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Welcome to the Low Countries -
a vast flatland


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where continental Europe threatens
to slide into the North Sea.


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If it weren't for the dikes and the
continual pumping away of water,


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thousands of square miles would
simply be washed away.


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The region of the Low Countries
has always been


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a place of shifting borders
and uneasily coexisting tribes.


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It can't be pinned down
to a single nation


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or even a particular
mother tongue.


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Labels like Dutch, Netherlandish,
Flemish, Walloon,


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they're nebulous, they meant
different things at different times.


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And there's the paradox.


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This place, which sometimes seems


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as difficult to grasp
as water itself,


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has exerted an enormous tangible
influence


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on the whole
course of Western civilisation.


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And if you want to understand how
this watery world has


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shaped our modern
world in terms of politics, science,


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the advancement of learning,
economics, history, I think there's


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no better way to begin than by
exploring the rich story of its art.


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Behind the obvious cliches -
the beer and the moules frites,


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the chocolate and waffles,
the windmills and clogs,


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lies a vivid, complex tale


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encapsulated in some of the world's
most compelling works of art.


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From the world of medieval Flanders,
rich and poor,


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sacred and secular...


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to the glories of the Dutch Golden
Age...


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to the somewhat tortuous emergence
of modern Holland and Belgium.


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It's the art of an
Atlantis in reverse,


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a land that rose
from beneath the water


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to reach the pinnacle of
civilisation.


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The Zwin Estuary - this is the
spot where modern day Belgium


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and the Netherlands
meet each other, and the sea.


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Despite thousands of years of human
presence here,


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it still feels uncanny -
a strange, shifting land.


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To the Romans, this coastline
was frontierland,


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the uncouth edge of Empire,
the arse-end of the world.


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The Roman historian Tacitus
described this tidal,


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watery region as "a place
somewhere between land and sea,


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"inhabited by wretched natives
leading primitive lives."


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For heat,
they burned clods of dried earth,


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and for sustenance
they had little more than this...


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Modest beginnings, perhaps,
but the marshy mix of water and land


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that disgusted the Romans


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was the very thing that the
"wretched herring-eating natives"


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would eventually turn
to their advantage.


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By the 10th century,
they were building dikes,


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man-made humps to fence off parcels
of land from the sea.


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Bit by bit, the threat of floods was
replaced with stable farmland,


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then towns, then cities.


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Through sheer hard graft,


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the Lowlanders created a
sophisticated society
from almost nothing.


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But I think what made the whole
culture of the Low Countries


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unique was that this really was
a civilisation built on a network,


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a trading network,
and a network of canals,


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the gentle terrain of the Lowlands,


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the fact that it was a civilisation


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that had been conjured from water,
against all odds,


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was also
the thing that enabled it to become


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a great flourishing civilisation.


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From the late Middle Ages
on well into the Renaissance,


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Men from Flanders were known
for their skill at managing water.


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It's nice to see the city
from the water, because you can feel


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how the houses actually
face this way.


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Naturally, these beautiful little
gardens all facing on to the water.


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Location was crucial -
canals connected the Low Countries


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with sea lanes north to the Baltic,


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west to the British Isles,


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south to Iberia
and the Mediterranean.


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By the 1300s, the Low Countries


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dominated trade in Northern Europe,
and this city, Bruges,


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was at the heart of one of the
greatest trading centres
in the world.


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It was the economic powerhouse
of a place known as Flanders,


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part of a Low Countries
patchwork of mini-states.


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Low Countries success
was founded, above all, on cloth.


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As these people had woven land
and sea to create the world


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they lived in, so they wove
their identity into their fabrics.


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And when does it really start
to get busy? About midday?


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Flanders became an international
byword for quality textiles -


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none brighter or finer.


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So it's entirely fitting that
Lowlanders found their first


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great artistic expression
not in paint,


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but in cloth -


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threading vivid images
into the medium of tapestry.


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A little to the east of Bruges
in the Belgian town of Mechelen


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is the De Wit Royal Manufacturers
of tapestry.


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Housed inside a 15th century
building is a truly superb


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collection of these Flemish
masterpieces,


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displayed just as they might have
been by their original owners.


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Now this room is where
they keep some of the very earliest


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tapestries in the whole
De Wit collection,


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including this one - it's perhaps
the smallest piece in the collection


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but it's one of the most important
because it's phenomenally early,


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it's possibly as early as the 1430s,
certainly no later than the 1450s.


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It was created in Tournai
in what is now Southern Belgium.


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It's an object of immense
preciousness.


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We know from inventories of the time


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that something like this would have
been valued far more highly


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because of the sheer
amount of labour that went into it,


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than a painting or a sculpture,


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even objects made of gold
or silver - tapestry was number one
luxury item.


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So here we've got this
image of Christ on the cross.


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Wonderful details - here's the bad
thief with his lost soul


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on its way to hell at the moment
of his death.


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This character was a centurion
who's said to have pierced Christ's


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side with his sword,
and as the blood gushed forth -


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look at that wonderful
red blood - some of it


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went in Longinus' eye and he was
miraculously cured of his blindness.


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If you look in close detail,
and this is very, very rare to have


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survived, you can see that there
are gold threads in the haloes.


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I think it reminds us that this
was a culture simultaneously


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in love with luxury and wedded
to a profound sense of piety.


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The tension between piety and luxury


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had its origins in the very
creation of the Low Countries.


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This was a society ultimately built
and owned by merchants


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and businessmen - secular people.


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But the foundations had been
laid by monks and nuns.


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The ruins of the 13th century
Cistercian Abbey at Orval,


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in what is now the French-speaking
part of southern Belgium,


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might seem to evoke the otherworldly
nature of the monastic life.


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Yet it was the practical know-how
developed in monasteries


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that first made possible the
region's rise from mud and poverty.


