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In the 19th century, the world was
transformed by a powerful idea.
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A belief amongst Europeans that
their civilisation alone represented
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the pinnacle of human progress.
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It was an idea driven by the
modernising forces of science
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and industry.
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Artists tried to
make sense of it all.
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The exhilarating dreams
of a brighter world...
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..the nightmares about
where it might lead,
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and the real impact of progress
on ordinary human beings.
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As the frontiers of
European civilisation advanced,
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cultures across the world
were either decimated...
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..or learned to adapt and survive.
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Some artists fled the forces
of modernisation by turning
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to so-called primitive cultures.
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Others sought a primal energy
that they believed was lacking
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in the industrial world.
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For me, as a historian of empire,
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art is key to help us understand
these profound tensions between
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the idea of inevitable progress
and the fear of what it might cost.
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Tensions that helped shape
the world of the 19th century
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and foreshadowed
the catastrophe to come.
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In the 18th century man learned
to harness the power of nature
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in radical new ways.
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In the end, virtually
no civilisation on Earth
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would remain untouched
by the changes.
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The Industrial Revolution first
emerged in the English Midlands.
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Its most potent symbol was
a new kind of architecture...
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..the factory.
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This cotton mill, hidden away
in the Derbyshire countryside,
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was the world's very first
fully fledged modern factory.
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It was built in the 1770s by the
entrepreneur Richard Arkwright
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and it was designed around
his greatest invention -
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the water frame.
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A machine that used the power of
flowing water to drive looms
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that produced cotton yarn cheaper
and faster than anybody ever had.
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That makes this factory the
birthplace of mass production.
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Here, industry forced nature to bow
before the ambitions of mankind.
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But from now on, industry would also
demand that human beings submit
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to the needs of the machine...
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..working in shifts
around the clock.
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Arkwright was so proud of his
cotton mill he had it painted
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by the artist
Joseph Wright of Derby,
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in an apparently idyllic,
deceptively peaceful landscape.
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There's no hint
here of the whirling,
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clanking machines and the sheer
relentless energy of the coming age.
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Yet Wright the artist was intrigued
by the changing world around him,
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though as much by the new science
and technology
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as their effects on humanity.
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What really fascinated Wright of
Derby was not all the machinery
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and the hard labour of the
Industrial Revolution,
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but the ideas that drove it.
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And these were the great
ideas of the Enlightenment -
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a faith in reason
and in scientific method,
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an unquenchable thirst for knowledge
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and an unshakeable
belief in progress.
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It was this idea - that science
believed it was creating
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a brave new world -
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that lay at the heart of one of
Wright's most celebrated paintings.
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A travelling scientist has placed
a bird in a glass bell jar
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and begun to pump
out the air.
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Deprived of oxygen,
the bird begins to suffocate.
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The onlookers respond with a mix
of fascination and horror.
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This is science as the new religion,
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with the power over life itself.
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But Wright also hints at the great
fear of the age -
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that science, the machine,
and progress all come at a cost.
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Would those who dared to stand in
the way of progress be sacrificed,
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like the bird in the air pump?
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As the 18th century drew to a close,
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one momentous event would mark the
start of a new zealous export of
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Enlightenment ideas
to other cultures.
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In the summer of 1798,
a French army,
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led by Napoleon Bonaparte,
invaded Egypt.
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In military terms,
Napoleon's objectives were clear -
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to gain strategic advantage
over the British
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and expand France's
imperial ambitions.
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But the invasion of this
ancient land was about much more
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than just military strategy.
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Many Europeans regarded Egypt
as the birthplace of civilisation.
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They believed that ideas that had
first been nurtured here under
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the pharaohs had been passed down,
through ancient Greece,
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through the Roman Empire,
through the Renaissance,
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all the way down to
modern Enlightenment France.
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So by invading Egypt,
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Napoleon was leading France back
to the source of civilisation.
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To uncover the secrets
of ancient Egypt,
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Napoleon brought with him 167 of
France's most brilliant scientists,
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mathematicians,
engineers and artists.
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They set about studying every aspect
of the country they'd conquered,
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especially the ancient ruins that
lay half-buried beneath the sand.
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They would publish their findings in
a monumental multivolume work -
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The Description Of Egypt.
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It documented this lost world
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and its as-yet-undeciphered
hieroglyphics
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for the tantalisation of the West.
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Napoleon's team of experts also
fuelled an archaeological race
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to unearth the treasures
of the ancient world.
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Many of those treasures ended up
in the new museums of Europe
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and North America.
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Displayed in the
Enlightenment spirit of learning,
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for the betterment
of a wider public.
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In the capitals of Europe,
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Napoleon's mission spawned
a new fascination
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with the art of ancient Egypt.
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But Napoleon's invasion
had had another purpose -
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not only to uncover the secrets of
ancient Egypt, but also to impose
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European civilisation on the
living, contemporary Egypt.
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Armed with a library of books
and a printing press,
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Napoleon wanted to re-educate
an Islamic world that Europeans
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had long seen as the enemy,
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a civilisation they considered
to have lost its way.
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Ultimately, Napoleon's
occupation would fail
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at the hands of the British.
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But, in a curious twist,
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Europeans became increasingly
obsessed with the very culture
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Napoleon had tried to change.
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Or more accurately, their imagined
fantasy of what that culture was.
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Soon artists began to travel
throughout the Islamic world
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to paint the exotic places
and people they encountered.
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This is the painting that inspired
an entire genre of 19th century
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European art - Orientalism.
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It's the work of the French artist
Eugene Delacroix
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who painted it in the 1830s,
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after he'd actually gone
on a visit to Algeria,
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which had recently been conquered
and colonised by France.
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And this is the first
real serious attempt
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to portray ordinary life
in the Islamic world.
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But like many of the Orientalist
paintings that were to follow,
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not everything about this
is what it seems.
