1 00:00:02,600 --> 00:00:04,640 ARABIC SINGING 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:14,240 Heavenly vaults but made by the earthly hand of man. 3 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:20,480 The imagined form of the universe. 4 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:25,400 A circle. No beginning, no end, 5 00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:27,760 just wheeling eternity. 6 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:34,240 Domes had appeared in antiquity and the medieval centuries 7 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,680 but never with such compulsive grandeur. 8 00:00:40,480 --> 00:00:45,680 In the 15th and 16th centuries, domes appeared everywhere, 9 00:00:45,680 --> 00:00:47,160 constellations of them. 10 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:50,880 They were all the work of mortal men, 11 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:55,000 but by the lights of philosophers, the infinite capacity 12 00:00:55,000 --> 00:01:00,920 of man's mind, made him a mortal God, king of the lower beings. 13 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:04,840 Artists and architects, East and West, 14 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:09,160 now began to be spoken of as touched by a divine gift. 15 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:13,160 From domes they built from Rome to Lahore, 16 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:16,120 were the crowning achievement of this moment of supreme, 17 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:20,800 almost sacrilegious, creative confidence. 18 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,080 So, why do we treat those blossomings 19 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:27,240 as though they were happening on different cultural planets? 20 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,680 Well, I think you will know the answer to that one. 21 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,640 It's that word "Renaissance", isn't it? 22 00:01:32,640 --> 00:01:37,520 Invariably attached to the word Italian by those who coined it. 23 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:40,880 Oh, I know, every so often it's extended north 24 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:45,360 and west to France and Germany, and even, as far as literature was 25 00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:48,680 concerned, to the very shores of Albion. 26 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:53,440 But if we want to feel the pulse of one of those great moments, 27 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:58,280 the surge of inventiveness, when civilisation bounded forward, 28 00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:01,400 we need to look much further than that. 29 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:03,680 We need to look East. 30 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:10,520 The great flowering we call the Renaissance owed much to Arab 31 00:02:10,520 --> 00:02:14,520 scholars who recovered the lost classics of antiquity, 32 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:17,200 of science, mathematics, and philosophy. 33 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,800 Through the centuries that followed, the outpouring of creativity 34 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:29,800 would flow both ways between Islamic East and Christian West. 35 00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:35,720 But for the imaginative freedom of the artists themselves, the future 36 00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:41,000 awaiting them, East or West, could hardly have been more different. 37 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,680 Whenever something profound happens, 38 00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:29,600 which propels civilisation forward, it usually happens, 39 00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:34,080 not through isolated sparks of invention in one city or state 40 00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:37,280 but through the spur of competition. 41 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:43,880 Competition across time, going one better than the ancients, 42 00:03:43,880 --> 00:03:47,360 but competition across borders, too, 43 00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:51,160 even when those borders divided warring cultures. 44 00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:57,560 So it was with the Renaissances in the Muslim and Christian worlds. 45 00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:06,320 1,000 miles apart, in Rome and Istanbul, 46 00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:13,640 two old men - Michelangelo and the Turk Mimar Sinan 47 00:04:13,640 --> 00:04:18,960 both veteran builders were competing for the same prize. 48 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:23,040 To outdo what, for almost a millennium, 49 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:27,840 had been regarded as the greatest house of God in the world. 50 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:29,200 The Hagia Sophia. 51 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:34,960 Commissioned by the Emperor Justinian 52 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:36,720 in the early sixth century, 53 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:40,280 the Byzantine basilica was the greatest architectural 54 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:42,920 achievement of the early Christian church. 55 00:04:44,240 --> 00:04:46,520 "Its dome," wrote one scholar, 56 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:49,680 "seemed not to be founded on masonry at all, 57 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:52,320 "but suspended from heaven itself." 58 00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:58,240 When the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, 59 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:03,680 instead of demolishing the Hagia Sophia, they converted it into a mosque. 60 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:08,480 But there was no escaping the fact 61 00:05:08,480 --> 00:05:11,160 that this conversion was superficial. 62 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,480 Islamic elements had merely been bolted onto a church. 63 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:21,480 Somehow, Christianity was always showing through. 64 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,480 There came a time when this partial makeover wasn't good enough. 65 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:32,080 Not, at any rate, 66 00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:37,720 for the greatest of the Ottoman rulers Suleiman the Magnificent. 67 00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:41,280 His armies had cut a swathe through Christian Europe. 68 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:45,400 So when he decided to build a new mosque, 69 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:51,160 unencumbered by Christian leftovers, he was making a point for Allah. 70 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:53,840 And he was making it directly at his rivals, 71 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:56,280 the holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. 72 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:02,440 Ironically, the master builder ordered to create the great 73 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:05,680 Friday service mosque had been born a Christian. 74 00:06:06,760 --> 00:06:11,480 Mimar Sinan was a Janissary, converted to Islam as a child 75 00:06:11,480 --> 00:06:15,320 and conscripted into the crack household troops of the Sultan. 76 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:21,040 Sinan rose through the ranks to become the greatest military 77 00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:22,800 engineer of his day. 78 00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:26,280 But he always felt himself destined for something greater 79 00:06:26,280 --> 00:06:28,440 than bridges and fortresses. 80 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:32,560 "I wish to become an architect", he told his biographer, 81 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:36,760 "so my perfect skills should leave art to the world." 82 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:41,600 Suleiman's order was thrilling but daunting. 83 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:46,400 A great dome surrounded by half domes, four minarets, 84 00:06:46,400 --> 00:06:50,640 a structure as immense as the two-continent empire. 85 00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:53,680 A mosque that would eclipse Hagia Sophia. 86 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:59,960 The visible proclamation of Islam's victory. 87 00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:16,280 Sinan's great idea is the indivisibility of space. 88 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:21,480 The architectural proclamation of the union of all believers. 89 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:24,920 Here, the space isn't chopped up by forests of columns 90 00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:27,360 and barriers of choir and altar. 91 00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:30,280 Here, we are all in it together. 92 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,680 Islam is a religion of law and simple faith. 93 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:42,400 Everything revealed to all. 94 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:48,760 Islam means submission. 95 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:55,440 And what we submit to here is the light of true faith 96 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:56,800 and of the Koran. 97 00:07:56,800 --> 00:08:04,360 Its record, the light of God's law streaming through 249 windows, 98 00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:08,520 drowning the space with radiance. 99 00:08:13,120 --> 00:08:17,000 How weightless this all feels, even the gigantic dome. 100 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:18,680 That's all the more extraordinary 101 00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:24,640 because it could only be supported by absolutely titanic architecture. 102 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:28,200 These huge four masonry piers. 103 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,360 Everything is, kind of, airy, and light, and graceful, 104 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:48,680 but, you feel, behind it is this hard mathematical engineering mind of Sinan. 