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It was monks who first
reclaimed the land,


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and harnessed water for human use.


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In a society with no social
services,


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monasteries were at the forefront
of public health and welfare.


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And part of that was turning
water into beer.


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Today, a community of Trappist monks
continues Orval's brewing tradition.


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In some respects, the methods
and ingredients are unchanged,


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but they also use state-of-the-art
equipment, making them


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every bit as progressive
as their 13th century predecessors.


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'Brother Xavier is the manager
of Orval Abbey's brewery.'


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IN FRENCH:


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Hops! Special aromatiques.


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Mmm!


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Du pain liquide!
That's a great phrase!


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Liquid bread, they called it because
it had this sustaining ability.


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The monks of medieval Flanders


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only brewed enough
beer for their own use.


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But the entrepreneurial Lowlanders
knew how to turn monastic


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ingenuity into commercial success.


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By the 14th century, the
Low Countries were the continent's
biggest exporters of ale.


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Entrepreneurs also turned monastic
art into big business.


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The illuminated
manuscript, for centuries


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made by monks in the sanctity
of their abbey scriptoria,


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was taken to a height
of sophistication by secular


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Flemish artists whose workshops
were in Flemish town centres.


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By the 1400s, all of Europe's ruling
elite were commissioning


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manuscripts from Flanders -


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portable luxury objects even more
precious than tapestries.


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The Mayer van den Bergh Museum
in Antwerp houses what I think of


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as the single most brilliant
illuminated book ever created.


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It was made in around 1500,


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probably as a wedding
gift for the Queen of Portugal.


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Now, Claire, I think of this
as possibly the finest


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illustrated manuscript produced
by the whole Flemish tradition


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and I have to admit that when I put
in a request that we might


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actually look at it, I didn't
imagine that you would get it out


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and that we would actually be
allowed to turn the pages.


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00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:05,640
And you've started with
an image of Christmas?


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00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:10,280
Yes. It is one of the most
beautiful illuminations


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here in the manuscript but there
are lots of miniatures like this


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because it's a prayer book,
a book of hours.


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Normally it was made for monks
to use during the year.


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Well, that's, that's where it began,
isn't it? Yes.


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But by the time
we get to an object such as this,


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these books are being distributed
to very rich people...
Yes, it is.


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..across Europe to aid them
in their personal prayer.


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Yes.
And it's interesting to me that the
faces seem very Flemish.


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It's that medieval or late medieval
habit of imagining the scene


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as if it's happening
in your own time.


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Yes, it is because it doesn't
look like Jerusalem or Bethlehem.
No. Not at all.


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It's happening in Bruges or Flanders.


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I can see down here exactly what
you're saying because this is...


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I think this is Mary and Joseph
being told there's no room at the
inn?


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Yes, it is, yeah.
But it's a Bruges inn.


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And these buildings are built
of brick and they've got those


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very,
very characteristic Flemish windows.


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Yes, you even can see
here at the background a tower,


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which could be a church in Bruges.


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Can we look some more?


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00:14:20,640 --> 00:14:23,000
Where are you going to take us now?


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I can show you this one.


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00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:31,520
It's just a decoration for...
Just a...
..a normal page, just decoration.


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00:14:31,520 --> 00:14:34,400
Yeah. But it's so beautiful
because it's jewellery


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with beautiful gems hanging
here on hooks.


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00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:41,240
It's an amazing thing, isn't it,


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00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:43,840
cos it's almost like an imaginary
jewellery box.


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00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:47,640
The new queen of the King of
Portugal.


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00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:49,920
Nothing's too
good for her, is it?


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00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:56,600
And we have here
a very beautiful... Wow!


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00:14:56,600 --> 00:15:00,360
..illumination where you can see
all the apostles


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00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:02,720
and Holy Mary with the blue...


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00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:04,280
There again with the blue.


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00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:09,240
..gown looking at the clouds
where you can see disappearing
just...


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00:15:09,240 --> 00:15:11,560
and only the feet of Christ.


196
00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:13,600
There he goes, up to heaven.


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00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:14,840
And where... His feet.


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00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:18,840
..he started you can see but very,
very little one,


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his two feet.


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Ah!


201
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:23,840
In the rocks. His footprints.


202
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:25,160
His footprints, yes.


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00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:30,520
No-one can imitate this quality now


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00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:36,640
because we don't have the, the art
and also not the materials...


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00:15:36,640 --> 00:15:40,560
It's a sobering thought that yes,
I think you're exactly right -


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00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:46,280
no-one will ever perhaps draw
with that fineness...


207
00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:48,320
No. ..ever again.


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00:15:59,480 --> 00:16:04,240
Flemish illuminators achieved
unsurpassed levels of immediacy


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00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:06,000
and imagination.


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00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:09,360
It's often hard to know who the
artists responsible were,


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00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:12,280
because their names are rarely
recorded.


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00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:15,760
But throughout Flanders during the
15th century, the skills


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00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:19,560
developed within the borders
of a book's page would increasingly


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00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,400
be applied to the more public
medium of painting.


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00:16:29,400 --> 00:16:33,280
And the first great painter to
translate Flemish illumination


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00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:37,920
on to this far grander scale would
have such an impact on the whole


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00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:42,360
course of Western art that we
most certainly know his name.


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00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:44,840
Jan van Eyck.


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00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:48,080
Van Eyck may himself have started
out as an illuminator.


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00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:51,440
He lived and worked in Bruges,


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00:16:51,440 --> 00:16:55,720
but it was another nearby city
that he created his most spectacular
work.


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00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:02,520
Well, I'm in Ghent and it's raining.


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00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:03,680
It's another grey day


224
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:07,760
in the Low Countries, but then again
who needs sunshine when there's


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00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:12,120
so much light and colour in the art,
and in the church behind me,


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00:17:12,120 --> 00:17:16,360
there is, for my money, the most
radiant Flemish masterpiece of the
lot.


