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The Netherlands.


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Has any small nation ever achieved
so much in so short a space of time?


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For barely 100 years - a time now
known as the Golden Age -


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this tiny country boasted the most
powerful empire on earth.


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It was a new kind of society,
ruled not by kings but by citizens,


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driven not by privilege
but by naked market forces,


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and it gave birth to the first
truly-free art market.


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Portraits, landscapes,
still lives, sea paintings,


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drunken comedies, domestic idylls -
what the people wanted, the people
got.


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And all from geniuses like
Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer.


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But how did it happen?


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And how do you begin to grasp such
a revolution in culture?


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Well, I think the best place to
start is with a curious tale of
horticulture.


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In the early 1600s the tulip was
an exotic import from Asia.


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Then Dutch entrepreneurs learned how
to cultivate ever more vivid


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shades and shapes, and Dutch
consumers went mad for them.


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They called it tulip mania.


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The spiralling market in tulip bulbs
drew in people from all


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walks of life. Holland was full of
deluded paper millionaires -


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simple ship's carpenters,
ordinary tailors having themselves


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shown around country estates
with a view to buy.


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By 1637, it's said that the
price of a single Semper Augustus


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tulip bulb was 10,000 guilders -


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enough money to feed and clothe an
entire family for their whole
lifetime.


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And then the bubble burst.


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Someone suggested the bulbs were
actually worthless.


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Everyone tried to sell.
Thousands were ruined.


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But as always in Holland, there was
an artist watching as the


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wheel of fortune turned, ready to
cash in with a topical satire.


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Jan Brueghel the Younger
painted this picture.


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Basically, he's saying
the Dutch have made


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monkeys of themselves in this
affair of the tulips.


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Monkey celebrates,
tulip bulb in the one hand,


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money bag in the other.


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Move over here
and we see those who've


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lost in the game of speculation.


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And here in the corner,
we see a monkey having a slash
on a patch of tulips.


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I think it reminds us that the


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Dutch had indeed invented a brave
new world of venture capitalism,


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but it was also inherently
a deeply unstable world.


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And this cycle of boom and bust
would be repeated throughout


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Holland during the Golden Age,
both at the grandest scale,


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and also in the very lives of some
of Holland's greatest artists.


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Modern Holland is such a visibly
prosperous, easy-going place,


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that it's hard to imagine
the bitterness


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and violence that first gave
birth to this nation.


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500 years ago, the King of Spain
inherited the Low Country region.


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The Dutch weren't keen on being
a mere province of the global


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Spanish Empire.


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But what they REALLY
objected to was tyranny


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and vicious repression at the hands
of the Catholic Inquisition.


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There are churches
in the Netherlands today that still


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bear the scars of a furious
anti-Spanish backlash that


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began in the late 1560s.


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I think the natural instinct
when you come into the cathedral
church in Utrecht is to think


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what a beautiful space,
what wonderful architecture,


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but it's important to remember that
this place is actually a
battlefield.


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And once you get your eye in, you
can see how much has been lost,


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how much has been destroyed.


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If you'd come
here before the Reformation,


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the whole cathedral would have been
ablaze with colour and imagery.


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Now what do we see?


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White space, blank glass,
empty plinths.


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Over here in this chapel,
look at these little plinths that


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once would have supported statues
that are no longer there.


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On the other side, you've got a
little bit of fragmented sculpture.


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It's actually Golgotha,
the place of the skull,


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upon which Christ was crucified.


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But the image of Christ
himself has gone,


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ripped out by Protestant reformers.


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This was how Dutch Calvinists lashed
out at their Spanish oppressors -


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by assaulting the fabric
of their own churches in waves


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of violent protest known as the
Iconoclastic Fury.


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They saw it as purification -
statues,


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paintings and altarpieces were all
symbols of Catholic corruption.


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But if you want to see the most,
almost chilling reminder of the


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sheer rage of iconoclasm that swept
through this city,


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swept through Holland, you have
to come into this chapel, because


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this is an example of what I call
Reminder Iconoclasm, because what


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the men with hammers and chisels
have done in this case is leave the
altarpiece in place,


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but defaced - and I mean
literally de-faced.


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Look at it, you've got
the image of God the father above,


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Mary with the Christ child
surrounded by the saints.


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They're all there, and they've still
got most of their original colour.


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But what's missing? The faces.
They've literally been sliced off.


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It's as if the men who came in here
and did this, they wanted people


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to remember forever that they had
once made images, they had once,


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in Protestant terms, worshipped
images, and it was never to happen
again.


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In 1576, the Low Countries
effectively split in two.


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Seven northern provinces broke away
and declared themselves


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an independent Dutch republic,
purged of monarchy and tyranny.


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Though war with Spain would
drag on for decades,


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it launched the meteoric
rise of a new kind of state,


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free of the religious and political
paraphernalia of the past.


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But how to build a new
state from nothing?


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How to fill that void?


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Well, you could begin by painting
the void itself.


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Pieter Saenredam,
working in the 1600s,


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celebrated the unadorned
architecture of the Dutch


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Reformed Church with a purity that
foreshadows Modernism by 300 years.


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He takes us to the
spiritual heart of the new republic.


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The old order is gone,
and what remains is man, standing


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in the naked truth of God's word,
ready to go forth...


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and do business!


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Why didn't the Dutch Republic
turn into an extremist,


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Taliban-style state
like Puritan England under Cromwell?


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The answer is - market forces.


