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So far, our story of the Low
Countries has been about a tangle


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of different cultures,


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a hybrid world from which stemmed
huge developments in religion,


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politics, economics,
but, above all, art.


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From Bosch...


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to Brueghel...


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Van Eyck and into the golden age
of Dutch art,


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this small corner of Northern Europe


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produced a rich crop
of extraordinary images.


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At the end of the 17th century,
if Vermeer's great vision


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appeared to herald a continued
age of artistic brilliance,


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it wouldn't turn out that way.


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The next 200 years would see
a barren time for art,


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in which the Low Countries were
perhaps too comfortable,


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too contented to produce anything
daring or new.


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It was a time of decline
in religious faith.


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And in its place
the rise of trade, industry, money.


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It was almost as if
art had gone into hibernation.


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The Low Countries were awoken from
their collective slumbers


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at the onset of the 19th century.


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First came the great trauma
of the Napoleonic invasions,


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followed by the still-greater
trauma of the Industrial Revolution,


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which changed the landscapes and the
cityscapes of this region for ever.


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Dutch art would be dominated
by two towering figures,


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each of whom, in his own way,
attempted to fill the great voids


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opened up by modern civilisation -


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the dearth of beauty,
as they saw it, the death of God -


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by turning art itself
into a new kind of religion.


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Here in Belgium, this most
uneasy of modern nation states,


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a collectively questioning,
fractured sense of identity


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would be mirrored in an art
of feverish dream and nightmare.


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Early in the morning on Sunday,
23rd July, 1882,


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a 29-year-old Dutchman
climbed up


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onto the roof of his house
in a suburb of the Hague


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while his alcoholic prostitute
girlfriend and her small child
slept downstairs.


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On any other day,
this young man would have had
plenty to complain about.


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His parents have just disowned him,


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he has had two marriage proposals
rejected, he has been sacked twice


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and he has just come out of
hospital yet again for gonorrhoea.


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But on this day he feels happy.


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He looks out across the rooftops,
he completes a watercolour


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and then he paints the scene again,


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this time in the words of a letter
to his brother, Theo Van Gogh.


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"You must imagine me here,"
he writes.


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"Over the red-tiled roofs comes
a flock of white pigeons,


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"flying between the black,
smoking chimneys.


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"Behind this, an infinity
of delicate, gentle green.


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"Miles and miles of flat meadow.


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"And the grey sky is still and as
peaceful as a Corot or Van Goyen.


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"This is the subject
of my watercolour.


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"I hope you will like it."


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"I have found my work," he writes,
in another letter
from around this time,


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"something which I live for heart
and soul.


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"I have a certain faith in art, a
certain trust that it is a powerful
current that drives a person."


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Now, coming from anyone else in his
position - he had only been
studying art for two years -


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that might just have been
pretentious guff, but what
wonderful art he had been creating.


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Paintings and drawings
that really capture the lonely,


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atmospheric feel of the flatlands
at the edge of the city.


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Canals spearing towards
the flat horizon.


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Skies full of fast-moving
dark clouds.


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Early work, maybe,
but already it seems to hold out


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the promise of another
Rembrandt in the making.


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Van Gogh's life story
is the familiar tale.


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The unstable genius who, in a fit
of despair, cut off his ear.


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The life of the passionate misfit
has been filtered through


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countless potboilers and biopics.


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In Vincente Minnelli's 1950s
version,


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Kirk Douglas ratchets up
the emotional volume


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as a restless caged animal whose
crippling depression


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turns to frenzied ecstasy
in the sunlit landscapes
of the South of France.


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In his most radiant pictures,
you can see


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Van Gogh's faith in nature as
a religion unstaged, uncut.


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And it's impossible to appreciate
where this passion came from


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without understanding his
early years in Holland and Belgium.


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Van Gogh hadn't set out
to be an artist.


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He started off in the priesthood,
preaching to poor coal miners


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in Belgium,
but he failed spectacularly.


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He had a stammer
and, despite his devotion,


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his Church superiors deemed him
unfit for public speaking.


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In Holland, he chose again to settle
among the rural poor,


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but this time not to preach
to his subjects but to paint them.


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It's a strange paradox
that Vincent Van Gogh,


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who painted some of the most
radiant, light-filled paintings


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in the whole history of art,
should have begun...


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This is his first major ambitious
figure painting -


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with a work that is so dark,
so murky, so copper-coloured.


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It's called The Potato Eaters


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and what you first notice about it
is this pervasive drabness.


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Van Gogh himself actually
liked the effect.


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He said, "My subject is potato
eaters and I want to paint them."


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In the colours of a muddy potato,
unpeeled, of course.


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He said he wanted the picture to
smell of potato steam and bacon.


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I can also smell the thick,
malty aroma


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of this peasant brew
the old lady is pouring.


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It's a viscous form of
chicory coffee, quite disgusting


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but all that they could afford.


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The picture was greatly criticised.


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The hands were said to be too
gnarled, the arms too long,


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the faces too caricatured,
the eyes too bulging,


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the noses too much like potatoes.


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But it was all intentional.


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Van Gogh wanted us to feel that
those hands reaching into


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that plate of cubed potatoes had dug
those potatoes up from the earth.


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Those hands have been shaped,
misshapen


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by all that manual labour.


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Although it's such a visually
unappealing, unappetising,


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literally copper-coloured murk
of a picture,


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Van Gogh did continue to regard it
through his life as "one of the
best things I have done".


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And I do think it is an extremely
significant picture


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in the context of his whole
career, because it establishes,


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right from the outset,
what he's all about as a painter.


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What mattered to Van Gogh
throughout his life


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was not sophisticated technique.


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He wanted to re-make in paint
the intensity


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and violence of his own feelings.


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And to arouse those feelings
in his audience.


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Van Gogh's later French pictures
might look very different


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from his early work,
but they, too, use a form


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of self-conscious exaggeration,
an ecstatic version of caricature.


