The documentary Simon Schama’s Power of Art, Rembrandt opens with a harrowing question: what is the worst thing that can happen to a painter? It is not disgrace or derision, but the necessity of cutting up one’s own masterpiece.
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Simon Schama: The Road to Auschwitz History often feels distant, like black-and-white photographs in dusty albums. Yet, some historians possess the rare gift of breathing life into the past. They transform dates and events into vibrant, human stories. Sir Simon Schama is undoubtedly one such master storyteller. For decades, his rich narratives have captivated audiences worldwide. He paints history not just with facts, but with colour, emotion, and profound insight. Therefore, when Schama turns his lens towards one of history’s darkest chapters, the result is exceptionally powerful. In “The Road to Auschwitz,” Schama undertakes perhaps his most personal and demanding
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Historian Simon Schama takes us on a journey into the heart of Arcadia—a concept steeped in culture, mythology, and the relationship between humanity and the natural world. This final installment delves deeply into how the ideal of Arcadia has influenced our imagination, focusing on how artists, philosophers, and writers have painted and penned their own visions of this pastoral paradise.
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In Landscape and Memory episode 4 acclaimed historian Simon Schama takes us on a captivating journey across the seas, diving deep into how these vast expanses have stirred the imagination of artists, writers, and explorers throughout history.
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Simon Schama delves into the profound connection between rivers and the art, poetry, and music of the 19th century.
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Historian Simon Schama’s groundbreaking series Landscape and Memory begins with an exploration of one of the most enigmatic and essential elements of our planet: forests.
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Simon Schama’s History of Now episode 3: Simon Schama examines how Charlie Chaplin and Ayn Rand created different visions of postwar America, while Rachel Carson drew attention to the destruction of the natural world. After the Second World War, there were deep divisions in America about how to move forward. Should it be a social democracy, in which a benevolent state would look after its most vulnerable citizens? Or should it put its faith in individual enterprise and the free market to provide plenty for all? Simon Schama examines how the filmmaker Charlie Chaplin and author Ayn Rand
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Simon Schama’s History of Now episode 2: Simon Schama explores the artists at the vanguard of the fight for equality in the decades after the Second World War. He revisits his childhood as a Jewish boy in Southend and his memories of seeing James Baldwin debate William Buckley at the Cambridge Union, explores the story behind Nina Simone’s classic civil rights song Mississippi Goddam, and meets Coleman Woodson Junior, who was part of the historic Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. Sir Simon Michael Schama is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history and
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Simon Schama’s History of Now episode 1: In his most personal project to date, Simon Schama looks back at the dramatic history that has played out in his lifetime. Best known for writing history, he has lived a fair bit of it too. Born in 1945, on the night of the bombing of Dresden, Simon grew up as part of a generation determined to rebuild the world from the ashes of war. In this film, he reveals the stories of artists and writers who have been at the forefront of the fight for truth and democracy, often at great personal
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Simon Schama celebrates the masterpieces of Rembrandt’s last years. Although the artist fell into bankruptcy and scandal in later years, it took him to new creative heights. Icarus-like, Rembrandt flew ever higher towards the sun – the most successful artist in the richest city on earth, 17th-century Amsterdam. He lived like a prince and he loved living like a prince. But when his fall came – deep into bankruptcy and scandal, poverty and unfashionability – far from destroying him, it took him to new creative heights and a sense of humanity and the human condition that speaks more
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