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Tiny Holland didn't have the
resources to survive without


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trade, so its Calvinist leaders
pursued a policy of half-reluctant


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tolerance towards those of other
faiths, as long as they worked hard.


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This new society was forged
first of all in the crucible


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of bustling Haarlem,
in the heart of Holland.


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By the start of the 17th century,
Haarlem was on its way to


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becoming one of the great
melting pots of Europe.


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It was a city known for trade
and commerce,


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and for religious tolerance, the
so called Satisfaction of Haarlem


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was a statute passed that guaranteed
anyone, whether they be Protestant


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or Catholic, could come here and
they could practice their trade in
peace.


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Now this new type of city,
filled with merchants,


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a new kind of middle class, brought
into being a new kind of art,


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untethered from the religious
traditions of old.


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An art dedicated to the
depiction of daily life - portraits,


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genre scenes,
paintings of people drinking,


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paintings of peasants,
paintings of the countryside,


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and its first great star was
an artist called Frans Hals.


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Like nearly a quarter of Haarlem's
residents, Frans Hals and his


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family came as refugees from the
Spanish-occupied southern states.


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By his twenties, Hals had already
made his name capturing


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the city's bourgeoisie in paint.


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Hals' most famous portrait, the
so-called Laughing Cavalier, takes


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us straight to the beating heart
of Haarlem.


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We don't know who the sitter was,
but we can work out why he wanted to
be painted.


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The picture was a Valentine's card,
this man's gift to the woman


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he wanted to marry.


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Hence his amorous look, and he's


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literally wearing his heart - lots
of them, in fact - on his sleeve.


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"Have me," it says. "Buy into me
and I'll make it worth your while."


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Hals could make anyone look
a million guilders,


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and he was just as impressive
when working on a grander scale.


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At his peak he cornered
the market in a particularly


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lucrative form of group painting -
the civic guard portrait.


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Prosperous burghers generally
depicted round a lavish banqueting
table,


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itself slightly eccentrically
recreated here at the Frans Hals
Museum.


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I think of Frans Hals
as the first great painter


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of the 17th century Dutch
male face - slightly florid,


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slightly jowly,
extremely substantial,


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almost formidably self-satisfied.


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But I think he's also the first
great painter of the Dutch


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sense of civic
and political identity.


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These men are members
of the Company of St George.


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They see themselves as the guardians
of Haarlem's new-found wealth


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and prosperity.


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They're seated at their annual
banquet


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and I think that table
stands for Haarlem


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and how well it's doing, positively
laden with meat, cheese, bread.


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They have all they want.


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But Hals has done a rather
remarkable


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and revolutionary
thing in painting this picture,


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because what he's done is he's
taken the international


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language of court portraiture,
the notion of aristocratic swagger -


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look at this gentleman on
the right - his elbow is outthrust.


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And if you read the deportment
books of the 17th century you'll


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know that the outthrust elbow is the
mark of the gentleman. It symbolises


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his right to elbow his way through
the crowd of ordinary people.


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So he's taken this very grand
language, a language that was meant,


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that had been invented
to be applied to kings, queens


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and courtiers, and yet these people
are not kings,


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princes, aristocrats -


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they're merchants. They've
made their money through trade.


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What this picture proclaims is
that we don't need the old regime,


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the old apparatus of absolutist
monarchy


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to function as a society -
we don't need it.


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We're doing perfectly well without
it, thank you very much.


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But Hals mania, like tulip mania,
didn't last.


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The new money that made Hals rich
came with new temptations.


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He had a weakness for drink.


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You can see it in the bags under
his eyes and the disenchanted gaze.


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Business slipped away, and his
painting became less fluent, but
more profound.


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Near the end, he produced this -


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the Regentesses
of the Old Men's Almshouse.


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These women, the board of Hals'
local poorhouse, are painted


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in a much more sombre mood,
mirroring his own change of fortune.


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Commissioning the picture from
Frans Hals may itself have been


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an act of charity, because his later
years were much more troubled.


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He fell out of fashion,
his fortunes fell.


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Now 1664, he was granted poor relief


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and three cartloads of peat to keep
himself warm.


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And it's hard not to think that as
he looked into the compassionate,
serious faces


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of these women, he was moved to
reflect himself on the transience of
life,


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the fragility of life, perhaps
the fragility of his own life.


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Darkness encroaches from all sides.
The picture's 90% shadow,


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with just these beautifully
poignant faces,


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almost the faces of ghosts
staring out at us.


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I think the picture is very clever,
I think it puts you


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in the place of someone appealing to
these women for charity.


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They look at you, they consider
your petition. Will they help you?


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Won't they help you?


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Will you be greeted by the hand
that gives,


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or will you be refused by the hand
that withholds?


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I think it's Hals's
way of reflecting on


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the wheel of fortune that he himself
had experienced in his own life,


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that no matter how high you rise,
in the end,


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you do always have to
head for the exit.


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Just two years after painting
this picture, Hals died


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virtually penniless.


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Boom and bust -
it was the Dutch way.


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You could even say it was
a Dutch invention.


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In 1609, Amsterdam's new Wisselbank
introduced the world to stocks
and shares.


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Suddenly, everything was
a commodity, especially art.


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In 1640, English writer Peter Mundy
observed with amazement that


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butchers, bakers, even cobblers,
eagerly bought paintings to


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cover their walls, hoping to
sell them again for a profit.


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It fuelled a huge
boom in secular painting,


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every artist specialising
in a particular subject.