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00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:33,600
In 1432, Jan van Eyck completed
a commission for this cathedral -


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00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:37,760
possibly begun by his brother,
Hubert, but essentially his work.


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00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,920
It was a chance for van Eyck to
show off his breathtaking discovery,


230
00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:49,080
something never seen before - a way
of applying layers of translucent


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00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:53,680
oil paint to create astonishing
illusions of depth and light.


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00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:05,600
This work is now so cherished it's
kept behind bulletproof glass


233
00:18:05,600 --> 00:18:09,720
under carefully controlled climate
and lighting conditions.


234
00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:17,040
So here it is - van Eyck's
Ghent Altarpiece,


235
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:20,560
one of the very greatest
paintings in the whole world.


236
00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:22,840
And what does it represent?


237
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:26,040
Well, essentially it's
a vision, it's a fantasy,


238
00:18:26,040 --> 00:18:31,640
it's a dream of what might
happen at the end of the world.


239
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,240
Everything converges
on a sacred centre,


240
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:40,320
here the sacred centre is that
astonishing solemn, severe hieratic


241
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:45,600
figure of Christ the judge
and God the father rolled into one.


242
00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:51,680
And at the extreme edge on either
side we have Adam


243
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:57,240
and Eve represented with
tremendous lack of idealism -


244
00:18:57,240 --> 00:18:59,440
these are real human bodies.


245
00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,120
And that's the whole point


246
00:19:02,120 --> 00:19:05,920
because it is their sin that has
condemned us to live in a world of


247
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:13,640
mortal time and that is what in this
moment is being redeemed by Christ.


248
00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:18,000
This is the moment when all of the
blessed, as described in the Book of


249
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:25,720
Revelations, gather to enter the New
Jerusalem, paradise, eternal life.


250
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,600
They're all converging on that
central mystical vision


251
00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:34,920
of the lamb of God,
symbol of Christ, shedding his blood


252
00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:39,000
on an altar while angels bear
the symbols of his Passion.


253
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:44,880
It's like a church service taking
place in a garden of utter
beauty and delight.


254
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:50,960
But what makes this picture
truly extraordinary?


255
00:19:50,960 --> 00:19:55,080
What makes it one of the great
works of art ever painted?


256
00:19:55,080 --> 00:19:58,440
I think it's partly to do with
van Eyck's sense of composition


257
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:03,680
and the way in which he's imagined
heavenly perfection as this


258
00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:06,200
perfectly symmetrical
universe of form.


259
00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,520
You can almost imagine the picture
having just been painted one half


260
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:16,680
and then folded over and the
other half mirrors it perfectly.


261
00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:21,920
And yet when you look more
closely into the picture,


262
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:25,040
there are these wonderful lightning
flashes of realism,


263
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,480
these faces that jump out at you,


264
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:33,040
beards that you feel you can touch,
flowers that you feel you can smell.


265
00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:36,160
And how did van Eyck achieve this?


266
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:41,680
Well, Giorgio Vasari, the great
Italian art historian, tells us


267
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:46,760
he invented a new form of art,
it was called oil painting.


268
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:49,040
Now, generations of modern art
historians have said that


269
00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:51,480
that's a myth, of course van Eyck
didn't invent oil painting,


270
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:52,720
it was already around.


271
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:57,280
But the fact is that van Eyck DID
in effect invent oil painting -


272
00:20:57,280 --> 00:21:01,640
certainly he discovered the things
that could be done with pigment,


273
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:06,040
when it was suspended in this
medium of oil.


274
00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:10,000
And this picture is a kind
of encyclopaedia of his talents,


275
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,840
"Look!" he's saying,
look what I can do with oil paint.


276
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:19,880
I can paint ermine-trimmed robes,
I can paint each separate


277
00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:26,320
hair in a horse's mane, I can paint
geology, architecture, I can


278
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:32,680
paint the reflection in somebody's
eye - it all started here.


279
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:39,800
Now the first people who saw this
picture were so stunned by it,


280
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:41,560
so taken aback by it,


281
00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:46,240
they could not believe that an image
that was made of nothing


282
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:53,160
but paint applied to boards of wood
could seem to them like life itself.


283
00:21:53,160 --> 00:22:00,840
So much so that the rumour was
put about in Ghent, in Bruges,


284
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:06,120
van Eyck's home town, that this
painter wasn't just an artist,


285
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,640
he was a magician,
some kind of necromancer.


286
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:23,680
Van Eyck's innovations would be
enormously influential.


287
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:27,840
Oil painting, the medium that he had
pioneered, would be taken up all


288
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:32,760
over Europe, from Venice to Northern
and Central Italy, to Spain
and beyond.


289
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:38,440
And as generation after
generation of painters


290
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:46,440
explored its effects, art itself
would be transformed forever.


291
00:22:48,360 --> 00:22:51,680
Van Eyck's mastery of oil paint
made him one of the richest,


292
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:56,440
most highly respected
artists of his day.


293
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:03,120
But where he used the medium to
conjure up an entire world of
vivid detail,


294
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,440
it was another great Flemish artist
who went beneath that


295
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:12,720
glistening surface, to explore
the far depths of human emotion.


296
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,400
Brussels-based Rogier van
der Weyden,


297
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,760
believed to have portrayed
himself here as St Luke,


298
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,120
patron saint of artists,
was described by his contemporaries


299
00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:27,680
as "the greatest",
"the most noble" of painters.


300
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:37,480
In his almost unbearable portrayal
of Christ's Descent from the Cross,


301
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:41,240
van der Weyden explored every last
trick of oil paint -


302
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:46,200
above all its ability to capture
tears, and blood - to render


303
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,200
the full horror of Christ's death
immediate and shocking.