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It's an attempt to forge a kind of
new religion for the common man,


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for the potato eaters of this world.


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Everyday experiences of field
and flower


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become visions of divine beauty.


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And it would reach a climax
in his most famous subject of all.


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Van Gogh had left Holland simply


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because it was too gloomy
for an artist trying to find God,


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trying to find some sense of
transcendence in the natural world.


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Too much rain, too much shadow,
too much darkness.


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That's why he went
to the South of France.


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In the South of France,
he felt illuminated by the sun.


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He said, "Suddenly, nature's
colours sing to me."


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He felt that he had never seen
the colours of nature before.


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He felt that he'd found what
he was looking for


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and I think the sunflower
was so important to him because...


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it was a plant that seemed to him
to have somehow taken into itself,


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kept, preserved, all that radiance,
all that colour.


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It was as if he was
looking at the sun itself when he
looked at these blooms


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and he painted these pictures
in a kind of storm of enthusiasm.


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He wrote to Theo, his brother,


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to say that, "I am painting with
the energy of a Marseillais
eating bouillabaisse."


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Always the food metaphors.


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And this is almost a picture
that you could eat.


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It's as if it's been painted


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in that Provencal mayonnaise
they call aioli,


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that hot, peppery,
garlic-infused mayonnaise.


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Van Gogh also said that
"the sunflower is mine, in a way".


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Why was it his?


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Well, I think he knew...


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he knew that this life, his career
was going to be a short one,


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and, my goodness, how short it was.


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His career was like a comet
flashing across the sky.


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He compressed into just five years
of a career


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what most other artists would spend
perhaps 40 years creating


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and I think that is what he's
depicting when he depicts
the sunflower.


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He's depicting his sense
of himself, this rapid rise.


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This one seems anthropomorphised.


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It could be an outraged eye
staring into space.


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And these others, these are
cut flowers. We see them falling.


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It is as if the whole of
Van Gogh's life


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is encapsulated
in this one picture.


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He's signed it "Vincent"...


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in that wonderful mauve colour,


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"Vincent" on the vase, as if to say,
"This is me, this is who I was."


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Van Gogh's message was always
destined to fall on stony ground.


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In the early years
of the 20th century,


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Holland became a nation of ever more
practical people.


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They weren't looking for God.


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They were looking for market
opportunities.


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In a fragile sea-level world,
nature had always been something


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to be conquered and tamed,
rather than swooned over.


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The Dutch were carving out
their own space in the modern


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global economy by pioneering what's
now called agribusiness,


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leading the way in the export of
lucrative farm produce
and flower bulbs.


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Almost half the world's cut flowers
are still sold


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from their great flower auctions.


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Everything that made
Van Gogh despair


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of his fellow countrymen
is still true of Holland today.


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But Van Gogh wouldn't be
entirely without influence


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in 20th-century Holland.


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The seeds he had sown
would bear fruit - at least,


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in the rarefied arena of modern art.


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In the summer of 1905, 16 years
after his death, the Dutch paid


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belated tribute to Van Gogh with
a vast exhibition of his work.


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Among the visitors was a
little-known Dutch landscape artist


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called Piet Mondriaan.


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Until now, Mondriaan hadn't been
thought a huge talent.


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He had spent his early years
creating


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a group of intriguingly stylised...


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symbolically charged...


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moody, rather murky landscapes.


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00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:28,000
Now, if you want to understand
the incendiary effect


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that Van Gogh's art
had on the young Piet Mondriaan,


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there's no better place to start
than here. This is his early work.


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Low-toned, slightly melancholic,
slightly mystical landscapes


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painted 1905, 1906, 1907,
but then, look!


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HE IMITATES BURST OF FLAME


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It's as if someone has lit a match
and set fire to the world.


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This is how Mondriaan sees reality


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after he's seen
Van Gogh's paintings.


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Skies that seem to be alive


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with some kind of strange
electrical charge,


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00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:13,400
but what's
interesting about Mondriaan


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is that he is different
from van Gogh.


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He's fallen under the influence
of the philosophical ideas


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of a movement known as Theosophy.


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He has come to believe that matter
is the enemy of spirit,


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so, for example, while van Gogh
might have said,


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"Oh, I want to paint sunflowers
that feel like you could eat them,


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00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:36,360
"like a blob of mayonnaise,"


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that's not at all
Mondriaan's ambition.


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00:15:39,080 --> 00:15:42,200
He would never have compared
one of his paintings to food.


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00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:46,280
What he's looking at,
what he's looking for,


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00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:50,120
is some kind of mysterious
spiritual essence of reality


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that he feels lies
beyond the visible appearance.


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00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:59,640
So his visual adventure will take
him to completely different worlds.


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00:16:06,400 --> 00:16:08,400
Like Van Gogh before him,


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00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:12,080
Mondriaan felt
he had to get out of Holland.


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00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:14,920
In 1911 he set up studio


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00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:18,520
at the heart
of the international art scene.


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Paris.


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In the early 20th century,
the city was a magnet for artists


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00:16:25,520 --> 00:16:28,400
wanting to be
part of the avant-garde.


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00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:33,640
Instability in Europe had fuelled
a mood of creative rebellion,


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with radical breakthroughs
in all forms of artistic expression.


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In this heated atmosphere,
Picasso and Braque created Cubism


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00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:48,920
and Mondriaan fell completely
under its spell.


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00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:56,640
From now on,
Mondriaan would still paint nature,


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but his individual tree
starts to dissolve


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into a Cubist kaleidoscope
of muted forms.


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To express the universal,
abstract nature of "tree".


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00:17:10,320 --> 00:17:13,280
As he squares off his environment,


232
00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:17,480
Mondriaan moves closer
to grid-form abstraction,


233
00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:20,560
but he's not there yet.


234
00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:24,760
That style-defining revelation would
come not from Paris,


235
00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:27,120
but almost by accident,


236
00:17:27,120 --> 00:17:31,360
from the weather-battered dunes
of Holland's North Sea coast.