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Now, Delacroix claimed to
have based the composition
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on a visit he'd made
to an Arab household in Algeria,
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but it would've been extremely
unusual for a male stranger
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to given access to the women
of an Arab household,
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so there's every chance that
these women are in fact Jewish.
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And there are other elements
of this painting
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which were either fabricated
or embroidered by Delacroix.
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So the painting was completed in
Paris using exotic costumes,
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and the models are Parisian models.
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And this figure of the black
servant or perhaps black slave
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was of Delacroix's invention.
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So what seems like a real scene
is in fact a Parisian revelry
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of a supposed exotic sensuous
world that didn't exist in Europe.
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Yet in Delacroix's gifted hands,
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there is a subtlety of shade and
colour that was rarely achieved
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by the generation of Orientalist
painters he inspired.
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Many Orientalists invented scenes
that revelled in the decadence
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and despotism that Europeans
considered to be oriental qualities.
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Concubines languishing
in hidden harems,
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naked female slaves
for sale in busy markets.
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Orientalist themes became
so popular that Ingres,
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master of the classical nude,
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set one of his greatest works in
an imagined women's bathhouse,
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even though he'd never been
to the Middle East.
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These were European fantasies,
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and they suggest a desire to
escape the turmoil of life
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in industrial Europe.
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As the Industrial Revolution
gathered pace,
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Europe's cities began to change
beyond all recognition.
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To begin with,
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few saw the emerging factory
landscapes
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as a worthy subject for art.
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But the British painter
Turner did.
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In his view of Dudley, in
England's industrial heartland,
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he juxtaposed the
old town on the hill,
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its ruined castle
and church steeple,
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symbols of tradition and faith...
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..with the blazing furnaces and
busy canals of the modern age.
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The great thinker and art critic
John Ruskin saw in the picture
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an indictment of how the old way
of life was being destroyed
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by the factory
and the machine.
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Because as manufacturing cities
mushroomed in size,
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they became a social disaster...
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..overcrowded and rife
with poverty and disease.
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This was the human
cost of mechanisation.
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STEAM WHISTLE BLOWS
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In America, the frontiers
of progress
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pushed inexorably westwards,
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into territory as yet unspoiled
by industry.
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The United States was
a young country,
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forged, like France,
out of revolutionary
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and Enlightenment idealism.
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To its pioneers, the entire American
wilderness, from East to West,
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seemed like virgin territory.
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Artists translated these
vast landscapes onto canvas
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and filled them
with divine light.
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They conveyed the idea that God
himself blessed not only the land
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but also the new nation
being forged from it.
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The great pioneer of American
landscape art was the British-born
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Thomas Cole.
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Thomas Cole regarded the American
landscape as being what he himself
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called "The undefiled work of gods".
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In this young country that
just didn't have what Europeans
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recognised as a history,
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mountains and canyons
and waterfalls were to replace
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the classical ruins so beloved
of European landscape artists.
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In America, natural history was
to stand in for history itself.
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In his landscapes,
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Cole often included
America's indigenous peoples.
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But they are invariably dwarfed
by the vastness of the scene,
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as though they themselves are merely
features of the natural world.
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The embodiment of the Enlightenment
idea of the noble savage -
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an idealised, uncorrupted people,
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living a pure life,
connected to nature.
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But underpinning Cole's work
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was a fear that the
American wilderness and
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its inhabitants would inevitably
be tamed, even destroyed,
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in the process of creating
a new nation.
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In his masterpiece, an allegory of
civilisation in five paintings,
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Cole fused landscape
with an imagined history,
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to challenge mainstream ideas
about America's future.
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These five paintings
tell an epic story,
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the story of the rise and
fall of a great civilisation.
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And they're influenced by
a historical theory
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that saw the past as an
endless cycle of rises and falls,
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and that was popular
in the 19th century.
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It begins with what Thomas Cole
called The Savage State.
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This is a primordial Earth.
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There's a hunter chasing
a stag across the landscape.
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In the background is his village,
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which is a cluster
of animal-skin tents,
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which look almost exactly like
the tepees of the Plain's Indians.
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And this supposedly savage state was
the level of civilisation that many
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Americans thought that the
Native Americans have reached before
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the arrival of Europeans.
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But it's the next stage,
The Arcadian, The Pastoral State,
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that in many ways
is Thomas Cole's ideal.
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In this painting, mankind
has discovered agriculture.
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There's a farmer
ploughing his field,
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there's a shepherd with his flock.
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And because food is now plentiful,
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the men and the women
of this society
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have the chance to discover
the arts.
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There's music and there's
dancing, there's poetry.
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But there's also a hint
of the direction of travel
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in which this society
is moving,
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because on the beach is a longboat
being constructed,
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and the hint there is the men
of this society
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are going to go out into the
world and forge an empire.
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And centuries later,
in the centrepiece,
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literally the centrepiece of
this series of paintings,
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is The Consummation Of Empire.
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This is mankind's
greatest achievements.
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There's classical architecture,
there's great civic statues.
244
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:09,840
This is a society with fleets of
ships engaged in trade and in war.
245
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:15,680
It's also a civilisation that
has given birth to democracy.
246
00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:19,400
And that's not led to a
flowering of Republican values,
247
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:22,720
that democracy has been corrupted,
Thomas Cole is telling us,
248
00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:24,040
by the emperor,
249
00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:26,440
the figure who's marching
into his great city
250
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:29,080
ahead of a column
of horses and elephants.
251
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:34,600
This is a demagogue who has
sowed the seeds of the fall
252
00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:36,400
of his civilisation.
253
00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,240
The fourth painting, Destruction,
254
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,600
is the moment of
the fall of an empire.
255
00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:43,760
The city is being invaded.
256
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:45,200
We don't know who this army is,
257
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,800
they could be these
forces of a stronger,
258
00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:50,360
more morally virile Empire.