304
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:56,800
This is pain, grief and sorrow made
visible - almost tangible.


305
00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:05,920
In 1443, the founders of this
hospital commissioned


306
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,920
Rogier van der Weyden to paint
what would be one of the great


307
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,600
jewels in the crown of Flemish
art -


308
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:19,120
a consolation, or was it perhaps a
warning, for those who lay sick


309
00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:23,360
and dying in a world of barely
imaginable harshness and hardship.


310
00:24:26,120 --> 00:24:30,880
Smallpox and cholera were endemic,
plague a regular terror.


311
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,600
Monks who tended the sick were
themselves at constant risk.


312
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:45,760
But this wasn't just
a hospital for curing bodies,


313
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:50,000
it was a hospital for saving souls,
and its focal point,


314
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,840
placed at the end
of the room of the sick,


315
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:59,480
facing all of those beds, was this
great picture, a Flemish altarpiece.


316
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,560
It was painted by Rogier van der
Weyden about 11 years after


317
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,880
van Eyck painted the Ghent
altarpiece


318
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,880
and what it shows us is in effect
the prequel to the Ghent


319
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:15,200
altarpiece, because this is
the moment of the Last Judgement.


320
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:21,600
Christ sits in majesty over
the world in a cloud of gold.


321
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:30,400
In the centre, Saint Michael,
depicted as a pale-faced Flemish


322
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:34,880
prince of Justice,
holds up the scales with which


323
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,760
he will weigh
the souls of all mankind.


324
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:44,360
The heavier of the two souls
represents sin -


325
00:25:44,360 --> 00:25:46,640
"peccata" is written on the
painting.


326
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:51,480
And he screams because he knows
he's going to hell forever.


327
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:56,160
Whereas the soul on the right looks
almost complacent, kneels


328
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,920
in prayer, rises up, he's a light
soul, on his way to heaven.


329
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:08,880
And as the four angels blow the last
trump, the earth cracks open


330
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:14,160
and the dead rise from their graves
to discover their fate.


331
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:23,320
Those on Christ's left are dragged
vomiting, screaming, wailing,


332
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:28,480
weeping into the flames of hell.


333
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,560
On the right-hand side,
it's all rather more tranquil.


334
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:41,800
We can see, here, they troop
off towards the heavenly city.


335
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,880
I like this detail here - as the
angel ushers them through the door,


336
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,920
we know where they're going.


337
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:55,800
They're going to that heavenly
paradise garden depicted in van
Eyck's altarpiece.


338
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,560
It's, so to speak, "This way for the
Ghent altarpiece".


339
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,880
Now to a superstitious
Christian in the 15th century,


340
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,920
the purpose of this picture would
have been eminently practical.


341
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:16,600
Most of the people in those beds,
in times of plague for sure,


342
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:17,680
were going to die.


343
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:23,120
Before they did so,
each one of them would be


344
00:27:23,120 --> 00:27:28,560
instructed to come forward into the
chapel at the end of the room,


345
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,400
and to contemplate this picture.


346
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:37,040
And the picture basically is there
to give them a choice -


347
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:38,680
where do you want to end up?


348
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:46,680
To Christ's left, down in the flames
of hell, or Christ's right,


349
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:48,880
on your way to paradise?


350
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,920
Makes the choice pretty
unambiguous, I'd say.


351
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:56,200
Having seen it,
you're filled with terror.


352
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,440
It's a cinemascope vision of what
might happen to you.


353
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:04,240
So you go back to your bed,
you call the confessor,


354
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:10,760
you confess your sins, and if you
confess all of them, you're saved.


355
00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:16,120
It's an astonishing picture,


356
00:28:16,120 --> 00:28:21,520
it's one of the great
masterpieces of Flemish art,


357
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:25,440
it absolutely represents that great
flowering of painting that


358
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:29,240
took place in Flanders in the first
half of the 15th century.


359
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,960
And yet, and here's the sting in the
tail, it's not actually in Flanders.


360
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:41,040
It's hundreds of miles south,
in a country we now call France.


361
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:59,400
Our modern borders bear little
relation to 15th century geography.


362
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,520
This hospital,
known as the Hotel-Dieu de Beaune,


363
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,080
once stood at the heart
of the powerful Duchy of Burgundy.


364
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,480
The ambitious Dukes of Burgundy
coveted the great


365
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:13,360
riches of Flanders to the North.


366
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,840
Through strategic marriages
and clever alliances,


367
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,080
they began to extend their power
into the Low Countries.


368
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,040
It took the Dukes of Burgundy a few
generations to take over.


369
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,720
They had to absorb each independent
mini-state, one by one.


370
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,360
By the mid 1400s,
Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck


371
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:38,400
and all their fellow Low
Countrymen had become the subjects


372
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:42,760
of the most illustrious Burgundian
Duke of them all, Philip the Good.


373
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,520
In fact, Philip wanted culturally
rich Flanders so much that he


374
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:52,760
even relocated his ancestral
court 300 miles north, to Brussels.


375
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,800
Philip the Good was good
news for Flemish art.


376
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,280
He was an enthusiastic patron,


377
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,920
especially of great talents like
van Eyck and van der Weyden.


378
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,080
And he was no oppressive autocrat -


379
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,160
he pretty much gave the Low Country
states freedom to


380
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:31,600
conduct their business
and their lives the way they wished.


381
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:39,760
Flemish society revolved around the
upwardly mobile merchant classes.


382
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,240
They'd grown used to the finer
things in life,


383
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,880
and they wanted their art
to reflect that.


384
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,000
They commissioned
portraits of themselves,


385
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,640
immortalised in all their finery,
as evidence that they had made it.


386
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:00,960
The most extraordinary
portrait of all is also the oldest.


