My friend the Baronist recently loaned me the Simon Schama’s Power of Art DVDs. The BBC series, which first aired in 2006, crafts episodes around eight seminal works, combining biography, social history, and criticism to give a sense of what made each one significant during its time and what keeps it so today. I’ve thus far seen the ones dedicated to Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath (1601), Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa (1652), Rembrandt’s The Conspiracy of the Batavians Under Claudius Civilis (ca. 1666), David’s The Death of Marat (1793), and Turner’s Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On) (1840).^{*Update for all you completists: I’ve since seen the rest. Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows (1890), Picasso’s Guernica (1937), and Rothko’s Black on Maroon (1958), for scorekeeper-completists.} All have been riveting, with the exception of the one on David, who, as a painter, makes for a great revolutionary.^{*The violent kind, not the artistic genius kind, in case that wasn’t clear.}

The episodes focus on transformations and turning points in the lives of the artists, dealing broadly with the risks and pitfalls inherent to creating deeply honest, envelope-pushing art. The one dedicated to Turner is especially striking. His painting, like Rembrandt’s, took a key moment in the history of his country and reinterpreted it in a way that caused his contemporaries to turn away in disgust. There was something especially poignant about the eff-you Turner—who grew up the impoverished son of a barber father and a mother who spent time in Bedlam Asylum—delivered in presenting Slave Ship at an important exhibition, and what resulted.

The highlight for me of a series full of them comes when Schama^{*Whose hubris in titling his series Simon Schama’s Power of Art I really admire. On an unrelated note, be sure to check out my forthcoming video podcast series, The Bironist’s Power of Sex.} says that in becoming a universally panned laughingstock (for what we now regard as one of the greatest works of Western art), Turner was set free to paint what he wanted in the twilight of his career. A spellbinding montage of Turner’s later works follows.^{*So spellbinding, I can’t even think of a caustic sidenote. Truly beautiful.}

Among the things Turner was mocked for was the name of his painting. According to Schama, Punch, the British satire magazine, titled its take on the painting A Typhoon, Bursting A Simmoon, Over A Whirlpool Maelstrom, Norway, A Ship on Fire, An Eclipse, With the Effect of a Lunar Rainbow. Ouch.

Any copy editor will tell you that headline writing is one of the most ineffable arts,^{*Exceeded only by unicorn entrail arrangement and postmodern dance.} so I can’t fault Turner for coming up with a title style and rowing it to the bottom of the sea. Personally, I love a good wordy title now and again (witness “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in São Paulo,”^{*Which brought on a moment of manic, nerdy joy, until I realized that not everyone has the lyrics to Springsteen’s “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City” memorized.} in the May 2008 issue, and, in a “What was I thinking?” moment from ages ago, Timothy Taylor’s (terrific) “Foreign Billionaires Bring English Football to World, Agony & Ecstasy to Fans”^{*The deck was equally succinct: “‘If this keeps on, we’ll end up with the ground full of football tourists,’ spits one supporter.” To be fair, it was designed to look like an old-school newspaper headline and… okay, fine, don’t be fair, but I’ll remember this next time you come up with prolix display copy.}).

You can do a lot with a verbose title. Take one of the best examples of postmodern art I’ve heard about, a sculpture consisting of a huge balloon called something like The Total Number of Breaths it Takes to Read a Jane Austen Novel. I like art you don’t have to see to appreciate. Also stories you don’t have to read to appreciate. Basically, I like anything I can appreciate without investing any effort.

Next, on the Bironist: A letter-perfect palindrome of this post.

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Posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 9:54 am. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.