237
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:42,000
When the great breakthrough came,
chance played a large part.


238
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,000
Mondriaan was actually
living in Paris,


239
00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:47,440
to be at the centre of modern art.


240
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:50,560
He got word that his father was ill
and he came to Holland


241
00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:54,360
on what was supposed to be a short
visit, but then the war broke out.


242
00:17:54,360 --> 00:17:57,160
He couldn't leave the country,
so what did he do?


243
00:17:57,160 --> 00:18:00,920
He came here to Domburg beach.


244
00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:02,920
He had almost no money,


245
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,440
just a stump of charcoal
and a sketchbook.


246
00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:11,200
But he spent day after day
looking at the sea,


247
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,880
studying the sea, studying the sky,


248
00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:17,320
studying the stumps of these piers.


249
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:23,960
And the result was the art
that he considered the great change.


250
00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:31,080
Mondriaan would sometimes
sketch by moonlight,


251
00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:33,520
or even with his eyes closed,


252
00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:38,120
so determined was he
to find the essence of his subject.


253
00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:46,520
Mondriaan returned from the sea,


254
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:49,320
like a beachcomber,


255
00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:52,240
with this.


256
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,720
It's an astonishingly
abstracted, distilled,


257
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,160
reduced vision of the pewter disc
of the North Sea


258
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:04,760
beneath the pewter disc
of the grey Dutch sky.


259
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,640
I think we can sense
Mondriaan's rapture


260
00:19:09,640 --> 00:19:13,680
before the glitter and the dazzle
of light on the ocean breakers.


261
00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:18,280
We can feel the motions,
the relentless motions, of the sea.


262
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,560
We can sense mists, fogs,
coming in across the ocean.


263
00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:26,240
It's an extraordinary image,


264
00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:30,040
and it's one that takes us
to the heart of the difference


265
00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:33,080
between Mondriaan and Van Gogh.


266
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:38,320
They start from exactly
the same position -


267
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:42,400
the Church is gone,
it's no good to them any more,


268
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:47,400
but they're looking for some
sense of the spiritual,


269
00:19:47,400 --> 00:19:52,600
some mystery,
some sense of deeper meaning.


270
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:56,040
And they're going to a new Church,


271
00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:58,920
the cathedral of nature.


272
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:04,720
But whereas Van Gogh is essentially
helpless before nature,


273
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,480
Mondriaan takes control.


274
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,600
It's the artist's job,
in his opinion,


275
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:17,080
to see the structures,
to see the patterns,


276
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:19,960
to see the deeper meaning
of the world


277
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:23,440
behind the visible appearances
of the world,


278
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:27,400
hence he distils, he purifies,


279
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:30,320
he reduces, he purges.


280
00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:36,560
Now, he sees himself as the pioneer


281
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:39,560
of a new spiritualised vision,
but...


282
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:44,560
..how Dutch.


283
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,000
How very Dutch this art seems


284
00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:49,640
with its insistent
horizontals and verticals


285
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:53,920
echoing the Dutch landscape,
but not only that.


286
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:59,280
Mondriaan was the son
of Dutch Calvinists.


287
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:04,520
I look at this picture and I'm
instantly transported back 300 years


288
00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:09,040
to those very first images
of the purged Protestant church


289
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:12,760
painted by Pieter Saenredam
in the 1600s.


290
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,920
A white space.


291
00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:20,920
Lines, lines, structure.


292
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,720
Nothing left in the church any more
but a cross.


293
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,120
Mondriaan,
all he sees in the end...


294
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:34,120
..a cross.


295
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:38,760
But while Mondriaan
was embedded in tradition,


296
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:42,200
it's also important to remember
that he was enmeshed


297
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:46,440
in a very particular catastrophic
moment of modern history.


298
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:49,000
This picture was painted in 1915,


299
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,720
shortly after the outbreak
of the First World War,


300
00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:57,040
and if you look at this painting,
created in 1917,


301
00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:02,000
I think you can sense
the shadow of that war


302
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:04,920
hovering over Mondriaan's spirit.


303
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:10,800
Look at the way
in which the cross forms


304
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:14,520
have become heavier, darker,
more oppressive.


305
00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:16,760
It's an image that, to me,


306
00:22:16,760 --> 00:22:21,880
very much evokes the mass graves
of the First World War.


307
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:44,080
Mondriaan might not have had
a conventional belief in God,


308
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:48,360
but he did believe in art
as a kind of divine force


309
00:22:48,360 --> 00:22:51,680
capable of reordering chaos
after the war.


310
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:58,600
He was sure that he could change the
objective conditions of humanity,


311
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,560
if only he could commit to canvas


312
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,000
the perfect arrangement
of block and line.


313
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,040
Mondriaan's stark grid compositions
are his trademark.


314
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:20,520
The Dutch landscape
distilled, purified,


315
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:24,880
into something that he felt
improved upon nature.


316
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,000
It's impossible to overstate
Mondriaan's extremism.


317
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:34,960
As far as he was concerned,


318
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,480
he had invented the ultimate
language of art,


319
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,360
perfectly abstracted,


320
00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:43,920
reduced to the perfect
combination of colours and forms.


321
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:47,720
But for him
that was just the beginning.


322
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:51,320
His pictures were blueprints
for the world.


323
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:55,080
And if the world took up the message
embedded in the pictures


324
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,560
then art itself
would no longer be necessary.


325
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:02,040
We would have entered
the final millennium


326
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,920
of absolute understanding
and enlightenment.


327
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:12,280
Sensing that most of his fellow
Dutch countrymen


328
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:16,800
were too level-headed
to take to his dogmatic idealism,


329
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,080
Mondriaan sought out
like-minded artists


330
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:24,280
and formed an extremist group.


331
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,200
He took up the role
of theorist-in-chief


332
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,200
and in the summer of 1917


333
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,680
the group published a brazen
manifesto of their faith


334
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,320
under the banner Die Stijl.