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00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:09,640
But all reflected what the Dutch
wanted to see - their own world.


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Whether it was life in the kitchen,


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the sick room,


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or the classroom, the national
obsession with painting injected


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a whole new range of subject matter
into the bloodstream of Western art.


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But why were images
so important to the Dutch?


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Because they were attempting to
build a new kind of society,


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built on the Calvinist work ethic,
communal effort.


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A society every
bit as new as Soviet Russia


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was in the early 20th century.


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The Dutch needed art to prove
that their experiment was working.


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And it was the artist's
task to fill his blank canvas with


227
00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:08,720
the values of the Republic.


228
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:14,600
That's why Dutch art was so often
just a step away from propaganda.


229
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:19,360
Even when approaching the most
apparently innocent subject
matter of all.


230
00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:27,320
The Dutch landscape was itself a
work of art, a man-made creation of


231
00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:32,720
immense ingenuity with its polders
as they're called, vast expanses


232
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:38,640
of meadow, fertile meadow irrigated
by complex networks of canals.


233
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:43,560
This is the Beemster Polder,
and believe it or not this whole


234
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:47,720
area was nothing but one vast lake
until the 17th century.


235
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:52,040
In fact, as I cycle through this
landscape, I feel very much as if


236
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:56,280
I'm cycling through a Dutch
painting, and there's a good reason
for that.


237
00:20:56,280 --> 00:20:59,320
Landscape was one of the great
subjects of Dutch art.


238
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:13,000
When a Dutch painter saw his land,
he didn't just see trees,


239
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:16,720
fields, cloud-filled skies.


240
00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:19,720
He saw symbols of his country's
achievements,


241
00:21:19,720 --> 00:21:23,000
and the dangers it faced.


242
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:28,600
Yes, Hobbema's tonal landscapes
are hymns to natural beauty,


243
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:33,760
but they're also celebrations
of fertility and symmetry,


244
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:36,880
a painter's reminder to his fellow
citizens


245
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,520
always to remain on the straight
and narrow.


246
00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:53,400
Ruisdael's towering windmills
forever draining, irrigating,


247
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,040
stand for the sheer hard
work needed to keep Holland


248
00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:01,960
above water, and to safeguard
the future of the nation's children.


249
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:10,440
And Avercamp's skating scenes -
what do they say?


250
00:22:13,120 --> 00:22:18,040
Well, you might as well enjoy life,
but never forget,


251
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:19,960
you're always on thin ice.


252
00:22:26,120 --> 00:22:30,880
It's as if the Dutch couldn't help
prodding away at their world,


253
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:32,960
searching everywhere for meaning.


254
00:22:39,720 --> 00:22:43,480
Paulus Potter's The Bull.


255
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:47,240
It's one of the great
wonders of Dutch art.


256
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:51,320
If you want to understand Dutch
pride in their land,


257
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:55,080
this is the picture that
absolutely encapsulates it.


258
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:59,120
It's painted on the scale
of an altarpiece.


259
00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:04,680
We're meant, in a sense, to worship
at the image of Dutch prosperity,


260
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:10,240
Dutch genius. It shows us livestock.


261
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:16,120
A sheep with her udder pushed into
the ground, baby lamb by her side.


262
00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:20,760
Meek cow, flies buzzing - bzzz! -
in the air.


263
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,440
You can almost feel
the heat of this summer's day.


264
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:29,000
On the ground - ribbit! - a frog.


265
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:35,360
But at the centre of it all,
this huge, virile bull.


266
00:23:35,360 --> 00:23:41,600
There he stands with his testicles
the size of church bells,


267
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:48,200
his prominent cock standing astride
a wonderfully luxuriant patch of
vegetation -


268
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,880
this picture's all about fertility.


269
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:57,240
He's blessed the soil with a
humungous turd. Look at that cowpat!


270
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:02,280
Have you ever seen a more
vividly rendered cowpat than that?


271
00:24:02,280 --> 00:24:05,640
In fact, have you ever seen
a cowpat in art?


272
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:09,560
What's most extraordinary about the
picture is just the sheer scale of
it.


273
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:15,160
And what that scale
expresses, I think, is the magnitude


274
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:22,040
of Dutch pride in the achievement of
having created this land of theirs.


275
00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:29,040
As Descartes said, God made the
earth, but the Dutch made Holland.


276
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:30,960
And boy, did they know it!


277
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:47,360
The fatted calf -
the lamb for slaughter.


278
00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:51,320
Dutch passion for the symbols
of plenty was not abstract,


279
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:52,760
but entirely practical.


280
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,800
The fruits of the earth were not
just for looking at,


281
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:01,920
but for eating too.


282
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,920
The pleasures of food are everywhere
in Dutch art,


283
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:14,040
and you can actually
chart the rise of Republican


284
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:18,000
self-confidence through changing
tastes in still-life painting.


285
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,680
Dutch painters rendered
the textures of food


286
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,000
and drink with astonishing
vividness.


287
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:32,440
The sparkle of light through water.


288
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,920
The citric glint of lemon peel.


289
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:41,200
But to begin with at least,
it was simple bread and shellfish on


290
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,440
plain white cloth an arrangement
of relative modesty and restraint.


291
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:53,880
By the end of the 1640s,
the Republic's 80-year war with


292
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:59,320
Spain was finally over, and Dutch
prosperity was at its height.