259
00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:52,600
They could be the slaves
of this empire,
260
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:54,720
who have risen up in revolution,
261
00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:57,160
or they could be,
this could be a civil war.
262
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:00,880
All of those eventualities
are hinted at here.
263
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:06,120
But what is clear is that this
society has brought its fall down
264
00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:10,280
upon its own head, because of
its own moral corruption.
265
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,440
What is missing from
this city is nature.
266
00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:15,400
All the trees have been expunged.
267
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:20,080
And in the final painting,
centuries have passed.
268
00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:22,440
This is Desolation.
269
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:23,920
From thousands of people,
270
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:27,600
we have a scene completely
empty of human beings.
271
00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:31,080
Nature has recolonised.
272
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,560
Course Of Empire isn't really
about the classical world.
273
00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:39,960
These paintings aren't
about Rome in the fifth century.
274
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:41,920
They're about the
United States of America
275
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:43,440
in the middle of the 19th.
276
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:45,800
Because Thomas Cole was one
of many figures who believed
277
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,560
his society stood at the crossroads.
278
00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:52,160
It would either stay true to its
original founding principles
279
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:56,000
or become a commercial,
industrial, urbanised society,
280
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,120
and one that would
expand on a continental scale.
281
00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:01,600
And perhaps not surprisingly,
282
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:03,720
Thomas Cole, the painter
of landscapes,
283
00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:04,920
the painter of nature,
284
00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:10,240
also profoundly believed that any
society that lost touch with nature
285
00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:12,480
also lost its moral compass.
286
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:24,720
But many did not believe, like Cole,
in the cyclical nature of history.
287
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:29,280
In fact, by the mid 19th century,
288
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:32,320
most white Americans believed
they had what became known
289
00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:34,120
as a "manifest destiny..."
290
00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:39,800
..to take what they saw as
their superior civilisation
291
00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,440
to the furthest edge
of the continent.
292
00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:50,360
From the 1830s it became official
US policy to drive Native Americans
293
00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:54,880
from their traditional lands and
into poorer, harsher environments.
294
00:20:56,640 --> 00:21:01,600
Those who resisted were deliberately
starved, hounded out or massacred.
295
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:08,400
One artist more than any other made
it his life's work to record those
296
00:21:08,400 --> 00:21:09,840
disappearing cultures...
297
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:13,240
..George Catlin.
298
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:20,120
Over the course of five trips to
what was then the western frontier,
299
00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:22,320
Catlin met and painted
the portraits
300
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:25,560
of hundreds of Native American
men and women.
301
00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,280
Together they formed a unique
collection that Catlin called
302
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:39,960
The Indian Gallery.
303
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:45,200
He would tour them around the
country and later around the world.
304
00:21:48,520 --> 00:21:52,400
George Catlin was by no means
indifferent to the sufferings of
305
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,880
the people whose faces appear
in these paintings.
306
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,440
And unlike some artists,
307
00:21:57,440 --> 00:22:00,800
he went out of his way
to accurately name his sitters.
308
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,360
These are individuals,
they're not types.
309
00:22:04,360 --> 00:22:07,520
And through his art,
Catlin demonstrated to anyone
310
00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:10,360
who cared to look
that there were numerous
311
00:22:10,360 --> 00:22:13,120
different distinct
Native American nations,
312
00:22:13,120 --> 00:22:16,160
all of them with their own
traditions and cultures
313
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,160
and all of them under threat,
314
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,280
as the United States
pushed ever westwards.
315
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:25,080
But Catlin didn't produce these
paintings in order to take part
316
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,880
in some campaign to save
the Native Americans,
317
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:30,680
as we might like to think.
318
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:34,720
Catlin accepted that these
people were, as he said,
319
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:36,960
"Doomed and must perish".
320
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:45,560
Catlin's portraits have undoubtedly
preserved a rich cultural record
321
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,120
for posterity. Yet for many
Native Americans,
322
00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:53,680
they are troubling, romanticised
images of the vanishing Indian,
323
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,840
that Catlin put on display
for white fee-paying audiences.
324
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,800
After all, there is
another perspective -
325
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:05,960
the art of the Native Americans
themselves.
326
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:10,320
Because even the nomadic
Plains Indians recorded key events
327
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:12,240
on their portable belongings.
328
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,480
It was a traditional art
form that began to show
329
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,400
the influence of European contact.
330
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:30,440
This image, painted onto
an animal hide,
331
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,120
was produced by people
of the Cheyenne nation.
332
00:23:33,120 --> 00:23:37,400
It's a depiction of the Battle of
Little Bighorn in 1876 -
333
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,280
one of the few major
Native American victories
334
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:42,320
in the so-called Indian Wars.
335
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,720
And through artefacts like this,
336
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,560
the Native Americans
recorded their plight
337
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:49,400
in their own artistic traditions,
338
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:55,840
and there are, inevitably, many
more images of defeat than victory.
339
00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:59,040
This is the work of people
who were the victims,
340
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,960
not the beneficiaries,
of manifest destiny.
341
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,680
This is art from the
other side of the frontier,
342
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,640
art that records
how the west was lost.
343
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,480
While George Catlin was trying
to preserve the culture
344
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,880
of Native Americans on canvas,
345
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,280
on the far side of the world
346
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,080
another artist would take
a very different view
347
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,640
of the indigenous people
he met on the frontiers of empire.
348
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,720
In 1874, Gottfried Lindauer,
349
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:44,120
a Czech artist from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire,
350
00:24:44,120 --> 00:24:49,000
arrived in New Zealand, known to its
original inhabitants as Aotearoa.
351
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,640
Lindauer arrived after
decades of warfare,
352
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,120
in which the Maori had lost much
of their land to the British.
353
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:04,160
The Czech painter suddenly found
his skills much in demand,
354
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:07,240
producing portraits of Maori
men and women.
355
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:18,760
To begin with, the portraits were
commissioned by European settlers
356
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:22,320
eager to preserve a record
of Maori culture for posterity.