335
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:44,280
Their new world order
would be one of pure abstraction,


336
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,880
a rigid aesthetic
of angular austerity.


337
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:57,080
In 1924 one of the members,
Gerrit Rietveld,


338
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:00,360
attempted to turn
the group's hard-edged theory


339
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:02,200
into a family home.


340
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,240
So here we are,
the famous Schroder House.


341
00:25:15,360 --> 00:25:17,800
So this is the entrance.


342
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:22,400
'Rietveld's Schroder House
is the dogma of Die Stijl made real.


343
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:26,280
'It's got more straight lines
than a chessboard.'


344
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:31,360
Everything framed as if
in a Mondriaan composition.


345
00:25:31,360 --> 00:25:34,240
When you open the window
in the maid's room


346
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,040
you get a double benefit.


347
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:39,960
Light from outside,
and a kind of abstract composition


348
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,160
like Malevich's
Black Square painting.


349
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,560
The house was designed
nearly 90 years ago


350
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,600
for a very forward-thinking client -
Truus Schroder.


351
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,400
She loved it,
even while her children


352
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,280
refused to admit
that they lived in the crazy house.


353
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,320
I love this.


354
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:05,560
Look, this is how you open the door
that takes you to the upstairs.


355
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,840
It's like a constructivist sculpture
that you can activate.


356
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:11,000
Here...we go.


357
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:12,720
Whoops.


358
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,640
(Up we come.)


359
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,880
The floor's a painting.


360
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:31,920
Or an arrangement of form
in Mondriaan primary colours.


361
00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,040
Primary colours
plus black and white,


362
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,720
so red, yellow, blue, black, white.


363
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,040
Here's the famous Rietveld Chair.


364
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,280
I'm not allowed to sit in it.


365
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,800
But I'm not sure that I mind.


366
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:53,080
I think, um...


367
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,600
HE CHUCKLES
There is something about this house


368
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:02,840
that you feel you somehow need to
evolve yourself as a human being,


369
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,200
you need to evolve
into a higher form,


370
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,160
perhaps something
a little bit more Cubistic,


371
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:10,720
something a bit more angular,
you know?


372
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:16,240
When the day comes that human beings
have evolved cubical buttocks


373
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,800
then we can all sit
on chairs like these.


374
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,360
Ah!


375
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,240
So there is one concession


376
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:30,480
to the organically rounded shape
of the human form.


377
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,200
The toilet. Bodily functions
are allowed in the Rietveld House.


378
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:42,280
And what I love about the space
is it's totally modernist,


379
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:46,000
it's totally original,
it's stark, it's extraordinary,


380
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:52,240
there's a window that opens,
if I can master the mechanism,


381
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,640
like a cantilever.


382
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:59,480
It goes straight out into space,


383
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,680
thrusting another pictorial,


384
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,760
Rietveldian rectangle
into the world.


385
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:12,400
Although it's so modern, although
it's so cubistic, futuristic,


386
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,040
Mondriaan-ist, it's also very Dutch


387
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:20,440
because the whole space
has the feeling of a ship,


388
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,520
of the boat, where one thing
folds out into another,


389
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:29,440
maximum use is made of space,
and what is a boat to a Dutchman?


390
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,920
A boat is something
you embark on an adventure in.


391
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:38,680
It's wonderful.


392
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,880
Today the great Die Stijl house
has a slightly sad air,


393
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,640
marooned as modern Utrecht
passes noisily by.


394
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,560
The movement broke up in the 1930s.


395
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,480
And sensing that his own ideas
were too extreme


396
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,680
truly to enchant
the pragmatic people of Holland,


397
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,920
Mondriaan took his dreams elsewhere.


398
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,880
New York thrilled Mondrian.


399
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:27,120
He saw it as a miraculous city-sized
realisation of all his ideals.


400
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,080
A whole living environment
modelled on grid-form composition,


401
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:37,480
skyscraper and block, clean, sharp
opposing verticals and horizontals.


402
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:42,160
But it was different
from his paintings, too.


403
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,000
More mobile. More jazzy.


404
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,360
A city constantly on the move.


405
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:55,240
And this is the result
of that bombardment of energy.


406
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,760
He was nearly 70
when he turned away from nature


407
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,600
towards Manhattan
and its taxi-cab buzzing grid.


408
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,160
It was to be Mondrian's
very last composition.


409
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,840
His funeral march.


410
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:13,400
But how full of life!


411
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,400
He called it
Victory Boogie-woogie.


412
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,960
Mondriaan was the great exile.


413
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:32,080
But his spirit does live on
throughout Holland,


414
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,040
sometimes in surprising places.


415
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:40,040
Dutch commerce in particular
operates like a well-oiled


416
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:41,720
Mondriaan machine.


417
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,000
In Rotterdam's vast
international port,


418
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,320
each colour-coded unit
is wedged with perfect economy


419
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:56,160
into an ever-shifting chequerboard
of transaction and exchange.


420
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:01,480
It is a Mondriaan but with
the spirituality stripped out.


421
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,520
Container boogie-woogie.


422
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,680
But what of modern Holland's
neighbour?


423
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:19,160
We mustn't forget Belgium, though
it seems, over the years, many have.


424
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,280
Until nearly 200 years ago,


425
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:25,360
this region of north-west Europe
wasn't even a country.


426
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:30,840
And the question has often been
asked, what's the point of Belgium?


427
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:34,960
Well, there was one once.


428
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,920
The kingdom was created
as a strategic buffer between France


429
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,960
and Germany
and to keep Holland in its place.


430
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,480
But its inherent internal
differences have made Belgium's


431
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:54,360
cultural identity almost impossible
to define, if easy to mock.


432
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:59,120
The French poet Baudelaire
started the ball rolling


433
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,400
with his caustic remark
that Belgians


434
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,120
are the stupidest race on Earth


435
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,400
and the ball
has rolled on ever since.