293
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,840
Now there's a definite loosening
of the belt -


294
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:08,120
more luxurious food and more
of it, exotic props.


295
00:26:08,120 --> 00:26:12,280
The earlier sense of propriety has
given way to naked aspiration.


296
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:21,720
It opened a kind of fault-line in
the Dutch sense of civic
responsibility.


297
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:26,360
How rich was it reasonable for a
God-fearing merchant to become?


298
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:37,640
From the start there was a tension
between the egalitarian ideals of


299
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:42,160
the young Republic, and the way this
free-market economy actually worked.


300
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,800
Inevitably some people did much
better than others.


301
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:54,960
Living in fine canalside homes,
owning fabulous art,


302
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,760
and monopolising
the mechanisms of civic power.


303
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,040
'You can still touch that reality
in modern Amsterdam


304
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:10,000
'in a splendid mansion that dates
back to the Golden Age.


305
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,320
'What was once new money
is now very old.'


306
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,560
So when did your family first
come to Amsterdam?


307
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,680
In 1583.


308
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:24,440
'Owner Baron Jan Six van
Hillegom X is the scion


309
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:28,000
'of one of Amsterdam's
longest-established families.'


310
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,320
This is spectacular.


311
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,400
I feel like I've stepped straight
into the Golden Age.


312
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:40,320
'This 46-room house contains
one of the most impressive private


313
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,280
'art collections in the world.'


314
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:43,720
Is this a Saenredam? Yes.


315
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,440
A real genuine Saenredam!
Yes, it is.


316
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:47,560
That's beautiful!


317
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:51,840
And serenity and the icy colours,
they will stick to your eyes.


318
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:53,600
I like that!


319
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,160
So where do we go next?


320
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,280
Well, whatever you find interesting.


321
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:00,080
It's sensational.


322
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,600
'Many of the greatest
artists of the Dutch Golden Age


323
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,120
'are represented here.'


324
00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:08,920
Wow! What a picture!


325
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,200
The room was created
for the painting.


326
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,240
So this is Paul Potter who painted
the famous picture of The Bull?


327
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,280
Exactly.


328
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:20,760
It goes on and on, this house.
It's an art gallery.


329
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:24,520
Ruisdael. This is a Frans Hals.


330
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:25,640
That's wonderful.


331
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,880
But what does it mean to you,
though, emotionally, this
collection?


332
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:34,320
Because you've worked very
hard to keep this house together,


333
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:37,480
to keep it as a kind
of microcosm of the Golden Age.


334
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:42,200
I am Jan Six number ten. So Jan Six
number one collected a part...


335
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,960
Jan Six number two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine,


336
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,080
and myself, and I used to say,


337
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:51,160
"You can't be anxious
enough in choosing your parents."


338
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:54,000
I was born and this was gifted,
and a lot of pleasure,


339
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,600
but also a lot of taking care of.


340
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,120
'The undisputed
jewel in the collection is


341
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:09,200
'a portrait of the very first Jan
Six, painted by his good friend


342
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,120
'one of the greatest of all
Golden Age painters - Rembrandt.'


343
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,200
There he is. My goodness.


344
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:22,880
And there, you see - the painting.


345
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,560
Wow! That is just...it's almost
impossible to believe that


346
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,320
a painting can conjure up a human
being to such an extent that


347
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,880
you feel that they're THERE.


348
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:34,760
It's the man almost alive.


349
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:38,040
What do you think
the story of the painting is?
What do you think's happening?


350
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:42,240
I think that he went to Rembrandt's
place, they had food, drink -
whatever,


351
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,320
and then he leaves.


352
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:50,920
And then he thinks to himself, "Oh,
didn't I forget to say something to
Rembrandt?"


353
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,760
And probably that's the moment
that Rembrandt was,


354
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:58,120
"That's the thing, the situation I
like to fix on canvas."


355
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,560
It looks like it's painted
wet-in-wet, when you paint on...


356
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:03,480
Sprezzatura.


357
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,280
Sprezzatura.
You find it here, and here.


358
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,760
But if you see, the brush thickness
here, then Rembrandt took his thumb


359
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:12,240
and put his thumb here.


360
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,520
Those are actually thumb prints?
To make it completed...yes.


361
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:18,440
There! Yeah, you can see it.


362
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,680
And that coat... He's turned it into
almost like an abstract painting.


363
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,880
It's perfect, isn't it?
You can see the paint.


364
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,040
But that is so bold and daring.


365
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,800
Absolutely. And yet it isn't
abstract, because I think what it
conveys, as you say,


366
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,920
it's a man on the move,
a man who's about to leave,


367
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,840
a man who's been in thought for a
second. In thought, in thought...


368
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,840
He's thinking. Yeah, yeah.
That makes it also a little mystic.


369
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:44,000
Yes, it's got that enigma quality.
But it's very good. It draws you in,
it's a bit like the Mona Lisa.


370
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:48,840
Nobody knows what the Mona Lisa's
thinking, nobody knows what that
smile is, and he's not smiling.


371
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,320
And it has an extra...an extra part.


372
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,560
Yeah. I mean, do you think there's
a greater Dutch portrait than this?


373
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:58,560
Do you think there is one?
I don't know, but I advise you one
thing, take a chair,


374
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:03,040
sit down and have a good
clear look to it!


375
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:14,720
No Dutch painter pushed
his originality as far as this,


376
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:19,680
blurring the line between finished
work and improvised sketch.


377
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,960
"Avant garde" is a later phrase,
but a good one for Rembrandt.


