Schama, Saumarez Smith, Uglow & Hennessy discuss art, 1950s [45min]

"Start the Week" sets the cultural agenda every Monday. Guests are drawn from the top movers and shakers in politics, history, science and the arts. This week's guests, historian Simon Schama, gallery director Charles Saumarez Smith, biographer Jenny Uglow and historian Peter Hennessy, discuss great works of art and Britain in the 1950s. Following the huge success of A History of Britain, Schama is back with a new series, Power of Art, tracing the evolution of eight great works of art, from Caravaggio’s David with the Head of Goliath, Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Theresa to Picasso’s Guernica. Smith is director of London's National Gallery, where this moth the first British exhibition to follow the whole life of Velázquez opens. Smith discusses the artist known as the painter’s painter, whose exceptional skill elevated the position of artist from simple craftsman to esteemed member of the court of the King of Spain. Uglow talks about her new book, Nature’s Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick, which traces the times of Britain's most famous wood engraver as an apprentice in bustling 18th century Newcastle to the quieter pleasures of his extraordinary two volumes of The History of British Birds. Hennessy, known for his books about Whitehall and British Intelligence, has written a follow-up to Never Again, his book about the post-war period. Having It So Good (published by Allen Lane) is an account of the 1950s, with the end of rationing, the Suez crisis, the H-bomb and Supermac.