436
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,320
Now, the result of last week's
competition


437
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:15,520
when we asked you to find
a derogatory term for the Belgians.


438
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,080
Monty Python made them


439
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,280
and those who mocked them the
subject of a Flying Circus satire.


440
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,320
Some very clever entries.
A Mrs Hatred of Leicester said,


441
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,880
"Let's not call them anything,
let's just ignore them."


442
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,680
APPLAUSE


443
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:32,720
And a Mr Singin of Huntingdon said
he couldn't think of anything


444
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,760
more derogatory than "Belgians".


445
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,400
APPLAUSE


446
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,360
Belgium has long been
the butt of jokes


447
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:43,400
and I think those jokes
stem from frustration.


448
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:48,160
A desire to pin down this
un-pin-down-able country.


449
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,680
This nation, if it truly is one,


450
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:55,680
was brought into being
at the Conference of London in 1830


451
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,880
and it was a birth
by Caesarean section,


452
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,880
carved into existence by
the three superpowers of the day,


453
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,960
the Prussians, the French
and the British.


454
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:10,280
But, if you look back at the history
of this whole region,


455
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:15,000
it used to be a patchwork
of fiercely independent mini states,


456
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,920
and that sense of local,


457
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:22,160
regional loyalty continues to
pull the place apart.


458
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:25,520
The people of Antwerp famously hate
the people of Brussels,


459
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,440
who detest
the people of Bruges in turn.


460
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,640
It's not even a nation
united by a common language -


461
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,760
they speak at least three,
and counting.


462
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,560
If ever a people really didn't know
who they are, it's the Belgians.


463
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,040
Ever since this nation was invented,


464
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:50,200
it has been crippled by
its catastrophically complicated


465
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:54,200
political structure
and the larger chasms of language.


466
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:57,960
400 years the dispute has
gone on between the Flemish


467
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:02,920
and the Walloons about who should
speak what language when and where.


468
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:09,800
Even now, Belgium excels at making
everything as complex as possible.


469
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,280
The only bilingual bit
is Brussels Central.


470
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:15,640
The Flemish region is monolingual
in Dutch,


471
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:19,280
although there are administrative
services for the French-speaking.


472
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,640
Wallonia is a pure
French-speaking territory


473
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,120
except for where they speak German.


474
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:34,520
So it follows that the most
famous Belgian painting


475
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,240
of the 20th century
should be a joke


476
00:34:37,240 --> 00:34:39,240
on the slipperiness of language.


477
00:34:39,240 --> 00:34:41,720
"This is not a pipe,"
said Rene Magritte.


478
00:34:41,720 --> 00:34:45,080
Of course it's not,
it's a painting of a pipe.


479
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,040
At least we can all agree on that.


480
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,360
This cultural knot explains
why Belgians are


481
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:52,880
so drawn to the European project.


482
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,280
It's a way of ironing out
the crumpled quilt of overlapping


483
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:58,880
internal divisions.


484
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:03,520
Opting instead for the appealing
fantasy of a united Europe.


485
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:11,640
Belgians dream of being
part of a greater whole.


486
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,200
They dream of not being Belgian.


487
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,320
Could this be why the most
distinctively Belgian creation


488
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,960
of the 20th century should
be a universal character


489
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,080
of no identical personality?


490
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,520
A fictional embodiment
of the European dream.


491
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,040
Tintin.


492
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,640
The Adventures Of Tintin,
what are they?


493
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,880
Well, I think they are the one good
dream produced


494
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,400
by this nation of insomniac
nightmare sufferers.


495
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:46,160
The curiously sexless young
cub reporter in knickerbockers


496
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,680
accompanied by his faithful
white dog Snowy


497
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:50,760
goes on many different assignments


498
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,880
but his real job is to make Belgium
feel better about itself.


499
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,840
Never more so
than in one of the first books,


500
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:04,880
Tintin In The Congo,
which has been the site of perhaps


501
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,080
the dirtiest of all of Belgium's
colonial exploits.


502
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,120
But you'd never know it
from this book.


503
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:16,400
Tintin arrives, he is
greeted by a sea of happy, smiling,


504
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:22,200
somewhat caricatured, black African
faces. He makes everything better.


505
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:26,000
There is a nice touch
at the beginning of the book


506
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,560
where he is accosted by agents
working for


507
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:31,200
all the major newspapers
of the world.


508
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,480
New York wants him,
London wants him, Lisbon wants him.


509
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:42,400
He's the one Belgian that the whole
world hangs on his every last word.


510
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:49,960
He's a one-man -
one-teenager - United Nations.


511
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:55,360
An ambassador for the EU
before the EU was invented.


512
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:59,320
He lands on the moon, he saves
the world from a giant asteroid,


513
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,440
he plays a decisive, forceful,


514
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,960
virtuous role in politics of
the Cold War.


515
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,600
He does everything that Belgians
know they probably can't really do


516
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,480
or be.


517
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,240
There is a charming superficiality
about the Tintin books,


518
00:37:18,240 --> 00:37:22,360
mirrored in the ever-so-clean
style of Herge himself.


519
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:28,000
A Belgian equivalent to the
anonymous style of American Pop Art.


520
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,320
Roy Lichtenstein wasn't the only one
to declare a allegiance


521
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:36,760
to Herge's work.


522
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:44,360
Andy Warhol, who once said
he was bored of emotions and wanted


523
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:50,840
to live like a machine, was a huge
admirer of the Tintin stories.


524
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:54,960
The two artists met in the '70s
at the unveiling of Warhol's


525
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,760
portrait of Herge as a kind
of frozen human comic strip.


526
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,000
A cryptic compliment.


527
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,360
Behind the heroic fantasies of
Tintin lurks a deep-seated fear of


528
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:25,480
having to confront the bewildering
reality of everyday Belgian life.


529
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:32,560
That job was left to
the masters of subversion.


530
00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:43,080
The most sustained assault on
20th-century Belgian middle-class


531
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:47,640
existence was masterminded
in an anonymous-looking terrace


532
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,320
in an anonymous suburb of Brussels.