387
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:02,120
Painted by none other than


388
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:05,480
the first great Flemish pioneer
of oil painting,


389
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,480
it's the secular counterpart


390
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,200
to his Ghent Altarpiece -


391
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,120
not a vision of heaven,
but a depiction


392
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:16,920
of an inscrutable man and his wife
in the comfort of their bedroom.


393
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:25,400
Painted in 1434, this entrancing
picture by Jan van Eyck opens


394
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:33,880
the door to the private world of the
wealthy Flemish merchant class.


395
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,640
It used to be called
The Arnolfini Wedding.


396
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,080
It used to be thought that
it depicted Giovanni Arnolfini,


397
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,680
a wealthy banker from Lucca
based in Bruges, and his wife.


398
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:49,600
That's by no means certain,


399
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:55,960
but I think we can say that these
people were extremely well off.


400
00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:02,280
They were representative of this new
upsurge of Flemish wealth


401
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:03,680
and prosperity.


402
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:08,440
But it would be
a mistake to see this picture,


403
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:15,040
for all its realism, as some kind of
snapshot of their domestic world -


404
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:21,160
it's a highly charged, symbolic,
ritualised depiction of two people.


405
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,840
There's something extremely
solemn about it.


406
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:29,840
If Jan van Eyck was a necromancer,
a magician using paint,


407
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:34,160
I think of this portrait very much
as a kind of spell or


408
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:40,040
incantation designed to bring
good fortune on this couple.


409
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:47,240
The dog stands at the couple's feet,
stands for loyalty,


410
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,080
for obedience, for fidelity.


411
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:57,440
Behind the bride hangs a broom -
symbol of purity, cleanliness.


412
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:02,680
And around that beautiful convex
mirror,


413
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,800
there are painted scenes
of Christ's passion,


414
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:12,440
as if to indicate that this is
a union blessed in the eyes of God.


415
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,440
A single candle
burns in the chandelier,


416
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,880
emblem of the love that shall
never be extinguished.


417
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:28,760
And just above that
pair of clasped hands,


418
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,720
van Eyck has intruded another
significant detail -


419
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,760
a grinning, gurning gargoyle


420
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,920
carved into the arm of the chair


421
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:41,520
at the back of the room.


422
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:44,320
And I think that gargoyle


423
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:46,960
is here to do exactly the same job


424
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,120
as gargoyles on the fronts
of churches -


425
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:53,120
namely to scare off evil spirits.


426
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:57,480
To ward off all evil
from damaging this union.


427
00:33:59,560 --> 00:34:02,200
Look on the window
ledge, and look on the sideboard.


428
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,320
A little cluster of fruit.


429
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,320
Her belly is round -
not because she's pregnant,


430
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:10,840
because she's wearing a stomacher,


431
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:12,640
but I think the hope is


432
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,480
that this union
will itself bear fruit.


433
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:21,880
And on the back wall,
Jan van Eyck has signed the picture


434
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,040
in wonderful curlicue script.


435
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:31,000
The inscription says,
in Latin, "Jan van Eyck was here."


436
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,880
And if you look just below it,
if you look into that reflection


437
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,840
in the convex mirror, so beautifully
painted, what do you see?


438
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,080
You see the couple from the back.


439
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:50,120
And if you look closely enough,
you can see a shadowy figure,


440
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:51,880
perhaps two figures.


441
00:34:53,000 --> 00:35:00,760
I wonder if one of them is not meant
to be Jan van Eyck himself.


442
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:07,360
The painter, preserving forever this
moment when he looks at them


443
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,120
and they look at him.


444
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,880
I wonder if this picture
wasn't his wedding gift


445
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,040
to the couple in the painting?


446
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,120
If so, I do hope they were grateful.


447
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:32,840
Flemish art's change of focus
from sacred to secular


448
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,400
was part of a seismic shift
taking place across all of Europe,


449
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,520
but especially in the Low Countries.


450
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,120
Even under Burgundian rule,
Lowlanders clung fiercely


451
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:48,760
to their localised customs
and independent ideas.


452
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,880
Far from the shadow of the Vatican,
there were religious


453
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,760
movements - like the Brethren of
Common Life - who were not afraid to


454
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:02,320
criticise the Church, to challenge
authority they saw as corrupt.


455
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:08,560
This was a strange, unsettling time,
especially when seen through


456
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:13,760
the eyes of a medieval man of faith
- like the artist Hieronymus Bosch.


457
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,120
As far as we know, he spent his
whole life in and around the small


458
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:23,040
Dutch town from which
he took his name - 's-Hertogenbosch.


459
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,320
Yet his most famous work -
known to us as The Garden


460
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:31,920
of Earthly Delights - includes
some of the weirdest objects


461
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:36,880
and creatures, from worlds both
known and unknown, ever seen in art.


462
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:48,280
Painted around 1500,
its meaning seems at first sight


463
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:52,400
disturbingly obscure -
and may never be fully explained.


464
00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:59,680
On the left we see Christ with Adam
and Eve in the Garden of Eden,


465
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,000
but it's an Eden unlike any other.


466
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,600
There's a giraffe and an elephant -


467
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,760
but also some rather frightening
hybrid animals.


468
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,440
On the right,
some of art's most inventive


469
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:25,440
impressions of the fate that
awaits the damned.


470
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:30,480
A pot-headed bird eats sinners
and excretes them into the abyss.


471
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,720
Instruments and forms of torture
scatter the blackened landscape.


472
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,000
But what does the central
panel show us?


473
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,640
The corruption of our earthly world?


474
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:49,440
If so, what do the outsized fruit
and birds represent?


475
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,360
And why is it filled with
the bizarrest of rituals?


476
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,680
Might it be significant that Bosch
painted this claustrophobic enigma


477
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,520
just a decade after Columbus
discovered the riches of America?


