Ecstatic with the "Power of Art"

I happened on one episode on the BBC once, then I got hooked. I don’t remember which of the episodes I actually saw first but doesn’t matter, I’ve seen all of them, and all I can say now I remain 50 percent in awe, 50 percent ecstatic. Yes, ecstatic as in imagine me as Bernini’s Saint Therese.

I’ve long been impressed with documentary presenter Simon Schama - and if he has a fan club out there, I’m definitely joining. I first saw him present BBC’s wonderful docu-series “A History of Britain.” In every one of Schama’s essay of event or personality, his observation into the human psyche was so intricate, my mental tastebuds were licking “delicious.” But right now, it’s not History of Britain I’d like to pour my praises on, it’s “Power of Art.” (Itself, I must insist, should be considered a masterpiece of broadcast arts excellence.)

I get confused with myself sometimes; how could I have acquired this much passion for art. When I was young, I even flunk in my arts and crafts projects. But when I was in my senior year in college, after taking a few art studies electives, I was convinced I enrolled in the wrong course. This despite that from time to time, I get ejected from honest-to-goodness reputable gayness for lacking elan. Then there are times when I sense in myself emerging “discriminating” taste. Whatever it is, I feel art, and it really does something to me - regardless for having none or probably just a little bit of talent, regardless of inconsistencies in flair.

But indeed, “just how powerful is art?” This Schama asks in the final installation of the Power of Art series. In this docu-series - in all respects, the best example of art history in the form of broadcast special - art didn’t solely refer to the artwork but seemingly to envelope also the artist as someone placed in a place and time in the world with other people and other events, and always conflicted, never complacent. (Can you almost taste the delectable richness now?)

At the end of every episode, I feel torn. I felt disappointed for all the wasted talent in Caravaggio, but later, pity also for the atonement that never came. Livid for Bernini’s vanity, but quiet acquiescence for in-all-fairness true, undoubtable talent. Scandalized at what (it turned out to be) David’s “Death of Marat” was all about, but sympathy as well for human inadequacies swept in revolutionary mob-madness. I’d have to stop here, or my mind will go swirling with too many incoherent, perplexities of emotions-disguised-thoughts again: just like Rothko, “I can’t point it out.”

I think it’s important as well to read what Schama himself has to say about the series, and I quote part of his statement here:

The power of the greatest art is the power to shake us into revelation and rip us from our default mode of seeing. After an encounter with that force, we don’t look at a face, a colour, a sky, a body, in quite the same way again. We get fitted with new sight: in-sight. Visions of beauty or a rush of intense pleasure are part of that process, but so too may be shock, pain, desire, pity, even revulsion. That kind of art seems to have rewired our senses. We apprehend the world differently.

BBC has a full section in their website about Power of Art HERE - and the rest of Schama’s introduction HERE. The clip above is just the first nine minutes of the last episode, one on Rothko, I found on Youtube. (But if you get the chance, please go through the first seven episodes - Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, JMW Turner, Van Gogh and Picasso - before this one.)

Like a true-blue devotee of this opus, I again, tried to look for the series in our local video stores. No results so far. As usual, we have to thank the torrents for filling in the gap.