378
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,400
Rembrandt had been an original
right from the start,


379
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:40,440
when he arrived in Amsterdam to
make his fortune in 1632.


380
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:46,000
He understood how the art market
worked in this thriving city.


381
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,560
He saw that the key to being
successful was to be different -


382
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:52,640
to innovate.


383
00:31:54,720 --> 00:32:00,480
At just 26, he painted this
arrestingly visceral depiction of


384
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:06,160
Doctor Tulp, Holland's first great
anatomist. Blood, guts and all.


385
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:15,440
A brilliantly gory advertisement for
Dutch science - Tulp was delighted.


386
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:21,360
And an even more effective
advertisement for Rembrandt.


387
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:25,920
Yet sometimes his art would cut
so deep into the tissues of Dutch


388
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:32,760
society, that he'd risk alienating
the very market that sustained him.


389
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:38,520
And rarely did he walk a finer line
than when painting his best-known
work.


390
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:46,840
So here it is, Holland's most famous
painting, The Night Watch.


391
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:52,200
Although like many famous paintings,
it's actually deeply ambiguous


392
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,280
and endlessly fascinating.


393
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,440
Even its title turns out to
be a fiction.


394
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,320
It should actually be
called the Day Watch,


395
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:04,680
because Rembrandt has set
the scene during daytime,


396
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,560
in a rather dark corner
of Amsterdam, with sunlight


397
00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,640
streaming in and catching these
figures in its beams.


398
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,360
It represents a militia company,


399
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,280
one of many such organisations that
had sprung up during the wars


400
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:27,600
of independence to defend, city
by city, against foreign invaders.


401
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:33,600
Now, what Rembrandt has done with
the convention of the militiamen
group portrait


402
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:37,520
is he's suddenly invested it with a
new kind of drama, a new kind of
energy.


403
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:43,400
He's turned it into a history
painting, almost. It tells a story.


404
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:48,160
This is the moment when the militia
company is about to advance,


405
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,240
and prepares to do battle.


406
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:57,240
But as is so often the case with
Rembrandt, all is not quite


407
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:02,520
as it seems, because by the time
he painted this picture, militia


408
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,080
companies such as these had in
effect become a kind of gentleman's


409
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:11,960
drinking club, more noted for their
carousing than their fighting.


410
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,160
And I think Rembrandt has quite
a bit of fun with his own


411
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,400
knowledge that they're not actually
fighters at all.


412
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:20,680
Look at their finery.


413
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,640
And there's also this sense running
through the whole painting


414
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:28,000
like a rather subversive
current of electricity that they're


415
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,680
not quite sure of what they're
doing - look at this musketeer.


416
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:35,800
He's pouring that
gunpowder into his musket


417
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,680
as if he's a bit worried that he
might blow his own hand off.


418
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,240
And this chap with his rather
unconvincing helmet


419
00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:47,240
gazing at the flintlock
mechanism of his gun as


420
00:34:47,240 --> 00:34:50,920
if he can't quite remember
how it all works.


421
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,600
And right at the centre of the
picture, look how disaster nearly
strikes.


422
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:58,600
A little boy's got his musket out -
he's actually fired the thing.


423
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,800
And he's fired it so close to the
captain's hat that it looks


424
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:07,480
almost as if the plumes are about to
burst into flames.


425
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:12,040
Look at the chap behind saying,
"Cor, crikey, that was close!"


426
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:18,960
So yes, this is the great company
of Amsterdam's militiamen but at the


427
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:25,520
same time, Rembrandt's just slightly
verging on taking the mickey out


428
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:31,600
of them. Is he perhaps suggesting
that they're a bit of a dad's army?


429
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:40,600
The militiamen adored the picture,
paid Rembrandt a fortune for it,


430
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,480
oblivious to the cutting
edge of his wit.


431
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:50,800
He'd got away with it.


432
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,720
For now,
he was Holland's number one painter.


433
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:06,080
In 1639, he mortgaged
himself to the hilt to buy this


434
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:10,280
house in central Amsterdam
now restored as a museum.


435
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:19,280
Rembrandt knew he'd made it -
a five-storey family home


436
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:24,600
replete with servants and a
spacious, well-lit painting studio.


437
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:34,440
But fortune's wheel turned,
and Rembrandt's patrons


438
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:41,800
began to see that his work wasn't in
tune with the great Dutch project.


439
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:46,200
Especially when he was asked to
paint a hero from the nation's
ancient past.


440
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:58,200
In 69AD, Claudius Civilis handled
a rebellion against occupying
Roman forces.


441
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,760
In Dutch eyes,
he was the very first militiaman.


442
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:08,600
This painting was intended for
Amsterdam's elegant new Town Hall,


443
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:15,680
but the governors couldn't stomach
this all-too-human depiction of a
half-blind, coarse Barbarian chief.


444
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:24,720
The picture was turned down -
Rembrandt's originality rejected.


445
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,040
It marked a terminal
downturn in business


446
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,920
and lifestyle for Rembrandt.


447
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,840
Yet he continued to search
the souls of the people he painted


448
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:43,440
and to ask awkward questions.


449
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:46,160
In this revolutionary new republic,


450
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:51,520
the freest society
in the world, what did freedom mean?


451
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,880
If you can choose who you
want to be,


452
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,160
how do you know which is
the real you?


453
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:08,920
Rembrandt studied humanity.
But most of all, he studied himself.


