00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:29
you
00:01:06
at first the doctors thought he was
00:01:09
sciatica and then they admitted it was
00:01:12
gangrene the old man suffered greatly
00:01:15
those last days and then on the 31st of
00:01:19
August 1715 the clergy gathered around
00:01:21
him and they began timidly to chant the
00:01:25
Ave Maria all through the night they
00:01:27
carried on chanting and then at 8:15 in
00:01:30
the morning in the Royal bed in the
00:01:32
Great Chamber in the centre of the
00:01:34
palace louis xiv the son King died like
00:01:39
every man so wrote a contemporary
00:01:42
dearest it's often said that when Louis
00:01:45
died an aged died with him not that
00:01:47
there weren't other Louis to succeed but
00:01:50
the age of absolute monarchs the age of
00:01:53
which Versailles the symbol was drawing
00:01:56
to an end things would never be the same
00:01:58
again for Louis Versailles was intended
00:02:03
first of all to be a garden and he
00:02:06
imagined that garden as a sort of
00:02:08
outdoor Palace built next to the one
00:02:10
constructed in stone and the one could
00:02:13
not be understood without the other and
00:02:16
in the garden Louis exercised the same
00:02:19
despotism over nature that he did
00:02:22
indoors over his court these two
00:02:25
tyrannies changed softened even over the
00:02:28
long years of the reign the most famous
00:02:30
formal garden in Europe with its
00:02:32
rigorous geometries of terraces and
00:02:36
staircases it's regular Park tear gave
00:02:41
way gradually to a greater informality
00:02:43
of trees and fields not merely because
00:02:46
it was so expensive to keep up but
00:02:48
because a new attitude to nature was
00:02:49
developing more sentimental intimate
00:02:52
romantic
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[Music]
00:02:58
the mood of this moment is captured in a
00:03:01
painting done not long after Lewis death
00:03:03
onto an Votto's departure from the Isle
00:03:06
of sithara here a group of elegant
00:03:10
courtiers prepares to leave the island
00:03:12
of love the painting signals the new
00:03:14
attitude more informal poetic and often
00:03:18
amorous in this paradise of Citarum
00:03:21
there are no restraints and nature
00:03:23
itself is free and unconstrained it was
00:03:33
a time in which the argument over nature
00:03:35
exemplified in the idea of the garden
00:03:37
was a serious debate it was in England
00:03:45
that this different attitude and nature
00:03:47
arose the informal spontaneous
00:03:50
picturesque English garden was seen as
00:03:53
an expression of English liberties the
00:03:56
geometric French gun was seen as a
00:03:58
reflection of their authoritarian system
00:04:00
of government thus in the microcosm of
00:04:03
the garden could be read beliefs about
00:04:04
the world at large
00:04:17
here at star ahead in wheelchair you can
00:04:20
see better than anywhere in Europe the
00:04:22
way that the early 18th century
00:04:23
attempted to create an art of landscape
00:04:26
by shaping nature and putting into the
00:04:29
landscape buildings created in past
00:04:31
styles medieval but especially classical
00:04:36
they did so in the belief that a
00:04:39
landscape or a garden gives added
00:04:41
pleasure if one can savor the effects of
00:04:44
past time as one wanders around it and
00:04:47
that sensibility is characteristic of
00:04:49
their period the poet Alexander Pope
00:04:51
said in the 1730's that this
00:04:54
architecture or art derived from
00:04:56
landscape painting and compared it to a
00:04:59
picture and that's why we call it
00:05:01
picturesque
00:05:02
[Music]
00:05:14
and so the combination of architecture
00:05:18
and picturesque landscape became one of
00:05:21
the characteristics of 18th century
00:05:22
aristocratic culture and wealthy patrons
00:05:25
sought architects who would design them
00:05:27
country estates unparalleled anywhere in
00:05:30
Europe this is sine Haas the seat of the
00:05:34
Dukes of Northumberland xi cuke lives
00:05:37
there today doesn't look very impressive
00:05:40
from the outside but wait you get in
00:05:42
Robin Middleton of Columbia University
00:05:45
New York has developed a highly original
00:05:47
approach to the architecture of the 18th
00:05:49
century the first design for this floor
00:05:52
was a simple checkerboard without these
00:05:55
dynamic directional indicators but all
00:05:57
that was changes the building took form
00:06:03
the interiors here are amongst the first
00:06:06
works of when there's brilliant
00:06:07
architects of the period Robert Adam he
00:06:11
wanted to design just like a landscape
00:06:13
gardener he writes of the rise and the
00:06:16
fall of the hills and dales but
00:06:18
especially of the movement between them
00:06:19
these effects he wanted to get when he
00:06:21
put his masses together these were
00:06:24
notions of picturesque composition he
00:06:27
uses them outside and inside when he
00:06:31
uses his moldings and his patterns he's
00:06:34
modeling spaces and he's trying to show
00:06:36
you how to move through them let me show
00:06:38
you what I mean come along well you
00:06:46
won't be surprised to learn that that
00:06:47
door leads off to the Dukes private
00:06:50
apartments the niche here is large soft
00:06:55
intimate well almost
00:06:57
but at the other end of the hall
00:06:59
something very different happens and
00:07:01
there's a dynamic pattern on the ceiling
00:07:04
and on the floor which is going to lead
00:07:06
you into that alternative direction
00:07:11
anishka is hard and strong and elevated
