The Face Of Britain - Hardcover

Schama, Simon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670922293 ISBN 13: 9780670922291

Publisher: Viking, 2015

Synopsis

Simon Schama brings Britain to life through its portraits, as seen in the five-part BBC series The Face of Britain and the major National Portrait Gallery exhibition Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a black Othello in the nineteenth century; the poet-artist Rossetti trying to capture on canvas what he couldn't possess in life; a surgeon-artist making studies of wounded faces brought in from the Battle of the Somme; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. In the age of the hasty glance and the selfie, Simon Schama has written a tour de force about the long exchange of looks from which British portraits have been made over the centuries: images of the modest and the mighty; of friends and lovers; heroes and working people. Each of them - the image-maker, the subject, and the rest of us who get to look at them - are brought unforgettably to life. Together they build into a collective pi

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University and the prize-winning author of seventeen books, including The Embarrassment of Riches, Citizens, Landscape and Memory, Rembrandt's Eyes, the History of Britain trilogy and The Story of the Jews. He is a contributing editor of the Financial Times and his award-winning television work as writer and presenter for the BBC includes the fifteen-part A History of Britain and the eight-part, Emmy-winning Power of Art.

Review:

"Splendid, spirited, immensely enjoyable and wide-ranging." --Financial Times on 'The Story of the Jews'

"Shows Schama at his best... as full of memorable incident as a Bellow novel and wittier than a Woody Allen movie." --The Times on 'The Story of the Jews'

"Schama has a masterly ability to conjure up character and vivify conflict." --Financial Times on 'A History of Britain'

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0670922293
• ISBN 13: 9780670922291
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448