454
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:15,760
He painted more self-portraits than
any previous artist.


455
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:24,120
He portrayed himself in different
costumes,


456
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:27,160
different moods,


457
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:28,880
with different expressions.


458
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,080
These pictures form
a chronicle of the many faces


459
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:40,040
and ages of a single life.


460
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,880
And the later pictures reflect,
unmistakeably,


461
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,800
the fact that Rembrandt's luck
was running out.


462
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:01,960
By the 1660s, Rembrandt's life
was very much on the slide.


463
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,040
He'd been a millionaire,


464
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:09,760
he lived in a grand house on
Amsterdam's main canal.


465
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,800
He'd had a wonderful studio,
possessions, riches,


466
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,440
a beautiful wife.


467
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,280
By now, he'd lost nearly everything.


468
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:24,480
This is one of the great pictures of
the Golden Age but there's nothing
very golden about it.


469
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:30,520
It's painted in the colours of
flesh, of earth, of penitence.


470
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:37,280
He's depicted himself in a turban
holding a holy book


471
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,400
as the apostle St Paul.


472
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:42,960
Very much a prophet
in the wilderness.


473
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:48,760
Perhaps Rembrandt himself felt at
this time like a prophet
in the wilderness.


474
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:53,320
Certainly, his art for me
runs shockingly counter


475
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:57,640
to most other art
of the Dutch Golden Age.


476
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,440
When I think of portraits of the
period,


477
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,840
I think that in almost every case,


478
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:08,720
their function was somehow
to create and cement


479
00:40:08,720 --> 00:40:15,640
for the enterprising,
yet also rather nervous Dutch,


480
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,360
a sense of their own identity.


481
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:22,240
But in these late self-portraits,


482
00:40:22,240 --> 00:40:27,960
Rembrandt seems to be questioning
the very notion of identity itself.


483
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:31,800
He's not just
reflecting on the slings


484
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,320
and arrows of outrageous fortune.


485
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:38,960
I think he's reflecting
on the fiction of selfhood.


486
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,920
"What is a man?" he asks himself.
"Who am I?"


487
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:53,680
And he has the guts to admit that he
really doesn't know.


488
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:55,600
These pictures are great


489
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:01,040
because they dare to suggest that
a man can be many things.


490
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:06,120
When I look at them, I'm reminded of
the words of the great French
philosopher,


491
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,400
Rembrandt's contemporary, Montaigne.


492
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:19,480
"Every sort of contradiction can be
found in me, depending upon some
twist.


493
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:25,080
"Timid, insolent, chaste, lecherous,
talkative, taciturn, tough, sickly,


494
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:31,440
"clever, dull, brooding, affable,
lying, truthful, learned, ignorant.


495
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:39,440
"I can see something of all that in
myself, depending on how I gyrate".


496
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,080
Boom and bust again.


497
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:57,920
Like Hals the drinker, Rembrandt
the great innovator died a pauper


498
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:02,760
aged 63, and was
buried in an unmarked grave.


499
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,280
Holland hardly blinked.
And why should it?


500
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:19,640
By the mid 17th century,
the Dutch Republic was quite simply


501
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:24,480
the most powerful nation on earth.


502
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:28,000
The intrepid agents
of the Dutch East India Company


503
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,720
established trading
posts at the southern tip of Africa,


504
00:42:31,720 --> 00:42:39,040
round the coast of India and Ceylon,
and in the Moluccan Spice Islands.


505
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:42,720
Meanwhile, merchants of the
West India Company had crossed


506
00:42:42,720 --> 00:42:45,800
the Atlantic to colonise
parts of the Caribbean


507
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:49,280
and the coasts of South
and North America


508
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:54,160
including Manhattan Island which
they christened New Amsterdam.


509
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:01,600
The extremes of the Dutch
maritime adventure were


510
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:06,880
mirrored in Dutch maritime art.


511
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:13,480
More propaganda - Dutch men-of-war
vanquishing their foreign foe


512
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,400
in a fusillade of cannon fire.


513
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:22,920
But there were other,
more uneasy pictures too.


514
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:27,920
Scenes of impending disaster -
stormy skies, treacherous rocks.


515
00:43:29,720 --> 00:43:32,800
How hard it was to steer
the correct course.


516
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:46,520
Where Dutch traders went,
Dutch artists followed, giving us a


517
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:51,400
fascinating window into worlds seen
by Western eyes for the first time.


518
00:43:55,560 --> 00:44:00,480
Some of the most intriguing colonial
paintings were made at Pernambuco,


519
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,600
in the northeast of modern-day
Brazil.


520
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,280
Artist Frans Post recorded
the tropical landscape


521
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:11,880
and its exotic plants.


522
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:19,400
Albert Eckhout painted studies
of the local tribespeople, the Tupi.


523
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:25,000
His portraits are naturalistic,
even tinged with sympathy, when so


524
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,800
many other European artists
demonised the "foreign savage".


525
00:44:40,240 --> 00:44:44,080
Back home, the Dutch reaped
the dividends of Empire.


526
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:47,680
For a time they were Europe's chief
importers of exotic luxury goods -


527
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:52,120
tobacco, spices, coffee,
fine Chinese porcelain.


528
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,520
They also capitalised by making
their own cheaper versions


529
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:59,560
of some of those goods such as the
famous Delftware tiles and pottery.


530
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,160
The standard of living in Holland
was now higher than in any other


531
00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:07,680
country in the world - they really
had never had it so good.