357
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,160
They believed that the Maori,
like the Native Americans,
358
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:30,520
were a dying race.
359
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,360
But the Maori didn't regard
themselves as a doomed people,
360
00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:39,760
and by the 1890s their population
was on the increase
361
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,920
after decades of decline.
362
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:46,760
And they were absolutely determined
to forge a new future in which
363
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:48,720
their culture, their traditions,
364
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,920
their language and the memories of
their ancestors were all to be kept
365
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:55,120
alive and kept vibrant.
366
00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:59,240
And one of the ways they did this
was by co-opting the talents
367
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,480
of Gottfried Lindauer and
commissioning him to paint
368
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,680
their portraits, but on terms
dictated by them, to their tastes,
369
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:12,280
and according to how they wanted
to be seen and to be remembered.
370
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,240
For Lindauer it didn't matter
whether his commissions came from
371
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,880
Europeans or from the Maori elite.
372
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,840
He treated both as he would
any paying customer.
373
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,800
Artistically, the style was
always resolutely European.
374
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,920
But for his Maori patrons
and their families,
375
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,040
Lindauer's paintings began to assume
an entirely new level of meaning.
376
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,720
As a people who had always
venerated their ancestors,
377
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:51,200
many Maori came to regard
the portraits of Lindauer
378
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,400
not just as memorials
to their ancestors,
379
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:59,800
but as almost living icons that kept
their spirit alive in the present.
380
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,960
Now, today, Lindauer's portraits
are scattered all over the world,
381
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,240
in museums and galleries,
but some, including this one,
382
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,560
have remained within
a single family,
383
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,240
passed down through
the generations.
384
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:16,160
This is Te Rangiotu,
a Maori chieftain
385
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:17,880
but also a successful businessman
386
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,680
who had the wealth
and the foresight to commission
387
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,240
this portrait from Lindauer in 1884.
388
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,960
Now, what's really significant
389
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,200
is that when Lindauer
was painting portraits
390
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,760
of Maori for European customers,
391
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:34,000
he tended to paint them
in traditional costume,
392
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,800
but many Maori patrons who had their
portrait painted by Lindauer
393
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,240
demanded that they be shown in
a hybrid mixture of European
394
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:43,720
and traditional dress,
395
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,760
to show that they were people
who could freely move
396
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:48,760
between the two cultures.
397
00:27:51,120 --> 00:27:54,160
It's through this of Te Rangiotu,
398
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,760
adorned with the symbols
of his status,
399
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,440
that his descendants feel they are
still able to connect with their
400
00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:02,040
illustrious ancestor.
401
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:09,040
His picture is given pride of
place in the clan's meeting house,
402
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,640
a sacred space in Maori culture.
403
00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:24,000
The traditional Maori meeting house
is itself designed to embody
404
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,400
an ancestor, both spiritually
and physically...
405
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:32,280
..from the head and
the outstretched arms
406
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,240
to the backbone and the ribs.
407
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:42,000
Each of the semi-abstract designs
and swirling patterns represents
408
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,440
specific qualities,
409
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,600
from courage and strength
410
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,400
to health and prosperity.
411
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,840
These patterns are mirrored
in the most dynamic of all
412
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:56,200
the Maori art forms.
413
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,360
Ta Moko - the art of the tattoo.
414
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:11,280
Face and body tattoos link Maori
not only with their ancestors,
415
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:13,840
but also with other cultures
across the Pacific,
416
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:16,760
who practice it in different forms.
417
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,920
The Maori almost certainly
brought it with them
418
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:22,440
when they first settled in
419
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,320
Aotearoa, New Zealand,
over 700 years ago.
420
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,200
For centuries, Ta Moko carried
specific cultural meanings.
421
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,240
They denoted social status
or family connections,
422
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,080
and it's said that no two designs
are ever alike.
423
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,240
While today, perhaps inevitably,
424
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:46,560
the designs of Ta Moko
have been appropriated as a
global fashion accessory,
425
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:49,520
for many Maori they've
been re-claimed
426
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:54,520
as a highly visible symbol of
cultural pride and identity.
427
00:29:57,360 --> 00:29:59,080
Throughout the 19th century,
428
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,080
art in many forms was
changed by the spreading
429
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,800
European cult of progress.
430
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,400
Not only on the
furthest edges of Empire...
431
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,520
..but also in
the capitals of Europe.
432
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:19,120
Here too, artists were being
challenged by rapid social change
433
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,560
and by the emergence
of new technology.
434
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:24,880
Like Lindauer's portraits,
435
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,480
it would transform the way
human beings perceived themselves.
436
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,920
The age of the camera
and the age of the photograph
437
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,960
began on the day
Louis-Jacques Daguerre made an image
438
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,320
using his new daguerreotype
process of a Parisian street.
439
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:45,000
Now, the exposure time for
those early primitive cameras
440
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:46,880
was ten minutes,
441
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,560
far too slow to capture images
of the people
442
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,720
and the horses and carriages
rushing up and down the street.
443
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:05,400
But one man who stayed still long
enough to have his shoes shined
444
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:07,400
became, as far as we know,
445
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:10,960
the first person ever
to appear in a photograph.
446
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,360
What this picture doesn't
reveal is the disastrous effects
447
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:20,320
of rapid industrialisation
on the city -
448
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,080
the overcrowding, dirt and disease.
449
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:29,080
But thanks to an ambitious urban
planner called Eugene Haussmann,
450
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:33,080
Paris was about to be transformed
out of all recognition -
451
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,720
and the evolving art of photography
would be there to capture it.
452
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:41,600
From the 1850s,
453
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:46,000
Charles Marville photographed the
city's narrow medieval streets,
454
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,320
just as they and the communities who
lived in them were being swept away.
455
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,840
They were replaced by Haussmann's
grand, spacious boulevards
456
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:59,240
and lined with uniform
terraced apartments.