105 00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:52,760 That achievement, 106 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:57,280 something built on the ground that is full of this kind of 107 00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:02,040 planetary uplift towards which our gaze is sent 108 00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:04,160 over and over again 109 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:08,240 is what makes this place one of the most beautiful buildings on earth. 110 00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:14,480 Sinan was not working in isolation. 111 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:20,200 He knew very well, that in Christian Europe architects had been 112 00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:25,600 working to remake Christian architecture on an imperial scale. 113 00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:29,240 Turkish visitors to Rome, just like their Italian counterparts 114 00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:33,400 visiting Istanbul, would have seen first hand 115 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:36,240 this east-west competition of cultural one-upmanship. 116 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:40,560 Sinan had thought obsessively about the long 117 00:09:40,560 --> 00:09:44,720 history of Constantinople and in Rome, too, artists 118 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:48,800 and architects found themselves in a dialogue with the past. 119 00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:53,480 The Western Renaissance had been founded on the idea 120 00:09:53,480 --> 00:09:57,160 of rebuilding the ruins of the classical pagan past 121 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:02,240 and re-consecrating them for a new Christian age. 122 00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:05,080 The supreme test would be St Peter's. 123 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:08,080 The original basilica built by Constantine 124 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:12,480 in the fourth century was, by 1500, in danger of collapse. 125 00:10:14,680 --> 00:10:18,600 In 1505, Pope Julius II shocked Rome 126 00:10:18,600 --> 00:10:21,640 by deciding to demolish the old basilica. 127 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:27,480 The visionary architect Donato Bromante won the competition to 128 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:29,360 build its successor. 129 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:33,080 He got the job because 130 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:35,960 a small, perfect building caught the Pope's eye. 131 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:44,520 This little gem is really a glimpse inside the Renaissance mind, 132 00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:47,080 in particular, into Donato Bromante's mind. 133 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:52,440 It's a freestanding shrine to St Peter in the cloister 134 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,840 of the church of San Pietro in Montorio, the place where 135 00:10:55,840 --> 00:11:00,480 St Peter himself was said to have been crucified upside down. 136 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,200 Let's think about what the word Renaissance means. 137 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:07,320 It means a rebirth. 138 00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:12,040 And what was being reborn was classical antiquity. 139 00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:15,920 Bromante walked around Rome making very careful 140 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:18,040 scholarly notes of what he saw. 141 00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:20,160 What he saw were pagan temples. 142 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:27,720 So, what we have here is the perfect classical form 143 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:30,960 of one of those ruined Roman temples. 144 00:11:30,960 --> 00:11:33,040 A dome, sitting on a drum, 145 00:11:33,040 --> 00:11:35,880 with a colonnaded encirclement outside. 146 00:11:38,600 --> 00:11:43,000 And, as such, what it does is take those perfect forms, 147 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:48,640 the hemisphere and wheeling circle, the revolution of the planets, 148 00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:52,480 like a great cosmic timepiece, and says, 149 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:58,320 this, harmoniously, is how the new sacred art is going to be. 150 00:12:02,680 --> 00:12:06,240 There's something else on Bromante's mind, as well. 151 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:11,480 This is really a miniature size, doll's house prototype 152 00:12:11,480 --> 00:12:15,880 for what he will want to happen to St Peter's itself. 153 00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:23,760 Only one problem. This is so perfect because it is so teeny-weeny. 154 00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:32,640 But his job was to put Hagia Sophia in the shade. 155 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:37,600 So, St Peter's had to be very big indeed. 156 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:40,840 And that was going to be a mighty challenge. 157 00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:49,040 Bromante began work in 1506 but he didn't live to see his miniature 158 00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:52,840 St Peter's translated into the big one. 159 00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:55,800 But the greatest of his successors, Michelangelo, 160 00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:59,240 was determined to honour the essence of Bromante's design. 161 00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:02,880 A central dome pierced by windows. 162 00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:09,320 Michelangelo was in his 70s when, as the Pope's third choice, 163 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:12,720 he got the job, grumbling that he was doing it 164 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:14,680 only for the glory of God. 165 00:13:15,760 --> 00:13:19,040 Many of his greatest late works like The Last Judgment in the 166 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:23,960 Sistine Chapel were in their own way titanic architectural constructions, 167 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:28,720 vast masses of figures, pulled and pushed through space. 168 00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:35,360 Most of his drawings for the project have been lost 169 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:40,360 but a wooden model survives to show us that his vision, like Bromante's, 170 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:44,760 was of an enormous Christian temple, a Greek cross. 171 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:48,880 No nave or fussy side chapels distracting from the focal point of 172 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:54,560 the great crowning dome, its windows flooding the interior with light. 173 00:13:54,560 --> 00:14:00,680 The whole immense structure supported on four giant piers. 174 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:04,800 It's astonishing to realise that the two greatest monumental 175 00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:07,520 buildings in the world, one for Islam 176 00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:11,480 and one for Christianity, were going up at the same time in the 1550s. 177 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:18,200 And, on the same basic building principles. 178 00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:23,120 Many wonder did Mimar Sinan and Michelangelo know what each other was doing? 179 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,440 For Michelangelo, as for Sinan, the challenge was how to make 180 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:33,040 the mighty engineering beautiful, apparently seamless. 181 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:41,480 He took his cue from Bromante, a perfect elegant hemispherical dome, 182 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:43,160 an echo of ancient Rome. 183 00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:47,320 But it was also somehow pure, 184 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:53,040 Michelangelo's colossal strength translated into flowing line. 185 00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:58,920 Michelangelo toiled away into his 80s on this. 186 00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:02,960 Living in a cell-like room in St Peter's, racked with pain, 187 00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,040 refusing pay, eating very little. 188 00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:12,080 February 24th, 1552, was a great day. 189 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,480 Both in the career of the 76-year-old Michelangelo 190 00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:19,600 and in the long extraordinary history of the biggest dome 191 00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:22,640 in the world, the cupola on top of St Peter's 192 00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:28,800 because it was the day when the cornice of the drum was finished. 193 00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:32,720 The cornice is just below the area of the windows. 194 00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:38,240 Essentially, it's the base which made it impossible for anyone, 195 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:40,600 no matter what happened after Michelangelo's death, 196 00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:45,200 12 years later, to change its size, but, more importantly, 197 00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:50,000 it made it impossible to change Michelangelo's beautiful vision. 198 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,640 To mark this great occasion, what did Michelangelo do? 199 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:57,080 He threw a party. 200 00:15:57,080 --> 00:15:59,440 And it wasn't for the patricians and the princes, 201 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:01,480 and the Cardinal and the Pope, 202 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:04,640 it was for the workmen who made this possible. 203 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:07,200 It was all the sausage you could possibly eat, 204 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:11,160 four enormous pork livers, and what does this tell us 205 00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:15,200 about Michelangelo beyond the lovely anecdote that 206 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:18,560 he felt a kind of fraternal solidarity with the workmen? 