Rothko -
simon schama's power of art (hd)

Black On Maroon (1958) - New York, 1958. Rothko is commissioned to paint a series of large abstractions for what will be the Seagram Building restaurant - the Four Seasons, mid-town Manhattan. It is, says Rothko, "a place where the richest bastards in New York will come to feed and show off... I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who eats in that room". For Rothko, this will be the iron test of art's power in the relentless drone of the modern world. Can it interrupt and startle, or will it just be waved away like an annoying waiter? Is it just another consumer durable, or the saving of our souls?

Episode Duration: 51 minutes and 26 seconds

Episode Number: 108

About Simon Schama's Power of Art (Hd):

Focusing on eight iconic works of art such as Caravaggio's David and Goliath, David's Death of Marat and Picasso's Guernica, this series reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages.

A combination of dramatic reconstruction, spectacular photography and Simon Schama's unique and personal style transport the viewer back to the intense moments the great works were conceived and born; from the murderous world of baroque Rome; paranoid, revolutionary Paris and the carnage of civil war Spain to the paradox of 1950s New York, caught between Cold War jitters and Manhattan glitter.

Simon Schama's Power of Art is the epic story of an unfolding force, a chance to witness the power of the individuals who changed the way we view the world.

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