457
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,200
The reborn city was Europe's
acknowledged capital of culture
458
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,560
and it was the genius of
another pioneer photographer,
459
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,600
known simply as Nadar,
460
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:15,320
to capture the celebrated figures
of Parisian high society.
461
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,960
These were the world's first
great portrait photographs,
462
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:28,600
each one documented with a realism
no painter could ever achieve.
463
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,080
For a younger generation
of Parisian artists,
464
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,560
the camera was both a challenge
and an inspiration.
465
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:40,280
They'd turned their backs
on the art establishment
466
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,000
and its obsessions with
grand historical themes
467
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:44,920
and classical mythology.
468
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,360
What they wanted to paint was
everyday modern life,
469
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,360
and rather than compete
with the camera,
470
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,400
they set out to explore
what the camera couldn't -
471
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,440
our human subjective
experiences of the world
472
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,920
and how they're affected by light,
colour and emotion.
473
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:18,040
The work of the artists who became
known as the Impressionists
474
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:23,920
is so familiar to us today that we
forget its original power to shock.
475
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,880
When Renoir painted
a popular outdoor dance
476
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:32,400
that attracted crowds
every Sunday,
477
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,560
he was celebrating modern life
478
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,600
and the new leisure time
it made possible.
479
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,760
Compared with traditional
Academy paintings,
480
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,880
his style would've seemed rough
and incomplete.
481
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,120
But it is this impression
of the effects of light
482
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,960
that has helped define
our image of 19th century Paris.
483
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:01,720
Monet is best remembered
for his natural landscapes.
484
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,480
But he was also fascinated
by the modern city.
485
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,720
He painted Paris's first train
station, the Gare Saint-Lazare,
486
00:34:12,720 --> 00:34:14,280
filled with clouds of smoke.
487
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,400
Barely visible through the haze,
488
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:23,280
we glimpse the terraces of
Haussmann's reinvented Paris.
489
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,400
The art of the Impressionists
is today regarded
490
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,320
as endlessly and
effortlessly optimistic,
491
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:36,880
a portrayal of France in a golden
age of success and self-confidence.
492
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,200
And it is true that the
Impressionists did love to paint
493
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,920
the Paris middle-class at play,
494
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,160
picnicking in the parks
and boating on the lakes,
495
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:50,960
but they also sometimes did try
to capture that strange sense of
496
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:52,800
dislocation, of isolation,
497
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,680
that was a new and a troubling
feature of the modern city.
498
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:08,080
In Caillebotte's vision
of a rain-soaked Paris,
499
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:12,480
Haussmann's grand boulevards loom
oppressively, as though distorted
500
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,880
by a camera's wide-angle lens.
501
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:21,760
Pedestrians hurry privately
about their business.
502
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:24,840
Nobody makes eye contact
with anybody else,
503
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,440
not even the couple
walking towards us.
504
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,280
People are cocooned from each other,
505
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:34,680
not only by their umbrellas
but by the anonymity of city life.
506
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:41,240
Even the bourgeois world of
Paris at play had its shadowy side.
507
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:47,640
Mary Cassatt, an American artist
living in Paris,
508
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,080
painted an elegantly dressed woman
at the opera,
509
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:52,720
peering at the performance.
510
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,040
Yet she herself does not escape the
attention of a distant male viewer,
511
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,880
as he stares through his opera
glasses and studies her,
512
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:05,000
just as we, the viewer, study her.
513
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:08,560
It's a sly comment, perhaps,
514
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:13,200
on the objectifying male gaze that
produced so many of 19th-century
515
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:14,960
art's female nudes.
516
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:22,240
Although Edgar Degas came
from a bourgeois background,
517
00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:24,360
the son of a middle-class banker,
518
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:28,440
he focused increasingly on those
alienated by modern society.
519
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:35,680
In Absinthe, he paints two
dishevelled figures in a cafe,
520
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:40,320
their lives apparently destroyed
by the infamous drink of the title.
521
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:42,280
They sit side by side,
522
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:44,960
yet are utterly disengaged
from one another
523
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,760
and from the world
that has rejected them.
524
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,120
But it is one of Impressionism's
most enigmatic works
525
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,280
that most powerfully encapsulates
526
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,480
the paradox at
the heart of the city.
527
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,840
A Bar At The Folies-Bergere
by Edouard Manet from 1882.
528
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,720
This is a glimpse into the
glamorous, glittering world
529
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:13,240
of Parisian high society,
530
00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:16,800
but it's not a world that
we get to see directly.
531
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:22,320
We only see it in reflection
on a mirror behind a bar.
532
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,560
And from the moment this
painting was put on display,
533
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:26,720
it was seen as controversial.
534
00:37:26,720 --> 00:37:31,160
And at the centre of the controversy
is the figure at the centre of
535
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,280
the painting, the barmaid.
536
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,440
Because there she is
in the Folies-Bergere,
537
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,160
the most decadent,
the most glamorous,
538
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:42,400
the most joyous
cabaret nightclub in Paris,
539
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:48,640
and yet she has an expression
that is anything but joyous.
540
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:52,800
It's said to be
the face of indifference
541
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,320
or an expression of alienation.
542
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,480
And the fact that Manet has included
in the painting
543
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:03,840
all of these luxury goods -
the champagne,
544
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:08,800
the very expensive imported beer,
and this bowl of oranges -
545
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,600
might have been his way of hinting
546
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:16,520
that she herself might be
a commodity that's for sale.
547
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,360
That this is a young woman
who works as a prostitute
548
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:21,920
as well as selling drinks.
549
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,520
And the reflection adds
to the confusion
550
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:29,120
because her reflection
isn't where we think it should be,
551
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:30,680
it's off to the right.
552
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,440
And in her reflection
she's not looking at us,
553
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:38,760
she's talking and leaning into
this man in a top hat.
554
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:40,720
He is a customer.