207 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:20,400 It tells us this. 208 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:25,160 That Michelangelo, through all his life, valued what his contemporaries 209 00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:32,280 called "Ars". Ars, means art, in the old sense of hands-on skill. 210 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:37,080 In his case, of an almost sublime gift for technical engineering, 211 00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:39,640 for structural power. 212 00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:42,000 Knowing exactly what should go where. 213 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,560 But you weren't going to be a great artist 214 00:16:45,560 --> 00:16:48,720 unless you could also marry that technical ability with what 215 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:52,040 Michelangelo's contemporaries called "ingenio" - 216 00:16:52,040 --> 00:16:55,560 the ability to conceive a sublime idea. 217 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:59,920 And that heroic idea survived even his successors 218 00:16:59,920 --> 00:17:02,520 making the curve of the dome much steeper. 219 00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:08,600 Michelangelo died 89 years old, 220 00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:11,160 but before he could see the dome completed. 221 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:17,760 The Greek cross temple idea struck later popes as altogether too pagan. 222 00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:21,120 A big long nave was added, the opposite of what Bromante 223 00:17:21,120 --> 00:17:23,200 and Michelangelo had wanted. 224 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:30,960 But you still feel the essence of his "ingenio" beneath that dome. 225 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:38,120 Rising 120 metres above the ground, over 40 metres diameter, 226 00:17:38,120 --> 00:17:41,120 the tallest dome in the world, taller than 227 00:17:41,120 --> 00:17:47,080 the dome of the Suleiman mosque, taller than the Hagia Sophia, 228 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:50,720 The work of the man his biographers called Il Divino. 229 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:52,560 The divine one. 230 00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:56,640 No-one would have quite dared to say that about Mimar Sinan. 231 00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:59,040 But in Europe, 232 00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:03,880 the cult of the superhero artist listening to his own voice, 233 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:07,880 which is to say the echo of God, rather than his patron, 234 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:09,000 had taken off. 235 00:18:12,920 --> 00:18:15,360 Their lives were now for the first time 236 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:20,600 since antiquity the subject of page-turning biographies. 237 00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:24,640 As fascinating, if not more so, than those of saints and kings. 238 00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:28,200 For, often, they describe the work of sinners. 239 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:33,400 And among the gallery of self-described geniuses, 240 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:36,400 no-one sinned quite like the Florentine goldsmith 241 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:37,640 Benvenuto Cellini. 242 00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:41,840 It was from house arrest for living in sin with a boyfriend 243 00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:45,680 who shopped him to the authorities that Cellini wrote 244 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:49,920 his blood-soaked, chest beating thriller of an autobiography 245 00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:53,440 which, aside from a catalogue of murders, prison escapes, 246 00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:57,080 and gunfights, was one long document of yearning 247 00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:00,200 to be treated as a true artist genius, 248 00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:03,160 alongside his hero, Michelangelo. 249 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,040 Michelangelo knew Cellini and, in fact, 250 00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:10,720 on at least one occasion, gave him a hearty endorsement, 251 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,520 but as the world's best goldsmith, 252 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,680 and, for Benvenuto, that was not going to be enough. 253 00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:20,960 Only a bona fide genius, after all, 254 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:25,160 could have managed to turn a golden salt cellar 255 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:28,000 into a witty erotic sculpture. 256 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,440 But the godly form of Poseidon showed that Cellini 257 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:34,240 could make heroic figures with the best of them. 258 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:37,640 In Florence, 259 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:42,000 the bronze to beat was Donatello's heroine from scripture, Judith, 260 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,400 holding up the head of the enemy general, Holofernes, 261 00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:46,880 she'd just beheaded. 262 00:19:49,520 --> 00:19:52,680 But Judith had been set up on the Piazza Della Signoria, 263 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,920 in front of the seat of Florence's government 264 00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,880 to celebrate chasing the Medici despots out of Florence. 265 00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:04,600 So when, almost a century later, Cosimo de' Medici became duke, 266 00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:08,200 he wanted a statue which would reverse all that, 267 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:12,400 a manly hero beheading a female monster. 268 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:17,560 And Cellini, an alpha-male who knew all about bloody killings, 269 00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:19,280 seized his chance. 270 00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:23,560 Donatello had cast Judith in pieces, 271 00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:26,960 Cellini promised to do the Perseus in one casting. 272 00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:29,200 "Impossible," scoffed the duke. 273 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:33,240 "The liquid bronze won't reach all those extremities." 274 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:37,720 "Watch me," said Cellini, who liked talking back to his patrons. 275 00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,640 Cellini was playing for the highest stakes imaginable, 276 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:52,120 the casting of the Perseus was the moment that was going to 277 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:57,360 transform him from a goldsmith, a craftsman, a mere artisan, 278 00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:03,520 to whom everybody condescended, into an artist superhero - 279 00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:05,360 the real thing. 280 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:12,240 Having set up everything just right, suddenly as the melted bronze 281 00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:16,200 was going to be poured, Cellini falls deathly ill 282 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,400 of a terrible fever. 283 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,000 So sick, so ill, he's sure he's going to die. 284 00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:26,920 There's an incredible storm. 285 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,000 Wind, rain, the roof is partly removed, 286 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:31,880 the cover of the furnace explodes. 287 00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:42,360 And most fatally, the temperature of the molten bronze starts to lower. 288 00:21:42,360 --> 00:21:47,000 That word that nobody wants to hear in a foundry - caking. 289 00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:52,560 The premature coagulation of the alloy starts to be set. 290 00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:55,240 The assistants come running, "maestro, maestro!" 291 00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:57,240 Everything is going pear-shaped. 292 00:21:57,240 --> 00:22:01,240 The bronze alloy will cool, it won't run to all the extremities 293 00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,160 of the mould, and you end up with this little, kind of, 294 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,280 dwarfish homunculus. 295 00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:11,080 So Cellini jumps off his deathbed and gets every conceivable 296 00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:14,400 kitchen utensil, plates, platters all made of pewter - 297 00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:17,200 they're thrown on the fire. 298 00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:22,200 He's got his heat back. 299 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,600 The alloy flows through the mould everywhere it should. 300 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:34,320 He has won the transformation he so badly wanted. 301 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:45,400 And Cellini has a wonderful, vainglorious sentence 302 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,200 for what happens. 303 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,160 He said, "I revived a corpse." 304 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:57,840 This is the mine-blowing masterpiece the tourists don't notice, 305 00:22:57,840 --> 00:22:59,920 as they're too busy doing selfies 306 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:03,560 with the copy of Michelangelo's David nearby. 307 00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:08,280 But if they did give it a minute or two, they'd see Cellini's outrageous 308 00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:13,640 miracle in bronze, hard metal that somehow gushes hot blood 309 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,560 and writhes with snaky horror. 