Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Get Out the Vote


Blogger has introduced a new gadget that allows bloggers to feature polls on their sites. I’ve set up a poll in the right-hand column of the screen as the first of what I’d like to make a monthly feature. At the end of each month, I’ll report the results and set up a new poll.

This first poll asks which episode of Simon Schama’s The Power of Art did you find “the most powerful”? I’ll let you define most powerful for yourself. For me, it’s a really tough call. Each episode had a lot to offer, as you would expect any Schama production would. Having read Schama’s books, I could see how he took those tomes and condensed them into an hour of incredible television: Rembrandt’s Eyes made Rembrandt shine; Citizens infused David with incredible historic detail; and Rough Crossings helped Schama capture the pathos and drama of the slave industry found in Turner’s masterpiece. Andy Serkis’ performance as Van Gogh, however, totally blew me away, bringing Vincent to life more believably than Kirk Douglas in Lust for Life ever did. All that being said, the Caravaggio, Bernini, Picasso, and Rothko installments weren’t shabby, either. (Unfortunately, Blogger seems to be limiting me to only five options for the poll, so I had to make some cuts before the final poll. Consider them the primaries.)

So, if you watched, take a moment and make your voice heard in my little experiment in art history democracy.

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