555
00:38:40,720 --> 00:38:43,760
But I think everything in this
painting is telling us
556
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:49,040
that he's a man who's after more
than just a round of drinks.
557
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:53,040
This is a masterclass in ambiguity.
558
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,200
This is a painting
that is a reflection,
559
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:58,160
in more than just one sense,
560
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:00,800
of a Paris that is
both real and unreal,
561
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,840
a consumer society in which
everything is for sale,
562
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:09,280
a city that is a constructed reality
that doesn't bear close scrutiny.
563
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:21,480
In 1889, on the centenary
of the French Revolution,
564
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,920
Paris staged the
Exposition Universelle,
565
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:28,520
a celebration of French
culture and civilisation.
566
00:39:30,720 --> 00:39:34,480
The centrepiece of the exposition
was an enormous new monument
567
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:36,160
to industrial power.
568
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,240
Designed to showcase
French engineering...
569
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:51,600
..it was the tallest structure
ever created by the hand of man,
570
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,000
and would be for another 40 years.
571
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:03,600
The exposition also celebrated
France's expanding empire
572
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:06,280
with a number of
colonial pavilions.
573
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,000
People from Asia and Africa
were displayed to the public
574
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,320
in mock villages...
575
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:17,040
..along with their art...
576
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:19,320
..and their architecture.
577
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:23,480
In the heart of the capital,
578
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,400
the cultures of colonial peoples
were here being contrasted
579
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:30,600
with the assumed
superiority of France.
580
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,360
In the view of the time,
it was the sophistication
581
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:38,720
of French civilisation,
582
00:40:38,720 --> 00:40:41,320
with its links back through
the Enlightenment,
583
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,960
the Renaissance and to
the classical world,
584
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:45,600
that gave France the right
585
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,080
to rule over the supposedly
primitive peoples of her empire.
586
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,160
And so the organisers of
the Exposition Universelle
587
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,240
imagined that visitors who came here
588
00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:57,120
would revel at the sight of
members of these supposedly
589
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,240
lower races on display,
590
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:01,880
and that they'd do so
confident in the belief
591
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,920
that they were be guided by France
and her civilising mission.
592
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,760
What visitors were not supposed to
do was to see in the art
593
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,960
and the culture of Africa and Asia
the potential for an escape
594
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,640
FROM Europe and FROM
Western civilisation.
595
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,920
And yet that is exactly
the view taken by an artist
596
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,280
who was one of the 28 million people
597
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:25,880
who passed under the
Eiffel Tower and entered
598
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,640
the exposition
in the summer of 1889.
599
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,560
His name was Paul Gauguin,
600
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:39,120
a former city trader who had lost it
all in the financial crash of 1882.
601
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:45,840
He'd grown to hate the stifling
conventions of bourgeois society.
602
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,920
He wanted to leave it all behind
603
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,840
and find somewhere
not yet tainted by
604
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,440
the artificiality of modern life.
605
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,840
The restless Gauguin
had already sought escape
606
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,720
in the quiet backwaters of
France and Martinique.
607
00:42:02,720 --> 00:42:05,320
But each time he had
returned to Paris.
608
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,480
Now, after visiting the exposition
and seeing its colonial villages,
609
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,560
Gauguin decided that
in order to find paradise,
610
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:16,800
he should head
for the South Pacific,
611
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,680
for the island of Tahiti.
612
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,520
As Gauguin left,
he wrote to a friend,
613
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,240
"The European Gauguin
has ceased to exist."
614
00:42:35,720 --> 00:42:39,360
To him, Tahiti represented
an almost mythical Eden.
615
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,360
The first French explorers who
had arrived in the 1760s regarded
616
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,520
the people they found there
as the most content on earth.
617
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,120
They seemed, to the
European imagination,
618
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:57,920
to be living proof of
the idea of the noble savage -
619
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,360
a simple people with an
unspoiled way of life.
620
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,040
But that is not the
Tahiti Gauguin found.
621
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,600
By the time Gauguin
arrived in Tahiti in 1891,
622
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:15,200
this was one of the most tragic
places in the world.
623
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:18,440
Because while a tiny local elite
had done rather well
624
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,320
from the arrival of Europeans,
625
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:22,960
the Tahitian people
had been devastated
626
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,600
by war, disease and alcohol.
627
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,120
The population was a
fraction of what it had been
628
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:30,800
and the missionaries had
done their absolute best
629
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,000
to stamp out the local culture
and religion.
630
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,360
Tahiti was no longer
a romanticised alternative
631
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:39,560
to European civilisation,
632
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:43,520
it was a classic case study of what
European civilisation could do
633
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:45,880
to other societies.
634
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:53,760
Once he got away from
the capital, Papeete,
635
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:57,720
Gauguin discovered that some parts
of the old legend still survived.
636
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:00,880
He found beauty in the landscape...
637
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,160
..and in the villages,
638
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:11,720
proof of the island's reputation
for the easy availability of women.
639
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,560
Gauguin quickly found
himself a local mistress,
640
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:21,040
a girl of around 13, called
Teha'amana,
641
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,880
who became his model
and his muse.
642
00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:29,720
There are many reasons
to not like Paul Gauguin.
643
00:44:29,720 --> 00:44:33,000
He was a man who spent much of
his life wallowing in self pity
644
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,600
or else engaged in an endless
campaign of self-promotion.
645
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,160
And the relationships that he
had with young Tahitian girls
646
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,840
is something that we today
find deeply disturbing.
647
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,280
And yet, for all his faults,
648
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:50,400
the art that he produced here on the
islands of the Pacific was radical,
649
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,000
vivid and stunningly beautiful.
650
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:05,800
The way Gauguin used solid blocks of
colour was something new in art.
651
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:14,320
And these images were no mere
European fantasy version
652
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,480
of a carefree paradise.
653
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,640
There is melancholy and loss here.
