Simon Schama's: Power of Art (8 artists)

Here is an episode list of Simon Schama's: Power of Art


Season 1 Episode 1
Caravaggio The historian recounts the stories of high drama behind the making of eight masterpieces, beginning with Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath. He returns to Rome in 1603, where the Italian Baroque painter broke with artistic convention by creating earthy, realistic images using models taken from streets, taverns, markets and brothels

Season 1 Episode 2
Bernini The broadcaster and historian recounts how Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 17th-century sculpture The Ecstasy of St Theresa restored the artist's failing fortunes and breathed new life into the art of sculpture. Battling for supremacy with his rival Francesco Borromini, Bernini carved the marble model for the Cornaro family chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, where it still mesmerises flocks of devotees

Season 1 Episode 3
Rembrandt The historian turns his attention to Rembrandt's painting of The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis. The masterpiece, intended as a decoration for the halls of Amsterdam Town Hall, was the bankrupt artist's opportunity for a comeback, but was not what the commissioners wanted him to create - meaning the painter was left to die in poverty

Season 1 Episode 4
David Jacques-Louis David's painting of The Death of Marat. The artist had made his name working for the French king and was popular among aristocrats, but turned his talents to help the newly installed revolutionary government, painting the outspoken journalist who was stabbed to death in his bath as a martyr and `friend of the people'

Season 1 Episode 5
Turner Turner's painting The Slave Ship, which courted controversy in its portrayal of slave traders throwing their dying cargo into the sea to claim the insurance money. The work demonstrates the artist's move from traditional styles to a determination to test the limits of both technique and acceptable subject matter

Season 1 Episode 6
Van Gogh The historian recounts the inspiration behind Vincent van Gogh's Wheat Field With Crows - a work created in the summer of 1890 that saw him hailed as a visionary genius only weeks before he killed himself. Schama charts van Gogh's early life as an art dealer, teacher and preacher, and Andy Serkis plays the troubled artist in a dramatisation of events

Season 1 Episode 7
Picasso The historian recounts artist Pablo Picasso's attempts to create a `modern history' painting, based on the bombing of the ancient town of Guernica by the Luftwaffe. Instead of making a literal social commentary, he wanted to depict accurately where he felt the horrors of the world came from - the human psyche

Season 1 Episode 8
Rothko The historian recounts the story behind the creation of Mark Rothko's suite of paintings, commissioned in 1958 for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York's Seagram Building. The artist declared he wanted to ruin diners' appetites by creating work that demanded their attention - an attempt he saw as the ultimate test of art's power in the modern world