478
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,760
One of my favourite
details in Bosch's strange teeming


479
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:23,760
panorama of a picture shows a little
group of people holding up


480
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:29,440
a gigantic strawberry - almost
like the cult devotees worshipping


481
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,560
this object, this exotic thing.


482
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,400
And I think
when you look at Bosch's painting,


483
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,360
it's important to remember this was
the first time anyone in Europe


484
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:41,240
had ever seen a strawberry, it was
an object of wonderment to him.


485
00:38:41,240 --> 00:38:43,680
It was as if the world that
they'd known for


486
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,680
so many centuries had suddenly been
changed - they suddenly realised


487
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:50,200
there was another whole
universe out there, a new world.


488
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,200
And I think Bosch's picture
is in part an attempt to imagine


489
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,760
what that new world might be like,


490
00:38:55,760 --> 00:39:00,400
this is a Pandora's box moment in
the history of human civilisation.


491
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,160
Bosch lived at a great turning
point in history -


492
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:24,160
a moment when the medieval mind,
obsessed with the terrors of hell


493
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:29,960
and damnation, was giving way
before a modern world of rapidly


494
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:33,440
expanding horizons,


495
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,560
of science and knowledge,


496
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,080
a world where the old order
was being challenged


497
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,360
by dangerous new ideas.


498
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:47,080
These were the things made flesh as
the beasts of Bosch's imagination.


499
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,240
In his own highly original way,
Bosch expressed


500
00:39:53,240 --> 00:39:56,760
both the fascinations
and the anxieties of his age.


501
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,680
And if you want to see his own
solution to those anxieties,


502
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,920
I think you have to turn to one of
his simpler, least cryptic pictures.


503
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,480
A work that hangs in the
Fine Arts Museum in Ghent.


504
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:27,960
This fairly small, fairly dark
image of Christ carrying the cross


505
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,720
is one of Bosch's cruder pictures,


506
00:40:32,720 --> 00:40:39,040
but I think it takes you right to
the centre of what he has to say.


507
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,080
It takes you to the centre
of his vision of the world.


508
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:49,480
Here, he sees the world as a kind
of sea of malevolence,


509
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:56,800
weirdness, evil,
through which Christ has to pass.


510
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,120
Look at that crowd.


511
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,480
These three blokes down here
including the evil thief -


512
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:08,000
I suppose you might see them
today on the street corner, drinking


513
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,520
their Tennent's full strength
lager at ten in the morning.


514
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,840
Here's a fat-jowled soldier.


515
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:20,520
A curious image of a witch
with a hat


516
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:25,400
that reminds me
of Pink Floyd album covers, of


517
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,840
their middle to late period
weirdly enough.


518
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,120
Up here, the hook-nosed mercenary.


519
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,960
Here we see another soldier
clutching the cross


520
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:40,360
with his fingers - who knows why.


521
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:44,720
And at the centre of it all,
the image of Christ.


522
00:41:44,720 --> 00:41:48,840
I think you can just see a tear
coming out of that,


523
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:51,520
leaking out of his right eye.


524
00:41:52,720 --> 00:41:56,360
It's as if he is passing
through this world


525
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,960
as if it were a bad dream.


526
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,080
He's right at the centre.


527
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:07,440
And I think what Bosch is saying
to us, is in this age of anxiety,


528
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:12,800
uncertainty, religious unrest,
intellectual change,


529
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:17,200
geographical exploration, this world
where we suddenly no longer


530
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:24,640
know where we are, that's the one
thing we CAN be sure of.


531
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:27,040
That IS the one thing
we can be sure of.


532
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:30,280
In that sense Bosch is still
a man of the Middle Ages,


533
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:35,800
he does believe in God as the one
route to salvation.


534
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:40,200
And I think he gives us a little
clue here, because there is actually


535
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,560
other than Christ, one other
good figure in the painting and


536
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:48,200
that is Saint Veronica. She's got
the veil, the veil that she used to


537
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:52,320
wipe the brow of Christ - it's what
lies behind the Turin shroud myth -


538
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:57,400
on which is miraculously imprinted
the image of Christ's face.


539
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,960
She is on her way out of this
maelstrom of evil -


540
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,600
she's found her escape route,
because her escape route


541
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:07,960
is the image of Christ
that she's holding in her heart.


542
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,320
And Bosch is saying to all of us
looking at the picture,


543
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,320
"Do what she does."


544
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,680
"Look at his face.


545
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:20,440
"Burn it into your mind's eye -


546
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,640
"because it's the only path through


547
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:28,360
"this evil world, it's the only way
out of these troubled times."


548
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:39,120
The tides of change
swept on regardless.


549
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:43,680
Soon after Bosch's death in 1516,
the Reformation shook


550
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,800
the established Church
to its foundations.


551
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,480
Art too turned critical.


552
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,080
The subtleties of oil paint,


553
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:55,280
once used to conjure beauty
or flatter the wealthy,


554
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:59,080
were now deployed as weapons
against corruption and ugliness.


555
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:03,680
Satire was the order of the day.


556
00:44:03,680 --> 00:44:08,240
Grotesques that ridiculed the
well-to-do as vain and pompous.


557
00:44:08,240 --> 00:44:11,160
Caricatures of the jobsworth
bureaucrats


558
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,600
who propped up unpopular rulers.


559
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:19,480
The flames of unrest were
fanned by a tyrannical new regime.


560
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:23,960
In 1555,
King Philip II of Spain inherited


561
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,520
the Low Countries
from his Burgundian ancestors.


562
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,880
A fanatic Catholic, he was
determined to stamp out heresy.


563
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:39,720
The attempted clampdown only
provoked more unrest.


564
00:44:39,720 --> 00:44:41,320
Free thinkers multiplied.


565
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,800
Perhaps the most quietly radical
idea of all was hatched in the


566
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:54,640
imagination not of a philosopher or
a scientist, but a painter who took


567
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,560
his inspiration from the rituals
and festivities of the common man.