654
00:45:23,720 --> 00:45:27,400
Gauguin's paintings of
the Tahitians were, in one sense,
655
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,680
an honest account of the condition
in which he found them...
656
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,520
..a people in the latter stages
of contamination
657
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:37,520
by the civilising mission,
658
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:41,360
a people consumed by
the European society Gauguin
659
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:43,440
thought he had left behind.
660
00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:48,920
We should not forget that
Gauguin was a vocal critic
661
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,200
of French colonialism in Tahiti,
662
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:56,320
and that one particular aspect
of the way he saw himself
663
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,600
made his view of
civilisation more complex
664
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:01,760
than he's normally given credit for.
665
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,520
Like most Europeans, he saw
the world as being divided
666
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,880
between those who lived civilised,
somewhat artificial lives
667
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,360
and those who had remained
in a natural, savage state.
668
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,520
But he believed he himself
was mixed race -
669
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:21,560
French-Peruvian
but also partly Incan.
670
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:24,720
And those two states,
the natural and the savage,
671
00:46:24,720 --> 00:46:28,800
existed within him,
literally in his blood.
672
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,480
So in Tahiti he wasn't just looking
for a lost island paradise,
673
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,600
he was searching for
a lost part of himself.
674
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:43,080
But Gauguin's last great work
suggests that his search
675
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,720
for identity and meaning
was never resolved.
676
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:54,040
On a vast canvas,
677
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:59,920
a row of Polynesian women represent
the universal cycle of life,
678
00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:02,160
from birth to old age.
679
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,520
Death and the beyond are
represented by a blue idol.
680
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:10,280
It's a Gauguin invention,
681
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:14,960
though based on his fascination with
the myths of the lost Tahitian past.
682
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,680
In trying to find an antidote
to modern life,
683
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,320
Gauguin had turned to
the art and culture
684
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,720
of a civilisation
most Europeans
685
00:47:29,720 --> 00:47:31,680
would have labelled primitive.
686
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,920
Yet, in the end, perhaps he
concluded that there are no answers
687
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,560
to the universal questions about
the meaning of life and death.
688
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:53,840
At the turn of the 20th century,
689
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,600
Europeans did not generally consider
the cultural artefacts of the
690
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,680
so-called primitive peoples
to be art.
691
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,680
Yet they were fascinated by these
objects and by the fashionable ideas
692
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,720
about race and savagery
that were projected onto them.
693
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,120
Pablo Picasso deeply admired
Gauguin's explorations
694
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:17,560
of non-European art.
695
00:48:18,720 --> 00:48:20,000
But, unlike Gauguin,
696
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,880
Picasso was never interested in
escaping from the modern world.
697
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,320
For him, primitive art
would be a catalyst,
698
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:31,680
inspiring him to shatter
the conventions of the past.
699
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:38,120
In 1907, Picasso visited
the Trocadero in Paris,
700
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:42,360
where he came face-to-face with
a display of objects and masks
701
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,040
from the Pacific Islands and Africa.
702
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,680
The exact date of that visit to
the Trocadero is unknown,
703
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:54,160
but then the whole affair
has become shrouded in mythology,
704
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,080
most of it of Picasso's own making.
705
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:01,800
But it is thought that this mask
might have been one of the ones
706
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:03,440
that Picasso saw.
707
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:06,000
It was made by the
Fang people of Gabon,
708
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:09,080
but it seems that Picasso
had no real deep interest
709
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,200
in its cultural meaning
or its ritual function.
710
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,960
What he was interested in
was their potential for his art.
711
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:17,640
And that visit to the Trocadero
712
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:19,960
has become one of
the most famous moments
713
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:21,720
in the story of modern art,
714
00:49:21,720 --> 00:49:24,360
because it was at that moment
that Picasso found -
715
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,080
and from outside of Europe -
716
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:29,160
the inspiration and the expressive
power that would transform
717
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:32,280
his paintings and
revolutionise modern art.
718
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,920
Picasso described the masks
he'd seen as weapons.
719
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:44,720
They had the power, whether
supernatural or psychological,
720
00:49:44,720 --> 00:49:48,000
to exorcise unwanted spirits.
721
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,520
Picasso tried to incorporate
this new power into his work,
722
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:56,120
and created one of
art's masterpieces.
723
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,400
The curtain is drawn back
on a brothel scene.
724
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,160
We see five naked prostitutes
waiting for clients.
725
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:11,400
And though there was a
long-established tradition of female
726
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:17,200
nudes in Western art, these are
unlike any nudes ever seen before.
727
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,360
What made this picture particularly
shocking and revolutionary
728
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,160
were the images Picasso
combined within it.
729
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:32,760
The faces of the three women to
the left are believed to be derived
730
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,120
from archaic Iberian sculpture.
731
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:40,400
But the two women on the right,
their fractured, irregular,
732
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:44,560
distorted faces are based
on the art of Africa,
733
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:49,200
on tribal African masks that
Picasso had encountered in Paris.
734
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:54,080
Now, there's a long debate about
the extent to which Picasso
735
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:56,000
was influenced by African art,
736
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:59,440
and he muddied the waters
considerably by making a series
737
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,720
of completely contradictory
statements.
738
00:51:02,720 --> 00:51:07,720
But you can see that Picasso,
consciously and subconsciously,
739
00:51:07,720 --> 00:51:09,680
by using African art,
740
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,520
was bringing into his paintings
ideas about Africa
741
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,240
that were current
in Europe at the time.
742
00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:19,440
He was a product of his time,
like anybody else,
743
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,640
and he lived in an age
when Africa was the focus
744
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,680
of huge amounts of
speculation and debate
745
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,520
about the meaning of
savagery and civilisation,
746
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:35,040
of us and them, ideas about race,
ideas about exoticism,
747
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,840
ideas about eroticism.
748
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:43,440
So by placing the faces of
African masks onto prostitutes,
749
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:47,200
Picasso was detonating
two powerful sets of ideas
750
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:49,520
about race and savagery,
751
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,280
civilisation, empire,
752
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,680
with older ideas about
female sexuality and prostitution.