533
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:57,120
If the characteristic expressions
of Dutch modern culture


534
00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,400
are ecstasy before nature,
spiritual affirmation


535
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,040
and the calm certainties
of structure and order,


536
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:10,760
the Belgian riposte to all that
is disillusionment and bad dreams.


537
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,000
And if there is one place that is
the great cave of Belgian dreaming,


538
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:17,200
it's this one.


539
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,320
Welcome to the house
of Rene Magritte.


540
00:39:27,360 --> 00:39:30,880
Born in 1898, Magritte spent
his whole adult life


541
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,200
issuing mind-wrenching riddles


542
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,880
from this perfectly bourgeois
Brussels townhouse.


543
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,840
He didn't venture far to find
subjects for his pictures.


544
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,840
They are filled with the stuff
of the domestic interior.


545
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:52,720
But, as Magritte said,


546
00:39:52,720 --> 00:39:59,360
he was determined to make the most
familiar objects scream aloud.


547
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,560
Much like those Dutch seekers
after higher truth,


548
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:05,640
Van Gogh and Mondriaan,


549
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:11,840
Magritte seems to place us
on the threshold of another world.


550
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:15,160
Everywhere you look in Magritte's
world, there is a sense of mystery


551
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:16,400
and with it, I think,


552
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:20,640
an after-echo of spiritual yearning
for transformation,


553
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,880
for transubstantiation, even...
HE PLAYS A NOTE


554
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,400
..celestial harmony?


555
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:32,240
But, whereas Mondrian
really did try to find


556
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:36,360
an alternative religion
in the everyday world,


557
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,880
even as Magritte recognised


558
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:43,320
the desire for transcendence
he made a mockery of it.


559
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:49,120
And, yes, in his parody visions of
paradise, eternal life is possible.


560
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:52,240
But only if you employ
a taxidermist.


561
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:05,320
The artist who had his Pomeranian
dog stuffed stayed in character.


562
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,160
Magritte lived the part
of the conventional Belgian


563
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:09,640
whose life he mocked.


564
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:17,000
He understood the deep uncertainty
that his contemporaries felt


565
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,440
in the first half
of the 20th century


566
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,880
and he embodied it
in picture puzzle form.


567
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:37,640
In the gloomy chambers
of the Magritte Museum


568
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:43,080
his pictures hang
like spotlit provocations.


569
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:47,480
Common sense is trifled with,
laws of gravity defied.


570
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:51,080
Everything seems
the wrong way round.


571
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:55,240
Front and back. Day and night.


572
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:09,440
Magritte painted more
than 20 versions of this image


573
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:17,800
which he called The Empire...or
sometimes The Dominion Of Lights.


574
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:23,320
It clearly obsessed him, but why?
What's it an image of?


575
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:28,960
I think it's an image of a moment,
a mood an attitude.


576
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:34,240
It's the magic hour.
It's that threshold moment.


577
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,560
It's that moment
when the visible world


578
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:45,000
seems to tremble
on the edge of invisibility.


579
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,600
Light is turning to darkness.


580
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:48,720
Mondriaan is obsessed
with this moment.


581
00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:52,040
Mondriaan painting and sketching
in the dark at Domburg beach,


582
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:58,520
waiting for the world to disclose
its inner truth, its pattern.


583
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:01,280
Magritte, when he puts us
at the front of this image,


584
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:03,560
is putting us in this
same frame of mind.


585
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:07,960
We sit here or stand here
looking at this image


586
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:12,200
and we become someone waiting
for the world to reveal itself,


587
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:16,680
waiting for the miraculous
to unfold.


588
00:43:19,720 --> 00:43:23,160
But Magritte keeps us
waiting a very long time.


589
00:43:26,240 --> 00:43:27,920
And that's the point.


590
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:33,280
Magritte's principal weapon is to
deliver everything but the answer.


591
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:38,400
He gives us the paraphernalia
of a religion - the apparitions,


592
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,800
the wonders -
but without the explanation.


593
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:46,160
There's a very Flemish
particularity about his style,


594
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:49,760
so sharp and so clear that you
really do believe,


595
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:55,680
if only for a moment,
that it's raining businessmen.


596
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,320
For all his self-conscious
surrealism,


597
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:02,360
Magritte is the direct descendant
of the old Flemish painters


598
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:03,880
of Christian miracle,


599
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,680
Jan van Eyck
and Rogier van der Weyden.


600
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:16,000
But Magritte is a painter
of sabotaged altarpieces.


601
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,320
His wine is not the blood of Christ,


602
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:24,440
instead the bottle that carries it
turns into a phallic carrot.


603
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:27,800
But the centre of this bleak,


604
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:33,200
nihilist universe is the apple -
emblem of the Fall.


605
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,440
In Magritte's hands
it has become a trademark,


606
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,720
a brand stamped on all of humanity.


607
00:44:39,720 --> 00:44:44,960
Redemption? Forget it,
especially if you're Belgian.


608
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:56,520
While Magritte played games with
the bourgeois Belgian mind,


609
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,640
there was another, less well-known,
more vulnerable Belgian surrealist


610
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:03,240
who actually tried to
grapple with it.


611
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:09,840
Paul Delvaux spent his life trying
to open up cracks in the psyche


612
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:12,160
to see what might lie within.


613
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,240
Delvaux himself began life
as a bourgeois


614
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:21,800
and ended it is a wild-haired
bohemian.


615
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:23,320
His art was a journey,


616
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,920
leading from the safe subject matter
of his youth,


617
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:31,520
the steam trains of
Belgium's Industrial Revolution,


618
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,840
to the more troubling, sexually
charged work of his maturity.


619
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,840
How did Delvaux get to
the destination of his later art?


620
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,200
Filled as it is with curiously
transfixing glassy-eyed nudes,


621
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,480
and ghastly reminders of death.