310 00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,800 Perseus, head down, armed raised in triumph 311 00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:23,680 like some sports champion with the ultimate trophy. 312 00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,280 All the ancient Perseuses and Medusas 313 00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:34,440 contrasts between beauteous hero and grotesque gorgon - 314 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,000 not here. 315 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,440 Cellini has the genius crazy idea of making them interchangeably, 316 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,240 androgynously beautiful. 317 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:46,240 Boy-girl, girl-boy, both looking down. 318 00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:49,160 Even the hairdos aren't actually that different - 319 00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,000 tousled curls or writhing snakes. 320 00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,960 Cellini is a sorcerer, an alchemist. 321 00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,800 He's made hard metal sweat with the exertion of killing. 322 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,400 He's turned that hot alloy back into liquid, 323 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:08,000 the blood coursing through the hero's body, 324 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,040 the blood pouring from Medusa's sliced away neck. 325 00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,040 And, remember, even dead, her look could kill you. 326 00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:24,840 So Cellini has one bit of mischief to play out, 327 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:29,120 at the expense of his hero, Michelangelo, no less - 328 00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:33,040 positioning the sculpture where it would seem it had caught 329 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:34,920 David's attention. 330 00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:41,680 The petrifying gaze of Medusa turns David into cold, lifeless stone. 331 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,400 Cellini got away with his stupendous work only 332 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:57,520 because it flattered his Medici patron's sense of self-importance. 333 00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:01,240 The great days of Florence are gone, but a show of grandstanding art 334 00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:05,320 would postpone insignificance indefinitely. 335 00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:09,160 And for rising empires, 336 00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,920 art and artists were indispensable to the projection of their power. 337 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:22,360 And this was as true in Muslim Asia as in Christian Europe. 338 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:28,040 The Mughal Empire in India was a sponge for all the cultures 339 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:29,920 it inherited and admired. 340 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,640 And that tolerant, curious openness to many influences, 341 00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,440 east and west under the Emperor Akbar 342 00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,120 became a principal of government. 343 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:48,960 When he and his descendants rebuilt the old ruined Hindu city of Lahore, 344 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,600 they borrowed from Indian temple style 345 00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,360 and from Persian architecture. 346 00:25:55,360 --> 00:25:59,400 But most crucially, Akbar, who had learned painting himself, 347 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,240 made art the mirror of his civilisation. 348 00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:07,320 "There are many that hate painting," Akbar said, 349 00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,000 "but such men I dislike." 350 00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,480 Akbar established workshops of hundreds of artists, 351 00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:20,240 great factories of royal culture that dwarfed the modest studios 352 00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,240 of western painters. 353 00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:28,240 Mughal art drew on Indian epics, Persian poetry, calligraphy 354 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:29,760 and profuse decoration, 355 00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,440 but it quickly developed its own style, 356 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,880 crowded with dashing incident, 357 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,920 courtly elegance and sometimes 358 00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,400 under the influence of Western art 359 00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,120 seen by Akbar, a flair for naturalism. 360 00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,840 Akbar himself, always at the centre of the subject matter, 361 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,400 paid personal attention to the work, 362 00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:56,080 regularly descending on workshops and, to the terror of the artists, 363 00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,480 promoting or demoting painters, 364 00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:03,440 depending on how he liked or disliked their latest work. 365 00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,200 And though like all the generations of Mughal emperors 366 00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:12,760 and their successors, he was embattled, 367 00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:15,880 sometimes literally with his son, Jahangir, 368 00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,520 he bequeathed to him the sense that the authority 369 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,160 of the Mughal Empire would be built on art 370 00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,600 as much as government and military power. 371 00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,840 It would be seen to contemporaries and posterity 372 00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:30,360 above all as a civilisation. 373 00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:36,800 Jahangir didn't really need to be told by his father 374 00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:38,880 how important art was. 375 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:41,360 In his own right, he was the most intellectually 376 00:27:41,360 --> 00:27:44,160 and aesthetically driven of the whole dynasty. 377 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:50,000 Well, this is one of the great masterpieces of Mughal painting. 378 00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,960 But it's also an extraordinary masterpiece 379 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:56,600 of imperial self-congratulation, 380 00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:00,720 even by the standards of the World's Seizer, 381 00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:06,160 that's what Jahangir's name means, the title he gave to itself. 382 00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:12,320 He's encircled with a golden halo that's the size of a small planet, 383 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,640 and it's giving off these extraordinarily intense 384 00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,000 golden glimmer, 385 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,720 so fierce that one of the little putti, one of the cupids, 386 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,680 who's been flown in directly from European art, 387 00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,680 has to cover his eyes with his hands 388 00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:32,040 lest his eyeballs be scalded by the radiation 389 00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,720 of Jahangir's magnificence. 390 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:43,040 The slightly implausible conceit of the painting is that Jahangir 391 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:49,160 prefers the company of a saintly Muslim holy man to worldly rulers. 392 00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,920 The Sufi sheikh himself has been painted 393 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,320 with wonderful fustian simplicity - 394 00:28:55,320 --> 00:29:00,040 a brown coat, perfect candyfloss whiskers there. 395 00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:04,720 He's receiving a present from the hands of Jahangir himself, 396 00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,960 but of course the hands don't actually touch. 397 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:13,880 And there is something else going on in in this extraordinary painting. 398 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,400 It's also a picture about the competition between Mughal art 399 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,120 and European art, 400 00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,240 between East and West. 401 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,880 There's an Ottoman sultan who's shown with the Turkish turban 402 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,440 and he's looking respectfully in the direction of Jahangir, 403 00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:38,480 but most significant is that the gesture he's making with his hands, 404 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:42,960 like that, are the gesture of Indian deferential respect. 405 00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,080 No Turk would ever have done that. 406 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,560 But if the Ottoman sultan is belittled 407 00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:50,480 by Jahangir's court painter, 408 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,920 it says nothing compared to what happens to King James I of England, 409 00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,280 who is placed below the emperor's feet, 410 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:02,520 wearing a look of what can only be described as sour resentment 411 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,400 at his low place in the pecking order. 412 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,840 And the artist who's doing this and who was enjoying it all, 413 00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:15,320 has an exquisite self-portrait at the bottom of the painting. 