Rembrandt on The Power of Art

Comments

3 responses to “Rembrandt on The Power of Art”

1. 

   Katherine

   July 10, 2007

   Thanks for the links Charley.
2. 

   Dan van Benthuysen

   July 11, 2007

   While I suppose there is some similarity to the Holbein image, most art historians so far have focused on Rembrandt’s elbow that projects from the ledge and have linked this self-portrait to Titian’s portrait known as Ariosto (www.all-art.org/baroque/portrait1.html)

   or to Raphael’s portrait of Baldasare Castiglione (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/R/raphael/raphael_castiglione.jpg.html),

   Both are paintings Rembrandt is known to have seen at auction in Amsterdam in the year before he painted the wonderful self-portrait you show here.

   Regarding the Schama series, I have to say that even with the grimacing actors I find myself predisposed to like any tv series about art simply because there is so little about the subject aired. I’ll stay tuned for the rest even if Mark Rothko seems out of place in this company. I also think that what the wacky camera angles and grimacing actors really demonstrate more than anything else is that television is not a medium in which Schama is yet comfortable. (You can’t for example imagine Ken Burns telling these stories this way.) That’s too bad because Schama is a terrific writer and I do think he has done a mostly good job of condensing some of these artist’s lives and art into an hour.
3. 

   Charley Parker

   July 11, 2007

   I have to say that I liked the Rembrandt eposide best so far, perhaps because it fell back less on actors (and did not presume to present Rembrandt himself) and more on the work and Schama’s spoken essay.