622
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:53,880
Well, he bought a ticket as
a young man


623
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:58,000
to a peculiar kind of fairground
attraction.


624
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,880
You have to imagine yourself
back to 1932,


625
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:12,880
it's the summer fair in Brussels,
the height of July,


626
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,320
and the star attraction is
the Spitzner horror show.


627
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:21,160
Display of skeletons,
anatomical models -


628
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:26,080
the young Paul Delvaux enters the
booth through a pair of red curtains


629
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,880
and he remembers what he sees
for the rest of his life,


630
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:32,320
with the force of a revelation.


631
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,960
Grisly displays of
syphilitic disease,


632
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:41,160
models of human genitalia that have
been deformed by illness.


633
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:44,200
As far as the Belgian authorities
are concerned,


634
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,840
this is a kind of government health
warning - a way of encouraging


635
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,400
Belgium's young men,
particularly soldiers,


636
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:52,080
to steer clear of prostitutes.


637
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,840
But to Delvaux,


638
00:46:54,840 --> 00:47:00,320
this young man brought up by
a cosseting mother, a rather prudish
father,


639
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:05,360
the scene was like an eruption of
sexuality and death


640
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:09,560
into his hitherto rather
conservative world.


641
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:15,960
Almost overnight, the spectacle
triggered a sudden unleashing


642
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:21,080
of latent desires and anxieties onto
his canvases.


643
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:27,000
What's the deeper message behind
the strangeness of Delvaux's art?


644
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:28,280
On one level,


645
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:35,000
he's proclaiming in paint what
Freud had written in psychoanalysis.


646
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,440
Telling us that, no matter
how normal we like to seem, we are


647
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:43,920
all of us constantly subject to
subconscious dreams and fantasies.


648
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,800
Ruled by thoughts of sex and death.


649
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:55,600
That's why naked women stalk his
otherwise bourgeois precincts.


650
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,320
They stand, or lie, for desire.


651
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:04,040
In some of his wartime work,


652
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,840
Delvaux's sense that we hide from
what we don't want to know


653
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,760
becomes charged with even
darker meanings.


654
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:16,360
If we don't control our drives,
what might we do to the world?


655
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:23,640
In his sleeping Venus, apart from
the central nude,


656
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,240
everyone seems to be
looking at something


657
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:29,240
beyond the tight confines
of the architecture.


658
00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:31,440
Something terrible,


659
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:35,800
to judge by their staring eyes
and agonised expressions.


660
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:43,520
The skeleton has the air of a
messenger, bringing unwelcome news


661
00:48:43,520 --> 00:48:46,280
to the lady in the feathered hat.


662
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:50,040
News of the goings-on at
Belsen or Auschwitz?


663
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:58,600
After the war, and this
outpouring of anguish and guilt,


664
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,360
did Delvaux have anything left?


665
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:05,080
Some say he was so traumatised
that he spent the rest of his life


666
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:11,520
almost sleepwalking - retreating
into a rather safe fantasy world,


667
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,280
as if he couldn't bear
all that he'd uncovered.


668
00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:22,400
In the early 1950s, Delvaux embarked
on his largest cycle of paintings.


669
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:26,960
'It's in a private home
in a gated enclave,


670
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,040
'within one of Brussels' exclusive
neighbourhoods.


671
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,760
'Only a handful of people have ever
seen it.'


672
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,040
Helena. Hi. I'm Andrew.


673
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:42,120
Nice to meet you. Come to see
the Delvaux. Yeah! Come in.


674
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,160
Wow, it's straight in!


675
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,920
I had no idea it was going to be
so big.


676
00:49:55,920 --> 00:50:00,200
You really feel like
you are in Paul Delvaux's world.


677
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:08,160
I like this world, but I think
sometimes it can be strange
and weird.


678
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,120
You feel like there's people
watching you and observing you


679
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,840
and you don't know really what
they are thinking about you.


680
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:20,800
So you like it but it sometimes
makes you feel uncomfortable? Yes.


681
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:26,320
And also, like with the paintings,
most of the time the curtains,


682
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:29,160
they have to be closed to
preserve the paintings.


683
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,120
So it's not that easy to
live in a house like this.


684
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:36,040
So when you do throw the curtains
open to the light,


685
00:50:36,040 --> 00:50:38,720
do you sometimes feel that
the figures in the paintings,


686
00:50:38,720 --> 00:50:41,560
like they've been asleep
and now they've come back to life?


687
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,800
Exactly, they're quite happy to come
back to life!


688
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,440
Do you know how long it took Delvaux
to create this mise-en-scene?


689
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:53,720
It took him two years.


690
00:50:53,720 --> 00:50:56,960
So at the beginning it was supposed
to take six months


691
00:50:56,960 --> 00:51:00,920
and then he realised that the work
was much bigger.


692
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:02,920
Two years!


693
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,840
It's a cross between bourgeois
Brussels and the classical past.


694
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:15,880
You don't really know if you
are in Italy or in antique Greece.


695
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:20,240
I like the way they come from
the commissioner of the painting


696
00:51:20,240 --> 00:51:23,560
and his daughter,
we come down these stairs,


697
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:30,360
we seem to go from the present day,
the 1950s, into the classical past.


698
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:35,080
Then we're into the 19th century


699
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:38,160
and then we're back into the
classical past


700
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,360
and suddenly all
their clothes are falling off!


701
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:47,680
But there's not really an expression
on the faces.


702
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,880
They are all quite beautiful women


703
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,520
but there's no expressions
and that's what's weird


704
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:58,760
because we expect them maybe to smile
or to be enjoying themselves.


705
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:02,760
It's nature and it's landscape,
but there's no expression


706
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,880
so it feels like there's something
weird happening


707
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,680
but you don't know what exactly.


708
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,600
I often feel with Delvaux, what he
does is he takes the traditions


709
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:17,400
of the past and surrealises them,
so you think you know where you are


710
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:21,040
but you start looking closely and
you think, "No, it's not like that."