414 00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,120 His name is Bichitra. He's a Hindu, we know that by the saffron robe. 415 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:23,280 And it's a beautiful, beautiful profile self-portrait. 416 00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,560 Exquisite details of the beard, of the turban, 417 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:28,560 of his painterly hand, 418 00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:33,160 almost as refined as the technique he's used for the emperor himself. 419 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,720 In fact, this is a doubly reflective self-portrait - 420 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:40,720 a miniature of a miniature, 421 00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,880 the one Bichitra is holding and which tells us everything 422 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,520 about the ambiguous status of the Mughal artist. 423 00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:49,600 There are the signs of favour - 424 00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:53,080 an elephant and two horses which the emperor has given his painter 425 00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,400 but on an understood condition. 426 00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:01,760 Ultimately for all that he's slipstreaming behind the power 427 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,080 and the glory of Jahangir, he knows his place 428 00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:08,760 and that's defined by the last detail in that tiny 429 00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:12,320 frame of him kneeling, prostrating himself 430 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,960 at the feet of the Seizure of the World. 431 00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,000 And look where he is. 432 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,520 He has literally backed himself into a corner. 433 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,480 For when all is said and done, 434 00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,440 these intricate beautiful paintings are miniatures, 435 00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:34,520 book illustrations contained within the framing page, 436 00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,240 and their enjoyment confined to the emperor, 437 00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,360 his court and anyone he sought to impress. 438 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,720 Only once, albeit spectacularly, 439 00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,680 did Jahangir make art visible to all of his subjects. 440 00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:58,440 On the outer wall of Lahore Fort, Jahangir set a vast display 441 00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:04,360 of mosaic tiles, creating the biggest mural in the world. 442 00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:08,160 70 metres high and 450 metres long. 443 00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:15,920 Kashi Kari - the name for this mosaic technique came from Persia, 444 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:20,040 but as with all Mughal art, it's a glorious hybrid. 445 00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,640 There are angels from Europe, 446 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:28,600 Chinese dragons, 447 00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,360 royal hunts and epic battles. 448 00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,200 History, mythology, birds and beasts, 449 00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,920 the whole world Jahangir revelled in is on display. 450 00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,640 In effect, it's a huge vertical book, 451 00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:53,160 the one truly open book in all of Mughal art. 452 00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:57,800 Readable by all Jahangir's subjects passing through the gates 453 00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,360 of Lahore Fort. 454 00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,520 Or, is it? 455 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:06,440 Despite the sheer boldness of the gesture, 456 00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:08,760 the link forged between ruler and subjects 457 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,040 is undermined by vertical remoteness. 458 00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,240 As your eye travels up, the brilliant pages 459 00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,640 swim in and out of vision 460 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,240 until they disappear into the great city. 461 00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:31,040 Ultimately, even the experimentally-minded Jahangir 462 00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,440 couldn't conceive of public art that was truly accessible 463 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:36,640 to his subjects. 464 00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,680 The Mughals with their fastidious connoisseurship 465 00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,360 could barely have imagined the revolution 466 00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,960 in looking that was unfolding in Western art. 467 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:54,560 By the 17th century, 468 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,320 European images were busy exploding 469 00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:00,200 through any kind of containing frame. 470 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,600 The body slammed the beholder with great, meaty, 471 00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:08,360 muscular life-size or larger figures, all deployed by artists who 472 00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:13,360 re-wrote the rules about decorum or threw them away altogether. 473 00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:21,240 And this liberation of the senses began in the place you'd 474 00:34:21,240 --> 00:34:26,200 least expect, the Rome that had been remade by Michelangelo 475 00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,760 and the Counter-Reformation popes. 476 00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:33,960 There came a point when the Roman Church 477 00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:37,040 would be a victim of its own success. 478 00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,840 All that wealth, all that power, the biggest basilica 479 00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:41,760 with the biggest dome in the world, 480 00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,920 and you know that sooner or later, someone's going to come along 481 00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:49,400 and say, "Remember the simplicity of Christ." 482 00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:54,200 "Remember Christ's mission to teach and preach to the poor." 483 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,680 And then there'd be a second great point that the whole 484 00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,600 idea of the Christian message is that the compassion of God 485 00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:06,840 lay in giving his own son the form of human flesh and blood. 486 00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,120 Now, you put those two things together, 487 00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,560 poverty and a physical presence of flesh and blood, 488 00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:16,120 and you know there has to be a new kind of art. 489 00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,680 Only problem is, nobody could do that 490 00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,000 since the death of Michelangelo, 491 00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,640 and then along comes a second Michelangelo. 492 00:35:29,240 --> 00:35:32,880 We shouldn't get carried away, but isn't it striking that the 493 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,640 rule breakers in art were often law breakers? 494 00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,360 Like Cellini, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio 495 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:44,680 was a bisexual murderer with major anger management issues, 496 00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:49,200 foul-mouthed, short fused, in and out of jail. 497 00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:57,160 But if he acted like a devil, he painted like an angel. 498 00:35:58,240 --> 00:36:01,720 And patrons who suddenly wanted startlingly raw 499 00:36:01,720 --> 00:36:05,680 realistic images of ordinary people, many of them poor, 500 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,080 to persuade themselves they were reviving Christ's gospel to the 501 00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,000 humble, couldn't get enough of him. 502 00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,040 This is the church of Sant'Agostino in Rome 503 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:23,560 and this just may be my favourite Caravaggio, 504 00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:25,160 the Madonna of Loreto. 505 00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,720 Even by the standards of Christian legends, 506 00:36:29,720 --> 00:36:31,960 this one is a bit of a stretch. 507 00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,200 To escape destruction in the 13th century, 508 00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,720 the House of the Virgin was supposed to have been 509 00:36:38,720 --> 00:36:42,440 airlifted out of the Holy Land, touching down in the Italian 510 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,200 town of Loreto, where it became a place of pilgrimage. 511 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,480 Every so often, the Virgin herself would show up for the pilgrims. 512 00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,520 But this is no provincial scene, is it? 513 00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:00,680 Its appealing doorway in the backstreets of Rome, 514 00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:03,880 the doorstep drama is lit by a great wash of light. 515 00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,200 But the reason why one of the Caravaggio's critics 516 00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,200 said the painting caused a great "schiamazzo", a cackle, 517 00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,120 was because so much flesh was on display. 