568
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,440
Well the architecture's changed
a bit, the angels might be wearing


569
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,440
peroxide Shirley Temple
wigs, and the floats might be


570
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:11,120
made of polystyrene, but otherwise
remarkably little has changed.


571
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,240
The fact is that the people
of the Low Countries have been


572
00:45:14,240 --> 00:45:18,160
participating in popular
religious festivals like this


573
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,840
since the Middle Ages. This festival
here in Mechelen, which celebrates


574
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:27,880
the saving of the city from plague
by the blessed Virgin Mary in 1272,


575
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:31,280
has been going for more than
700 years.


576
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,160
But the funny thing is that
ordinary people doing this


577
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,160
kind of thing simply don't
appear in Flemish art


578
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,760
until the middle years of the 16th
century, and it's one man,


579
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:46,760
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who puts
the common people centre stage.


580
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,840
Pieter Bruegel painted peasants
going about their business -


581
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,400
feasting, laughing, dancing,
drinking.


582
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:05,960
Bruegel's work was popular,
and no doubt the wealthy clients who


583
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,000
bought his paintings found comical
entertainment in the rich detail.


584
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:15,200
But there's also a gently
subversive warmth


585
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,880
and empathy for these
ordinary people.


586
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,720
It's as though Bruegel is saying
that it's NOT just


587
00:46:20,720 --> 00:46:22,920
the high and mighty
who are important -


588
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:26,840
there's nobody who's
an unworthy subject for art.


589
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,600
This is one of the most famous
pictures associated with


590
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,000
the name of Pieter Bruegel
the Elder -


591
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:47,120
in fact people come specially
on pilgrimage here to the Musee


592
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:52,200
des Beaux Arts in Brussels just
to see this one celebrated image.


593
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:59,560
At first sight it's quite
a baffling, disorientating picture.


594
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:05,720
The eye is immediately drawn to this
figure of the ploughman


595
00:47:05,720 --> 00:47:10,720
plodding along his modest
patch of earth,


596
00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:15,240
ploughing it up into these meaty
chunks, following his horse.


597
00:47:15,240 --> 00:47:22,280
Behind him is a shepherd, with
his dog, and they both seem absorbed


598
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:27,080
by something or other, we can't
quite tell what, in these trees.


599
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:30,640
Over here is another character,


600
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:35,480
another person from ordinary life
absorbed in an ordinary activity,


601
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:37,240
fishing.


602
00:47:37,240 --> 00:47:39,240
Behind, there are ships.


603
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:42,600
But then, you look at the title
of the painting


604
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:47,160
and you see
Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus.


605
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,240
Icarus, that character from
mythology,


606
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:53,000
the boy who makes himself
wings from feathers and wax, flies


607
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:58,080
too close to the sun, the wings melt
and he falls to his death.


608
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,280
Where's Icarus?


609
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:05,720
You look all over the painting -


610
00:48:05,720 --> 00:48:10,040
and then suddenly,
if you look hard enough,


611
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:14,080
it's a sort of Breugelian
"Where's Wally?" moment.


612
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:18,880
There he is -
a pair of white, floppy legs,


613
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:24,720
splashing into this emerald
green ocean.


614
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:33,000
But what an extraordinary image
of that mythological event this is.


615
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:38,440
Here he's imagining what it actually
feels like to be someone


616
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:40,480
who's outside history.


617
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,520
In a way it's
a picture about the spear carriers,


618
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:51,800
the people who aren't
the heart of the action.


619
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,400
But they are at the heart of their
own lives, and it's a picture


620
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:57,840
about the disjunction between
big history and little history,


621
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:00,880
and the little history doesn't even
notice that the big history


622
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:04,560
is going on, it's a picture
about not looking, not seeing.


623
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:09,000
And WH Auden wrote a wonderful poem
about this picture.


624
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:17,440
"Everything turns away quite
leisurely from the disaster.


625
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:21,000
"The ploughman may have heard
the splash, the forsaken cry,


626
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,800
"but for him
it was not an important failure.


627
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,280
"The sun shone, as it had to,


628
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:34,160
"on the white legs
disappearing into the green water.


629
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:37,440
"And the expensive delicate ship
that must have seen something


630
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,760
"amazing, a boy falling out
of the sky,


631
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:46,880
"had somewhere to get to,
and sailed calmly on."


632
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:53,280
And I think the subversive
implication behind it,


633
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:57,160
perhaps for someone
living in the Low Countries,


634
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:01,920
someone unhappy with Spanish rule,


635
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:03,960
the implication behind it is that


636
00:50:05,720 --> 00:50:10,800
if you don't
like the history that's given to you


637
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:14,120
by the great, perhaps the not so
good,


638
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:17,920
by kings from elsewhere, those


639
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:21,520
coming into your world from outside,
a little bit like Icarus -


640
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:24,120
if you don't like their history,


641
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,920
perhaps you're allowed
to create your own.


642
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:39,240
In reality, the lives of ordinary
people went from bad to worse.


643
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:44,000
When the Low Countries openly
rebelled against Philip II's rule


644
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:48,840
in the late 1560s, he tried to
crush them with Spanish troops.


645
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:56,400
Thus began a bloody 80-year
war against Spanish oppression


646
00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:00,160
that would split
the Low Countries in two.


647
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:05,560
No-one would escape the fallout.


648
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:08,840
Massacres on an epic scale,


649
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:14,080
widespread famine, cities besieged
till their starving citizens


650
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,040
boiled shoe leather for food.


651
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,800
This darkest of times would
produce one last great


652
00:51:26,800 --> 00:51:30,960
flowering of Flemish art -


653
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:35,520
the work of an Antwerp painter
called Peter Paul Rubens,


654
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,280
which for me
represents both the end


655
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,960
and the encapsulation of the whole
Flemish tradition.