711
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:24,520
It's almost the classical past,
but not really.


712
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:27,360
Almost the modern day -
no, not quite.


713
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:32,080
Almost a mythological painting,
but no, something's strange.


714
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,560
But you could never get beyond
that mystery.


715
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,160
There's something about the dream.
Something about the dream, yeah.


716
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:52,160
While Delvaux was holding the world
at bay with those curiously numb,


717
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:57,600
stunned pictures,
this already divided country was
falling further into domestic chaos.


718
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:06,440
Since then, economic crisis has
widened the chasm separating
north from south.


719
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,480
Fortunes have all but reversed,
with the once-prosperous south


720
00:53:10,480 --> 00:53:14,160
suffering terribly in these
post-industrial times.


721
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:17,840
Inequality is
the rule in modern Belgium.


722
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:24,880
The top 20 per cent of the
population earn almost four times as
much as the bottom 20 per cent.


723
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:27,080
And many earn nothing at all.


724
00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:33,880
This is Charleroi -
once an industrial boomtown,


725
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:39,040
it now has one of the worst
unemployment rates in
Western Europe.


726
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:44,080
But against its backdrop of rusting
steel and cracked concrete


727
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:49,400
flowers this raw, mesmerising
form of surrealist dreaming.


728
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,720
For me, it's these yowling
walls of graffiti that speak


729
00:53:54,720 --> 00:53:57,280
most nakedly about the plight of


730
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,520
this fractured, disillusioned
nation.


731
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:06,720
What are they images of? Hope?
Despair? Defiance?


732
00:54:06,720 --> 00:54:10,680
Their chaotic co-mingling certainly
speaks of division.


733
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:26,920
While Belgium worries and looks
within,


734
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,880
what of its more confident,
more united neighbour?


735
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,560
Where do you go to find the art
that's reflected the modern Dutch
identity?


736
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:44,160
Well, the idea of art certainly
appeals to the civilised Dutch.


737
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:49,520
For a while they paid their artists
a social benefit to produce it.


738
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:51,320
'Most of it ended up here,


739
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:55,400
'in a state-owned lock-up
in the outskirts of The Hague.'


740
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,960
Nice big lifts.
What's the floor area?


741
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:03,040
It's almost three football pitches.


742
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:08,160
Automatic doors. Yes, sir.
Three football pitches! Yeah.


743
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,440
HE LAUGHS


744
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,200
As you can see, here is
one of the buildings.


745
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:18,000
'The social welfare scheme
was set up in 1949.


746
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:22,200
'50,000 works of art are locked
within its vaults,


747
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:27,680
'brought out on rare occasions to
decorate the offices of government
officials.'


748
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,320
We've got a lot of bequests,
a lot of gifts.


749
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:34,240
So if a Dutch ambassador who's got
an embassy, he's got a wall to fill,


750
00:55:34,240 --> 00:55:38,520
he might come to you and say,
"Can I have one of these paintings?"
Yes, yes.


751
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:41,600
And if he is very nice, you might
say yes? Yes.


752
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:44,120
We have to say yes. OK.


753
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:47,120
Oh, fantastic.


754
00:55:55,240 --> 00:55:57,120
It keeps coming.


755
00:55:57,120 --> 00:56:01,960
We've got a lady in furs peeking
out, still life, leather boots...


756
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,440
Naked black lady reclining
on the American flag, why not.


757
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:15,000
'By the time the money ran out
in the late 1980s,


758
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,800
'it had subsidised a quarter of all
the artists in the Netherlands.


759
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:26,080
'Paying them up to three times the
market value for their work to be
expensively shelved.'


760
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:31,760
These are the works that are
currently waiting.


761
00:56:31,760 --> 00:56:36,760
They're waiting for someone.
This is a little bit like
the orphans' home.


762
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,120
They're waiting for someone to
adopt them. Yes.


763
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:43,280
These poor little art children.


764
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:51,640
'This must be the largest
Euro mountain of unwanted art
in existence.


765
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:54,240
'What does it say about
a modern society


766
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:57,040
'that it's willing to pay
lip service to art


767
00:56:57,040 --> 00:57:00,960
'and then manage to forget about it
almost completely?


768
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:05,160
'What would poor old
Van Gogh have made of it all?'


769
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:11,560
The quality is quite uneven.
Yeah, yeah. It is.


770
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:14,840
We have 50,000 works now here, so


771
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:19,080
not everything... Is going
to be a masterpiece! Yes, yes.


772
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:27,800
Cultures constantly change,


773
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:31,000
and it's my own personal view,
but right now I feel the Dutch


774
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:35,560
are most at home with the practical
arts of design and architecture.


775
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:41,680
And I suspect that's why their
galleries are so much more
impressive than their art.


776
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:45,400
This gallery is by Rotterdam's
Rem Koolhaas,


777
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:49,080
and what a very "cool house" it is!


778
00:57:56,920 --> 00:58:00,560
More than 2,000 years ago,
Plato declared that the last thing


779
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:07,040
a republic needs is the
destabilising figure of the artist.


780
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:10,480
Someone whose individual visions
ran counter


781
00:58:10,480 --> 00:58:13,440
to the communal efforts
of the state.


782
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:16,400
I think that's true
of Holland today.


783
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:21,640
What do the modern Dutch want?
Above all, I think
business as usual.


784
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:24,400
They want their banks, they want
their container ports,


785
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:30,160
they want to grow and sell
more flowers than anyone else
in the world.


786
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:34,000
And I think it's that sense of
profound,


787
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:40,720
collective enterprise that sets
modern Holland apart from
modern Belgium.


788
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:45,240
And I think it's also what defines
the Dutch attitude to art.


789
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:47,760
They know they've got to have
lots of it,


790
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:51,640
because after all it's the mark of
a modern, civilised state,


791
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:55,360
but do they really want to
look at it?


792
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:59,960
Do they really want to think about
it too deeply? I don't think so.


793
00:59:08,080 --> 00:59:10,880
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