518 00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:19,760 This is a barefoot Madonna, not the spun sugar version 519 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,600 of conventional painting, but of real-life body, 520 00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,040 probably Caravaggio's girlfriend. 521 00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,240 And the adoration dwells on that sumptuous form - 522 00:37:29,240 --> 00:37:33,960 the heavy lids, the glossy ropes of hair. 523 00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:39,840 And the naked Christ Child is a squirmy bambino, fat with pasta. 524 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,040 And the poor pilgrim couple who kneel before them 525 00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:48,880 are made bodily present too - 526 00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,480 that big rump of the man, 527 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,320 those calloused feet from the long walk. 528 00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:02,640 As in all the greatest Caravaggio's, these big fleshy figures 529 00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:07,400 are uncomfortably, almost disturbingly, close to us. 530 00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,160 Caravaggio has broken right through the fourth wall 531 00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:15,160 and he's done it in the name of making the Christian message true. 532 00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:18,080 By which he means physically true. 533 00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,720 We don't get a kind of remote heavenly apparition that's granted 534 00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:25,240 to us by the intercession of some priest. 535 00:38:25,240 --> 00:38:29,520 No, we are physically in the company of the Madonna and Child, 536 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:34,040 just as much as if we are walking down the street and look round 537 00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:37,000 and there they are, standing in a doorway. 538 00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:43,240 And this, of course, is a breach in every kind of decorum, 539 00:38:43,240 --> 00:38:45,560 social as well as aesthetic. 540 00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:52,600 But breaking rules was what this generation of Western artists 541 00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:54,600 was all about. 542 00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:57,840 And the closer they got both to God and to kings, 543 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,240 paradoxically, the more freedoms they claimed. 544 00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,000 And one of the most spectacular of those rule breakers was a woman 545 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,200 in her 40s when she painted this in England - 546 00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:12,160 Artemisia Gentileschi. 547 00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,080 Well, I love the fact that this extraordinary picture is in the 548 00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:22,920 Royal Collection because in its way it too is a royal proclamation. 549 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:28,520 If artists of this generation made the claim that they were sovereigns 550 00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:32,920 of the realm of art, this picture does something much more ambitious. 551 00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:36,400 It says that claim was not only for men, 552 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,960 women, too, can be sovereigns of painting. 553 00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:47,200 Only a woman could have done this particular painting 554 00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:54,400 as a combination of a self-portrait and the allegory of painting. 555 00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,560 And the allegory comes from a book written by a man 556 00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,000 called Cesare Ripa. 557 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:03,080 He says the image of painting should have black hair, should be 558 00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,160 slightly dishevelled with a passion and engagement of painting. 559 00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:11,200 Painting should wear a gold chain round her neck... 560 00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,040 There you see the gold chain. 561 00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:18,200 ..with a mask at the end of it indicating imitation or mimicry. 562 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:22,080 She should hold a brush in one hand and a palate in the other. 563 00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,240 And Artemisia does all that, 564 00:40:24,240 --> 00:40:26,600 but there's one detail that is missing. 565 00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:30,520 It's there in what Ripa says the allegory of painting should be 566 00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:34,160 and it's a bandage or a gag which is going to go around the mouth, 567 00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:36,160 because painting doesn't speak. 568 00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,240 Now, men, of course, thought women shouldn't speak, 569 00:40:41,240 --> 00:40:43,920 certainly until they were spoken to. 570 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,320 But Artemisia Gentileschi, who had been raped 571 00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:49,080 by one of her father's assistants the age of 18, 572 00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:53,040 was determined that nobody was going to shut her up, 573 00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:54,920 either in life or in her work. 574 00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,400 And what she does here is of course liberate the figure 575 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,680 from painting to a kind of conventional stereotype, 576 00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:04,600 the stereotype in Ripa's book, 577 00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:09,280 and turn it into something like a living physical force. 578 00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,600 Look at the twist of her body. 579 00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,600 The twist of her body is so that she can paint. 580 00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,520 And what she's painting is the painting we're looking at. 581 00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,480 The whole thing is unapologetic. 582 00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,360 "Look at me, I'm a professional. 583 00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:30,720 "I'm in the business, I'm in the throes of creativity 584 00:41:30,720 --> 00:41:33,360 "and what is wrong with that?" 585 00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,840 Artemisia's breakthrough self-portrait was bought 586 00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:45,040 by none other than King Charles I, that great stickler for protocol 587 00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,840 but also a great lover of art. 588 00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:53,240 And there was no court in Europe more obsessed with protocol 589 00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:56,360 than that of Philip IV in Spain. 590 00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,080 But right at the heart of that court was the greatest of artistic 591 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,280 freethinkers, Diego Velazquez. 592 00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,120 As official painter to the king, Velazquez produced 593 00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:09,000 images of the royals on demand, 594 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:13,440 though always with unprecedented sparkling naturalism - 595 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:17,040 the human showing through the fancy dress. 596 00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,520 And on one occasion at least, despite, 597 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,720 or maybe because of the strength of his position, 598 00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:27,640 he committed an extraordinary act of painterly lese-majeste. 599 00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,600 Towards the end of his career in 1656, 600 00:42:33,600 --> 00:42:36,880 Velazquez he produced a picture, this one, Las Meninas, 601 00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:41,800 The Maids Of Honour, which more than any other before or since 602 00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:48,960 stakes the most ambitious claim for the power of art and the artist. 603 00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,360 It's a painting which reverses all the usual 604 00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:57,800 expectations of the relationship between patron and artist. 605 00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:02,640 In this picture, it is the painter thoughtfully looking at us 606 00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,480 who is truly sovereign. 607 00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,720 Anyone who comes into the presence of this masterpiece, 608 00:43:08,720 --> 00:43:13,480 or as it really feels, steps across the threshold 609 00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,800 of that huge work, feels him or herself 610 00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:22,080 uncannily in presence of all the characters who populate it. 611 00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:28,040 That thoughtful painter, the little princess, 612 00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,200 her maids of honour, 613 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:31,800 the dwarfs, 614 00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,000 even that slumbering dog. 615 00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:40,880 It is an absolute triumph of illusionistic painting. 616 00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:42,640 Something else as well... 617 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:48,360 ..Velazquez is the most cerebral artist of his generation 618 00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,680 and this is a huge brainteaser. 