532
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:22,560
The Dutch embraced the good life -
just rewards for hard work.


533
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:30,680
But still the old Calvinist
conscience nagged away at them.


534
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:36,240
If you have TOO much fun, it might
all be snatched away from you.


535
00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:40,000
Even as the party went on,
they feared it might be their last.


536
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:41,560
Let's wait and see.


537
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:47,840
It's a tension crystallised
in the work of a publican turned


538
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,880
painter called Jan Steen.


539
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:54,880
As an innkeeper,


540
00:45:54,880 --> 00:46:01,240
Steen was no stranger to the sight
of people indulging in pleasure.


541
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:04,400
No surprise, then, that he's
famous for painting witty


542
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,120
scenes of domestic chaos.


543
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,000
So much so that even today the Dutch
talk disparagingly of a


544
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:17,360
"Jan Steen household" meaning
a particularly anarchic home.


545
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,000
But is there more to Steen's
anarchy than meets the eye?


546
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,080
HE CHORTLES


547
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:32,480
Meet the Dutch neighbours from hell.


548
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,880
Het vrolijke huisgezin -
the merry household -


549
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:39,680
is the name of perhaps Jan Steen's
most famous picture,


550
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:45,200
certainly one of the rowdiest
pictures of the Dutch Golden Age.


551
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:50,000
What I love about it is it's a kind
of assembly of human gargoyles.


552
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,200
Look at this gurning
head of the family,


553
00:46:54,200 --> 00:47:00,600
grinning his boozy delight
at the pleasures of the bottle.


554
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:03,760
Look at the wizened crone
singing a tune.


555
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:10,320
And there, at the centre of the
picture, a kind of profane Madonna,


556
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:16,920
the mother of the household with her
distinctly un-Christlike child.


557
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:21,560
She's certainly got the cleavage
to end all cleavages.


558
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:26,360
And if you know how to look at these
pictures, they're full of warnings


559
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:29,280
about the moral danger of excess.


560
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:36,160
The broken egg -
symbol of fractured virtue,


561
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:41,760
the smoke that curls up from the
pipe being smoked by the little boy.


562
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,800
That symbolises
the transience of pleasure.


563
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:51,720
And to underscore that moral,
there's a piece of paper


564
00:47:51,720 --> 00:47:57,480
pinned above the fireplace which
tells us that as the old sing,


565
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,960
so they young will chirrup.
In other words,


566
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:05,360
set a bad example to your children
and they will surely follow it.


567
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:10,520
And yet there's something about the
picture that makes you wonder


568
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:15,120
whether the moral isn't actually
just an alibi for having
a good old laugh.


569
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:18,880
Jan Steen was himself,
after all, a publican.


570
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:24,080
He was hardly the enemy of those who
sought to overindulge.


571
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:29,720
And I'm not sure if ultimately
he wasn't actually on the same


572
00:48:29,720 --> 00:48:35,280
side as the merry family,
laughing along with them


573
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,240
rather than poking fun AT them.


574
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,720
There's a polar opposite to
Jan Steen's scenes of mayhem -


575
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:04,120
Pieter de Hooch's serene, zen-like
depictions of Dutch domesticity.


576
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:15,360
And there's no
ambiguity in this art.


577
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:27,120
Clean house,
clean soul is the message.


578
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:30,400
Everything spotless,
nothing out of place.


579
00:49:36,400 --> 00:49:40,920
If you're troubled by the pitfalls
of consumer society,


580
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:45,760
this is somewhere you can control,
can keep pure.


581
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:48,040
Home sweet home.


582
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:57,240
De Hooch's gentle celebration
of an ideal Dutch home is


583
00:49:57,240 --> 00:49:59,920
the microcosm of an entire world.


584
00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:03,520
There was a huge popular vogue at
the time for household manuals


585
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:09,960
such as this. It's a book called The
Skilled And Responsible Housekeeper,


586
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:14,640
And it's a kind of secular
book of hours telling the person


587
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,000
exactly what and when to clean.


588
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:22,040
On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays
and Fridays for example, we learn
that you have to clean the reception


589
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,920
area. On Wednesdays it's the path
leading up to the front door.


590
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:30,800
And at the centre of it all lay
one great tenet.


591
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:36,160
It's written here, "Zindelijkheid
is een groot Cieraadt" -


592
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,600
cleanliness is the great gem.


593
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:48,000
The obsession with cleanliness is
a lasting national characteristic.


594
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:52,160
In Holland you're still
expected to keep


595
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:56,280
the pavement in front of your house
spick and span.


596
00:50:56,280 --> 00:51:00,720
And a common aversion to curtains
shows you've got nothing to hide.


597
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,200
In the Dutch Golden Age,
the house was a symbol not


598
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:18,920
only of your own moral fibre, but
the state of the Republic itself.


599
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:23,080
After all, what was the Republic
but an edifice -


600
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,800
a house where each brick,


601
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:33,240
each fine, upstanding citizen helped
ensure the whole would not collapse.


602
00:51:33,240 --> 00:51:38,320
And it would produce one last, truly
great artist who would try to


603
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:40,680
grasp that dream.


604
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,760
If de Hooch was the great
painter of Dutch bricks and mortar,


605
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:50,000
I think it was Johannes Vermeer who
most memorably, most


606
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:55,680
hauntingly depicted the interior
spaces of the Dutch household.


607
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:01,680
He paints a serving girl pouring
milk into a bowl in a humble
kitchen.


