that Schama grew up lower middle class, and got beaten up a lot in school and in the neighborhood. But I think he would like to think of himself as having grown up dirt-poor and being the one beating the crap out of the kids with more money than he had.
My first exposure to Schama was studying his "Dead Certainties" in school. It's split into two parts. The first is a very long winded breakdown of a (rather boring) painting of some historical event. He briefly goes into where it differs from events, then goes on and on about how the structure of the painting tells a certain story. The second part is about a potential murder in which many, many facts are known, but there is no conclusion. The basic argument of the book is that the historian sometimes has to take artistic license with events or intuit certain leaps when trying to assemble a story. It skirts very close to the "fake but accurate" line. As I see more and more of Schama, I feel more and more confident that this was his point. For him, as that saying goes, "print the legend". Where other historians will include legends and rumor as spice to the story -- and it is often of significance that such things were created and circulated -- they will be sure to mention it is a legend. The best will try to explain why or why not it may be true. With Schama, if it makes a good tale, he'll just throw it in especially if it doesn't change the overall narrative much.
Anyway, I could go on about that forever. The real point is that I thought of this book immediately when I first heard of this art series. One of my classmates at the time was a double major in art and history. After reading the part about the painting, he came into class really agitaged, almost pissed off. The professor ended up turning over the first half of class to this guy so he could go on about how, in his opinion, when it came to art or at least this one painting, Schama, despite the British accent of authority, was absolutely full of shit.