619 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,640 There's a giant in the room and it's that epic sized canvas 620 00:43:57,640 --> 00:43:59,400 but what's on it? 621 00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,080 A painting of the little princess, 622 00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:06,400 or of Philip VI and his queen? 623 00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,600 Is that mirror showing a reflection of the royal couple 624 00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,080 painted on Velazquez's canvas? 625 00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:18,960 Or the real king and queen who are actually present in the room? 626 00:44:20,240 --> 00:44:23,720 Is the sudden attentiveness the beginnings of a curtsy on the 627 00:44:23,720 --> 00:44:27,600 part of the maid because the royal couple have come into the studio... 628 00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,280 ..or are just departing? 629 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,960 It's full of games that play with the mind, 630 00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:37,880 it's full of complicated layers of meaning, 631 00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:41,720 all of which build into a meditation on which it is to paint. 632 00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:45,400 And they are so fiendishly ingenious that they have challenged 633 00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:49,360 generation after generation of writers and commentators 634 00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:52,960 and artists to nail its ultimate meaning. And do you know? 635 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:58,080 I don't think anyone has yet quite got to the bottom of it. 636 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:02,240 But if presumptuously I were to tell you in a sentence 637 00:45:02,240 --> 00:45:04,520 what I think it's about, 638 00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:09,280 I think it's about who or what, in every sense, 639 00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,120 controls the way we look. 640 00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,600 The look we put on when we know we're being watched, 641 00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:23,440 our body language when we suddenly have to defer to authority, 642 00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:26,800 the concentrated look of the artist glancing from subject 643 00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,280 to picture and back again. 644 00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,720 There's really only one sovereign of staring here 645 00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:34,800 and it's not the king. 646 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,240 He only exists in the picture courtesy of the painter. 647 00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:43,760 The royal ego is shrunk and contained inside that small frame 648 00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:45,760 at the back of the room. 649 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,400 A reversal of roles that was provocative in he West 650 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,600 and inconceivable in he East, 651 00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,600 where anything so cheeky would get you in the deepest trouble. 652 00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,320 And taking liberties with conventions didn't stop 653 00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:02,400 when monarchs went missing from the picture. 654 00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:10,360 The Dutch Republic fought Spain to a standstill to secure its freedom. 655 00:46:10,360 --> 00:46:14,280 But independence often goes along with civic myths 656 00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,040 and in Holland, the rich burgers of Amsterdam like to portray 657 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,800 themselves as vigilant militia companies, 658 00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,880 ready at the drop of a hat to go off to war. 659 00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,920 Though, when they commissioned group portraits, what they actually 660 00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:31,760 wanted for their money was just a bunch of likenesses. 661 00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:35,480 And if there were a lot of them, the artist elasticated the format 662 00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:37,960 accordingly to get everyone in. 663 00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,680 But then there was Rembrandt. 664 00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,840 And what he thought his militia patrons might like more than 665 00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:49,680 a collection of the overdressed was an action portrait of an ethos. 666 00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,960 The actual title of the picture is 667 00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,920 The March Out Of The Company Of Frans Banning Cocq 668 00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:01,760 and, boy, are they marching. 669 00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,440 They're on the point of beginning that march 670 00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:08,800 and the idea of this painting is, above all, energy. 671 00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:13,560 Dynamism, vitality, that's what Rembrandt wanted to celebrate 672 00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:14,760 in Amsterdam. 673 00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:23,760 It is propulsive. It moves through that frame into our own space. 674 00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:30,200 Rembrandt has used his entire box of tricks to make this 675 00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:35,240 feel like a moving image, like a movie, in fact. 676 00:47:35,240 --> 00:47:38,040 If you look at the kind of foreshortened hand, 677 00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:42,600 the order that's being given is happening in his body language. 678 00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,760 Look at the foreshortened spear. 679 00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,480 You can see his rather glamorously dressed lieutenant 680 00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,640 in that gorgeous yellow coat 681 00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:54,800 is just on the point of moving as well. 682 00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,800 Everything is coming at us. 683 00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:01,400 And it also has a soundtrack. 684 00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,880 Everything is exploding. 685 00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:06,000 SHOUTING 686 00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,280 A gun is being fired. GUNSHOTS 687 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:12,200 A drum is being beaten. DRUM ROLLS 688 00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:14,680 A dog is barking. DOG BARKS 689 00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,160 Take a look at Frans Banning Cocq's perfect little mouth 690 00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,680 and it's open. He is giving that order. 691 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:26,200 A little girl, maybe the mascot of the company, 692 00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,840 is running into the brilliant light. 693 00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,760 Some people have trouble with this painting and have thought 694 00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,320 of it for centuries as a kind of garish chaos, 695 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:40,640 too much, too much going on. 696 00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:46,880 But Rembrandt being Rembrandt, he stops just this side of chaos. 697 00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,720 That amidst this extraordinary kind of melee 698 00:48:49,720 --> 00:48:54,320 is an incredibly strong compositional armature 699 00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:58,480 and it's an armature of two parallel lines. 700 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,880 One angle of the parallelogram is made by that rhythm of the lines, 701 00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,760 of the spear, the gun, the partisan. 702 00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:12,640 On the other hand, it's made by the baton of the captain, 703 00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:17,360 the musket, the gorgeous flag of the Kloveniers. 704 00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:24,600 And if you think about it, those two lines converge at an arrowhead 705 00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:28,120 and the arrowhead appropriately is the commander. 706 00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:37,120 The Night Watch is a perfect miracle of dynamism 707 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,080 and discipline together. 708 00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:45,760 And that's the living ethos that Rembrandt is trying to communicate. 709 00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,080 In his boiling brain, 710 00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:52,320 he reckons he's doing the overstuffed patricians a favour. 711 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:55,360 They no longer pose and preen, they act. 712 00:49:56,760 --> 00:50:01,080 And the fact that it's a painting about freedom with order 713 00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:05,480 makes it an extraordinary moment, not just in the history 714 00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,880 of painting, but it's a moment in the history of civilisation, too. 715 00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,720 Amsterdam is beating not only the drum, 716 00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:14,800 but its own chest, saying, 717 00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:20,040 "We can be free, but we are also strong and disciplined." 718 00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:25,200 This is the visual declaration of republican liberty. 719 00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:28,520 Watch out, art, but watch out, the world. 