608
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:06,000
And yet the whole space is suffused
with light that falls on her


609
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,280
almost like a form of benediction.


610
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:13,840
Your eye is caught by the bread
on the table, which inevitably


611
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:19,640
brings to mind the bread
on the altar at the moment of Mass.


612
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:24,600
She's the high
priestess of the home.


613
00:52:24,600 --> 00:52:29,040
Then he paints a woman in blue
receiving a letter,


614
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:31,840
reading it for the first time.


615
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:36,560
There's a look of anticipation
on her face.


616
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,640
The map behind her suggests
distance.


617
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:44,840
Is she receiving news from her
beloved, her husband?


618
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:50,000
Her swollen belly suggests that
she's pregnant,


619
00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:55,120
the whole scene has
the aura of a secular Annunciation.


620
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:57,120
She is the Madonna of the house.


621
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:01,120
And then perhaps most
memorably of all,


622
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:05,840
he paints The Girl With
A Pearl Earring.


623
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,320
It's the look of love caught
forever on a human face.


624
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:15,200
You can see the moistness
in the corner of her lip,


625
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:17,080
the wetness in her eye.


626
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:18,760
It's an utterly beguiling picture.


627
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:26,040
I think for Vermeer she represents
almost the sanctity of love.


628
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:30,440
She's a person,
but she's also a kind of saint.


629
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:49,360
You'd hardly guess from the hallowed
serenity of his art that


630
00:53:49,360 --> 00:53:53,800
Vermeer struggled to make ends meet
and lived in a somewhat


631
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:59,840
troubled home, often
plagued by obnoxious relatives.


632
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:03,880
Perhaps his paintings reflect
a longing, not a reality -


633
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,280
a peace he wished he had.


634
00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:22,160
Vermeer was the last truly great
artist of the Dutch Golden Age.


635
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:24,920
Its downfall was his downfall.


636
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,160
1672, when Vermeer turned 40,


637
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:35,160
was the Republic's great
Year of Disaster.


638
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,080
English, French and German forces
tried to invade simultaneously


639
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:45,000
from different directions.


640
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:50,280
The Dutch had to break the dykes and
flood the land to repel invaders.


641
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,480
It broke Dutch global supremacy.


642
00:54:55,480 --> 00:55:00,720
They survived, but their power would
never be the same again.


643
00:55:00,720 --> 00:55:04,760
And it broke Johannes Vermeer.


644
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:08,280
He lost everything in the economic
crisis that followed,


645
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:13,400
and died, aged 43, a destroyed man.


646
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:21,440
For me, it's one of his paintings
that stands for ever as an elegy


647
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:26,440
to the extraordinary time and place
that was Holland in the Golden Age.


648
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,400
This is Vermeer's View Of Delft.


649
00:55:40,400 --> 00:55:43,280
Marcel Proust, the French writer,
said it was the most beautiful


650
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:47,680
painting in the world,
and I wouldn't contradict him.


651
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,920
What a picture it is -
it's beguiling, entrancing.


652
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:58,160
It's Vermeer's hometown painted
from a vantage point that never was.


653
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:02,600
And idealised to a great
extent, I think.


654
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,680
Look at the way he's tidied
everything up.


655
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:08,800
He's given a kind of geometrical
order to the outline


656
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:11,960
of these buildings
in the centre of Delft.


657
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:18,680
I think it's a picture that
encapsulates the great dream


658
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:23,360
of Holland in the 17th century,
the dream of a perfect world,


659
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:30,080
a place where all is for the best,
in the best of all possible worlds.


660
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:35,960
The sun is shining, people are going
about their business, peace,


661
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:39,680
tranquillity, prosperity, order.


662
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:49,040
And yet, if you look more closely
at the picture, I think Vermeer's


663
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:54,240
also absolutely encapsulated that
sense that the Dutch always


664
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:59,400
had throughout their greatest hour,
throughout the 17th century,


665
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:02,760
that whatever they gain, whatever
they made, whatever they profited,


666
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:09,120
it was always profoundly
at risk, it was always vulnerable.


667
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:14,640
And Vermeer's painted that sense
of vulnerability into his idyll


668
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:20,960
by placing a huge amount of emphasis
on transience, on change.


669
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:25,200
Look at the weather, the sky,
that...you can almost feel it moving
above you.


670
00:57:28,360 --> 00:57:33,840
And look at the way he's depicted
that wonderfully subtle
expanse of water.


671
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,640
These lines of white that
run across it.


672
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:41,880
They are they are waves
created in the water by the whipping
of the wind.


673
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,720
You can feel that wind moving
towards you.


674
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:47,360
There's a wonderful little detail
over here on the left where


675
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,760
Vermeer's had the paint
ground in a slightly crystalline,


676
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:54,520
granular way, so that those rooves
sparkle. Why do they sparkle?


677
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:57,320
To show us that it has been raining.


678
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:00,560
That cloud has
dumped its load on those rooves.


679
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,040
But that rain has passed.


680
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:09,640
This is a moment of perfection,
a moment of sunshine.


681
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:15,720
The storm's passed, but another
storm might be on the way.


682
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,280
Vermeer's painted a golden moment


683
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:27,320
and I think he's, in a sense,
painted the Dutch Golden Age itself,


684
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:30,640
something beautiful, something full
of wonder, something extraordinary


685
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:34,400
but something also destined
inevitably to pass and to fade.


686
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:06,760
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