656
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,120
Rubens was the supreme
master of a new, bold style


657
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:02,560
emerging from the Catholic
Counter-Reformation - the Baroque.


658
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:07,000
He spent most
of his glittering career


659
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,440
travelling
Europe at the behest of his


660
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:14,880
seriously impressive client list,
painting grand state allegories


661
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:19,760
of power for among others the royal
families of France and England.


662
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,920
At the public level, Rubens had
lived out a personal version


663
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:29,440
of the history
of the Low Countries -


664
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:32,240
trading with foreign powers,
rising from low origins


665
00:52:32,240 --> 00:52:34,920
to achieve astonishing wealth.


666
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:40,800
This is his house in Antwerp -
the palace of a prince.


667
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:47,640
But if you look behind its facade to
the private Rubens,


668
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,440
you discover
that his most intimate dream


669
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:54,400
was surprisingly humble,
touchingly simple.


670
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:10,120
Now, Rubens painted that piercing
self-portrait in 1630.


671
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:15,040
He was 53 years old,
and on the face of it he had it all,


672
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:19,440
he'd just been knighted
by King Charles I of England.


673
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:24,440
He's the painter to kings, princes,
queens all across Europe.


674
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:28,080
He is the single most powerful
and influential artist who has


675
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:33,360
ever lived, and at this point, he
does something truly extraordinary.


676
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:38,800
He decides to marry the 16-year-old
daughter of a merchant


677
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:41,560
here in Antwerp -
she's called Helene Fourment,


678
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,640
he's completely besotted with her,
they'll have five children -


679
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:48,800
and he decides to retreat
completely from public life.


680
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,240
He writes about it in a letter,
he says,


681
00:53:52,240 --> 00:53:55,280
"I have decided to do myself
a kind of violence.


682
00:53:55,280 --> 00:54:00,240
"I have decided to cut
the golden knot of my own ambition."


683
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:04,280
He retreats away from the world,


684
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:10,720
and during his last 10 years
he creates an extraordinary,


685
00:54:10,720 --> 00:54:15,960
deeply personal body of work. Highly
idiosyncratic, utterly unique,


686
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,640
and yet also, I think,


687
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:23,480
the ultimate expression of a fantasy
that had obsessed


688
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:27,720
the imagination of people here
in the Low Countries for centuries.


689
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,960
Some of those final
works are rapturous allegories


690
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:39,920
of marital joy,


691
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:41,560
invariably bursting with


692
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:46,920
Rubens' characteristically
voluptuous, fleshy bodies.


693
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:48,560
Here we see Rubens himself


694
00:54:48,560 --> 00:54:52,920
gazing in adoration at his
rosy-cheeked young bride.


695
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,200
Everything in Rubens's late
paintings


696
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,960
seems to speak of desire -
no-one had ever expressed it


697
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,400
more urgently, more carnally.


698
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,400
But I think it's essentially that
same desire for colour,


699
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:10,400
life, light and blessedness


700
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:13,160
that had always infused
the tapestries,


701
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:17,320
illuminated books and paintings of
Flanders right from the beginning.


702
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:21,840
But for me, there's one
work above all in which he revealed


703
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,960
his true Low Country soul.


704
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:37,680
Painted on an epic, panoramic scale,
Rubens' Landscape With A Rainbow


705
00:55:37,680 --> 00:55:42,480
is quite simply one of the greatest
landscapes ever painted.


706
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:45,760
Like all of his pictures it's
a cornucopia,


707
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:50,680
a hymn to plenty and abundance.
Ripeness is all.


708
00:55:54,160 --> 00:56:00,080
Look at those ducks - literal symbol
of the fat of the land -


709
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,760
clucking and quacking and waggling
their feathers


710
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:05,840
and diving into the water.


711
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:09,720
The cows seem to be
multiplying before our very eyes,


712
00:56:09,720 --> 00:56:12,840
and there,
as so often in Rubens' art,


713
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,840
a real touch of human carnality.


714
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:20,760
There's a milkmaid,
with her ewer balanced


715
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:23,360
very ingeniously on her head,


716
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,560
simultaneously flirting with
a peasant,


717
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:28,920
and giving us
a wink at the same time,


718
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:32,160
her companion flirting with
the other peasant,


719
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:35,960
the hay wain, as he winds his way
into the picture.


720
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:39,720
Constable, who painted The Hay Wain,
loved this work of art.


721
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:47,560
Look at that slab of
yet to be cut hay.


722
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,600
It could almost be a slab of butter.


723
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,960
Look at the way the landscape has
been laid out before us


724
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:58,160
almost like a fertile body.


725
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:04,960
A windmill's sails,
glittering on the far distance.


726
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:10,400
Even Rubens' sky is abundantly
stocked with clouds.


727
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:16,960
It's a dream of peace,
and a dream of plenty.


728
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:23,920
And I think that Rubens wants us
to recognise that it IS a dream.


729
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:29,440
Flanders in his day was not a place
of utmost peace and prosperity


730
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:34,000
and I think that's why he's included
the rainbow,


731
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,000
an old divine symbol of hope,


732
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:40,160
of something that
might come to pass in the future.


733
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:43,920
I think Rubens himself knows that
what he's depicted is a world


734
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,800
that does indeed lie beyond the
far end of the rainbow.


735
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:51,720
A world that he hopes may one
day come into being.


736
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:59,920
So yes, the painting
is a beautiful dream -


737
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:02,280
but it's also a prophecy.


738
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:05,280
Because not too far to the north,


739
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:11,040
another upstart nation of the
Low Countries, the Dutch Republic,


740
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:16,800
would be attempting to turn
that dream into a reality.


741
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:18,800
But that's another story.


742
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:42,360
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