720 00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:35,560 Nothing, you'd suppose, could be further from the unleashed energy 721 00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:39,440 that produced the Night Watch than the controlled refinement 722 00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,040 of Indian Mughal art. 723 00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,920 But Rembrandt, who had a lifelong fascination 724 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,320 with non-European cultures, was in love with them. 725 00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:53,880 In the 1650s he began to draw his version of miniatures, 726 00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,960 which had found their way to Amsterdam probably as copies 727 00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:59,880 through he East India Company. 728 00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:04,400 Rembrandt responded to the miniatures with his own graceful 729 00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:09,160 pen and ink variations, all rich with what he loved best - 730 00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:10,480 human interest. 731 00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:16,760 A group of Sufi sheiks. 732 00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:22,640 The bond between father and son, 733 00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:24,520 a favourite Rembrandt theme. 734 00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,800 Some of the miniatures he copied still exist 735 00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,160 and they make a fascinating contrast 736 00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:33,640 with Rembrandt's versions. 737 00:51:34,720 --> 00:51:38,120 This is a painting of the Emperors Akbar and Jahangir. 738 00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:40,040 Rembrandt keeps the profile, 739 00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:43,240 but ditches the formalism for humane naturalism, 740 00:51:43,240 --> 00:51:45,560 the rulers become characters. 741 00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:49,440 Father and son look each other in the eye 742 00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,320 as Jahangir hands Akbar a book. 743 00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:59,520 A Mughal portrait of Jahangir's son, Shah Jahan On Horseback, 744 00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,240 is still and poised. 745 00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:06,880 But Rembrandt adds movement and action. 746 00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:12,280 What Rembrandt's sketches show 747 00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:15,800 is that the tide of artistic inspiration also flowed 748 00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:17,440 from East to West. 749 00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,160 In the end, Rembrandt was a stay-at-home cultural traveller. 750 00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,440 But what might he have made of the real thing? 751 00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,760 Of the marbled perfection of Agra? 752 00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:46,480 Each building, a dialogue between curve and straight line. 753 00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:52,960 A civilisation as painterly in its architecture as in its art. 754 00:52:56,240 --> 00:52:59,040 Another extraordinary dome. 755 00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,320 A marble monument to love, 756 00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,880 20 years in the making. 757 00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:11,160 The tribute of the Emperor Shah Jahan 758 00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,800 for his dead wife Mumtaz Mahal. 759 00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:20,680 Grief and yearning translated into architectural poetry. 760 00:53:21,720 --> 00:53:24,640 While European art was fizzing with experiment, 761 00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:28,640 the Mughal's perfected royal elegies crafted in stone. 762 00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:32,720 This building, the I'timad-ud-Daulah, 763 00:53:32,720 --> 00:53:35,480 is the first of their marble mausoleums 764 00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,520 build a decade before the Taj Mahal. 765 00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:44,160 Some claim it's the most perfect building in India 766 00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,240 and I think they may be right. 767 00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,400 It too was a work of devotion, 768 00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:52,400 but this time designed by a cultivated woman, 769 00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,560 Jahangir's favourite wife, Nur Jahan. 770 00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,720 She was the child of a Persian father, Mirza Beg, 771 00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:02,760 Jahangir's closest adviser. 772 00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:07,320 When he died, Nur Jahan built a tomb for him 773 00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:09,880 as handsome as any emperor's. 774 00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,320 And looking at it, you would say her creation 775 00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:16,360 is about as perfect as anything 776 00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,000 the hand of man can accomplish. 777 00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:23,960 And then you go inside and see this. 778 00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:43,960 Death in a jewel box. 779 00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:50,440 The chilly funereal marble warmed by an uncountable myriad of gems. 780 00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:57,280 Encrusted in glowing paint, the ceiling burns. 781 00:54:59,720 --> 00:55:03,520 And on the walls, in a technique borrowed from Italy 782 00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:07,880 of planed-down jewels, a paradise garden. 783 00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:13,080 There are images of flowers designed so naturalistically, 784 00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:17,720 so scientifically, that they could have come straight from the pages 785 00:55:17,720 --> 00:55:22,720 of one of that endlessly curious Jahangir's great books. 786 00:55:22,720 --> 00:55:27,960 Here in the presence of the dead, we have an eternal springtime. 787 00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:38,880 And that perhaps is both its glory and its limitation. 788 00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:43,160 The mausoleum is like a page from one of Jahangir's picture books. 789 00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:46,560 And like those books, it's private and contained. 790 00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:53,560 Every hint of the uneven roughness of life is smoothed away. 791 00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,200 It couldn't be more different from European art, 792 00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:03,440 with its earthy, subversive humanity, 793 00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,000 the force of individual genius coming at you. 794 00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:09,720 How different that is 795 00:56:09,720 --> 00:56:12,960 from the anonymous serenity of this royal tomb, 796 00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:16,880 a serenity that would all too soon be shattered. 797 00:56:19,000 --> 00:56:23,080 Out there, the western hurly-burly is getting ready to make 798 00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:28,200 terrible mischief, to smash its way into the domed heavenly vault, 799 00:56:28,200 --> 00:56:31,320 to stick its bloody, great brutal boots 800 00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:33,920 right into the paradise garden. 801 00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:38,840 It'll make an empire based on machines, money and muskets. 802 00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:42,440 And then, slowly but surely, 803 00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:45,800 the Mughal Empire will disappear entirely 804 00:56:45,800 --> 00:56:48,320 inside its courtly refinement, 805 00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:53,360 becoming inexorably just a cultural ornament. 806 00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:58,920 So, after centuries of extraordinary flowering, 807 00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:02,840 did the Eastern Renaissance just simply wither away? 808 00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:04,520 Not quite. 809 00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:09,400 Because these delicate blooms and glowing jewels did survive. 810 00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:13,840 They reappeared in what Europeans wore on their bodies 811 00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:16,520 and how they decorated their homes. 812 00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:21,240 Mughal domes appeared in Brighton. 813 00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:25,320 Western art critics called that beauty decorative 814 00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:28,600 to distinguish it from pictures they put in frames - 815 00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,240 what they considered "real art". 816 00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:38,400 But it was in he East that the ancient meaning of art as craft 817 00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:42,760 was preserved in all its majestic splendour - 818 00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:48,560 and still is - because if the work of art is to intensify 819 00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:51,160 our delight in the beauty of the world, 820 00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:55,240 and to do so with pattern and colour, the music of the eye, 821 00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:58,680 then what you see here was not an ending, 822 00:57:58,680 --> 00:58:02,240 but another vibrant beginning. 823 00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:14,640 The Open University has produced a free poster that explores 824 00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:18,360 the history of different civilisations through artefacts. 825 00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:22,480 To order your free copy, please call... 826 00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:26,480 ..or go to the address on screen 827 00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:29,280 and follow the links for the Open University.