753
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:05,480
In one painting, Picasso had
turned Western ideas about art
754
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:07,240
on their head.
755
00:52:07,240 --> 00:52:12,080
He sought to express not simply
aesthetic beauty, but frightening,
756
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:16,080
primal feelings about sex,
violence and even death.
757
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:21,680
And that worked partly because
of the masks' associations
758
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:24,760
in the minds of those
who first saw this painting
759
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,240
with civilisations
they considered primitive.
760
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:33,440
It was the apparent threat of these
objects that made them so shocking,
761
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:37,000
and the perceived barbarism of
the cultures that produced them,
762
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:41,720
which reinforced the assumed
superiority of European culture.
763
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:51,000
And so, when Europe went
to war in July in 1914,
764
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:52,880
few ordinary people questioned
765
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,640
the prevailing view
of Western civilisation
766
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:58,880
as sophisticated,
rational and humane.
767
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:10,960
Yet the horror that was unleashed
by new weapons that could slaughter
768
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:15,560
human beings on an unprecedented
scale was a product of the same
769
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,720
Industrial Revolution
that had forged the railways
770
00:53:18,720 --> 00:53:21,240
and built the Eiffel Tower.
771
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,200
Now it seemed Europeans
were reduced to the same
772
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:29,720
irrational barbarism...
773
00:53:32,040 --> 00:53:35,640
..that they'd convinced themselves
was the hallmark of other,
774
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,000
supposedly primitive, peoples.
775
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,160
In the German trenches
of the First World War
776
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:46,680
was an artist who perhaps
more than any other
777
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:50,640
created a graphic visual
record of the new barbarism.
778
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,520
Otto Dix was one of the millions
of young European men who
779
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:02,960
enthusiastically rushed to enlist
at the outbreak of fighting in 1914,
780
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:07,040
and he went on to spend three years
in the mud and the slime of the
781
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:11,160
trenches, serving on both the
Western and the Eastern fronts.
782
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,600
At one point, he served
in a machine gun unit,
783
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,640
wielding the ultimate
industrial weapon,
784
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:20,120
the literal fusion of the gun
and the machine.
785
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:24,760
And throughout all of this, Otto Dix
produced sketches, hundreds of them,
786
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:27,760
that graphically recorded
what these new weapons did
787
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:31,120
to the flesh and the bone
of his doomed generation.
788
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:40,160
Dix drew the broken faces,
the mud and the misery.
789
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:46,200
He chronicled how industrial warfare
had transformed the soldier
790
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:48,400
from warrior to victim.
791
00:54:56,120 --> 00:55:00,520
It is perhaps fitting that it was
a German artist who most clearly
792
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:03,480
captured the horror
of industrial warfare.
793
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,600
After all, Germany did not have
the consolation of victory
794
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:13,800
behind which to conceal the
inhumanity that had been unleashed.
795
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:20,560
Her war cemeteries,
like the art of Otto Dix,
796
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,520
are austere, frank and bleak.
797
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:35,040
In Dix's work, a new type of
mask took root in European art -
798
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:36,080
the gas mask...
799
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:39,520
..the icon of total war,
800
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,320
otherworldly, hypermodern.
801
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:46,880
This was the face of
Europe's own home-grown barbarism.
802
00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:55,560
But these masked faces, haunting
and visceral though they are,
803
00:55:55,560 --> 00:56:00,800
were in a sense merely preparatory
sketches for Otto Dix's definitive
804
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:05,600
statement on war and on where
European progress had led.
805
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:11,040
It's a work that turns another
European artistic tradition,
806
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:14,280
the religious triptych,
completely on its head.
807
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:23,600
In the far panel, the soldiers
are marching onto the battlefield,
808
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:24,720
through the smoke.
809
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:29,920
And in the panel opposite it, we can
see the results of that battle.
810
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:35,520
A soldier is dragging a wounded
comrade off the battlefield
811
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:37,240
through the broken bodies.
812
00:56:37,240 --> 00:56:39,960
But that soldier is
Otto Dix himself,
813
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:42,880
his face utterly traumatised.
814
00:56:44,720 --> 00:56:47,440
But it's the central panel
that's the most powerful
815
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:49,000
and the most shocking.
816
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:52,280
This is the wasteland
of the Western Front.
817
00:56:56,280 --> 00:57:01,360
It is the great putrid
scar of mud and decaying,
818
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:05,000
rotting flesh that's been
cut across the face of Europe.
819
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:08,320
This skeletal figure
leering over the battlefield
820
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:11,320
is a reference to the Crucifixion.
821
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:18,160
This is the work of a man who
was trapped inside his own
recurring nightmare.
822
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:22,440
Otto Dix and his generation had
borne witness to these horrors,
823
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,520
but they'd also been witness to
the death of the 19th century faith
824
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,560
in inevitable, unstoppable progress.
825
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:33,400
What they'd learned in the trenches
was that savagery and barbarism
826
00:57:33,400 --> 00:57:37,120
weren't external, to be found
only in the colonies,
827
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,000
but inside all of us.
828
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:43,960
They had seen that industry and
progress and the supposed triumph
829
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:45,600
of Enlightenment rationalism
830
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:49,480
did not guarantee
the survival of civilisation.
831
00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:51,200
And it was them,
832
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:54,800
the poets and the artists
and the painters of the trenches,
833
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:57,320
who best understood what
Europe had been through
834
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:00,360
and who best foresaw the horrors
that lay ahead.
835
00:58:08,040 --> 00:58:10,880
The Open University has
produced a free poster
836
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,440
that explores the history
of different civilisations
837
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,160
through artefacts.
838
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:20,880
To order your free copy,
please call 0300 303 3553,
839
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,680
or go to the address
on screen and follow the links
840
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:25,160
for the Open University.