00:07:15
Adams contrived a change of levels here
00:07:18
which takes you up the stairs into the
00:07:21
great steak rooms beyond the first room
00:07:27
beyond the hall is the vestibule
00:07:29
dazzling room a rout of harsh color and
00:07:32
gold altogether proper for the first
00:07:35
anti room one of the first peers of the
00:07:37
realm twelve columns give order to this
00:07:40
room they were said to have been found
00:07:42
in the bed of the Tiber in Rome they're
00:07:44
not just elements of ostentation that
00:07:47
they surely are there Adam uses them to
00:07:49
make an awkward room with oddly spaced
00:07:51
window openings into a neat cube in
00:07:54
effect that line of columns we just
00:07:56
passed marks out a square but far more
00:07:58
interesting Adams used it to mark out
00:08:00
the new axis you take from this
00:08:02
vestibule into the sequence of
00:08:04
staterooms which goes off from here
00:08:06
first into the dining room was the
00:08:09
dining room the screen of columns here
00:08:11
which gives you a moment to pause before
00:08:14
your thrusts by the moldings into the
00:08:16
central space and then you go on down
00:08:19
the same axis into the first drawing
00:08:24
here beautiful fine room and from that
00:08:29
right through to the beginning of the
00:08:32
long gallery which connects the private
00:08:34
apartments and the State Apartments
00:08:36
this is the great connecting link in the
00:08:38
house turning the whole circle while the
00:08:45
English aristocracy chose to live in
00:08:47
their great landscaped country houses
00:08:49
the French preferred the sophisticated
00:08:51
atmosphere of the city the court had
00:08:53
moved away from Versailles to Paris
00:08:55
where the aristocracy built themselves
00:08:57
grand townhouses like the hotel's
00:09:00
soubise of 1739 behind their plain
00:09:04
facades were exquisitely decorated and
00:09:07
furnished interiors where they could
00:09:09
entertain themselves oblivious to the
00:09:11
momentous developments in French society
00:09:13
beyond their walls
00:09:15
[Music]
00:09:29
the decoration of these houses is known
00:09:31
as a Rococo a term which originally
00:09:34
referred to the elaborate encrusted
00:09:36
ornament popular in French design at
00:09:38
this time which became associated with
00:09:40
the art and taste of the
00:09:41
pre-revolutionary world itself one of
00:09:47
the most celebrated Rococo artists was
00:09:50
Francois Boucher caught portraitist and
00:09:52
painter of allegorical romances
00:09:54
Boucher's works were designed simply to
00:09:57
give pleasure fitting objects of
00:09:59
delectation for an aristocracy with so
00:10:02
much time and money on their hands but
00:10:04
time was now running out this is
00:10:07
Boucher's rape of Europa
00:10:21
in the literary and philosophical salons
00:10:25
where they met the middle-class
00:10:26
intelligentsia bitterly opposed what
00:10:29
they saw as a decadent order they called
00:10:32
for a return to universal values based
00:10:34
on nature and reason they held that art
00:10:37
should not be for art's sake alone but
00:10:39
should have a moral and educative
00:10:41
content this viewpoint which heralded
00:10:44
the role art would play in the
00:10:45
revolution was shared by some of the
00:10:47
great French thinkers of the time
00:10:50
Voltaire who spent his life opposing the
00:10:53
tyranny of church and state Rousseau the
00:10:59
social critic who believed nature to be
00:11:01
the source of all good for him society
00:11:03
was the reason why man was born free but
00:11:05
everywhere is in Chains dee de veau who
00:11:10
in his enciclopedia attempted to
00:11:13
scrutinize all natural phenomena in the
00:11:15
light of reason de ovo's attack on
00:11:20
Boucher's provocative odalisque reads
00:11:23
like a modern attack on pornography
00:11:24
today's moral decadence he said has led
00:11:27
step-by-step to the corruption of tastes
00:11:29
of color of composition of character of
00:11:32
expression this man has no taste he
00:11:35
takes up his brush only to show us
00:11:36
bottoms and breasts for Dee DeVoe it was
00:11:41
artists like glues who pointed the way
00:11:43
forward to a new art new tastes new
00:11:46
morality his pictures are part of the
00:11:49
growth of a new climate in France part
00:11:51
of those almost imperceptible changes in
00:11:54
history of which great events like the
00:11:56
French Revolution are the outcome
00:11:59
with colors and here shoved on we also
00:12:03
detect a new theme that ordinary people
00:12:05
have a heroism that virtue and strength
00:12:08
reside in them not in kings and Nobles
00:12:10
and indeed in Sheldon's world of middle
00:12:13
class people are precisely the men and
00:12:15
women who would be attempting to take
00:12:16
power in the revolution half a century
00:12:18
on
00:12:19
[Music]
00:12:24
but the age of reason would find its
00:12:26
true means of expression by returning to
00:12:28
the source to classical Greece the art
00:12:32
of the 18th century is often called
00:12:33
neoclassicism
00:12:34
but we shouldn't understand that in the
00:12:36
sense of a slavish imitation of
00:12:38
classical models the monuments of
00:12:40
classical antiquity had been an
00:12:42
inspiration to artists from the
00:12:43
Renaissance onwards statues like this
00:12:45
the Apollo Belvedere had been known to
00:12:47
Michelangelo and his contemporaries and
00:12:49
disseminated in casts and copies
00:12:51
throughout Europe from Versailles to the
00:12:54
Sohn Museum here in London this is an
00:12:56
18th century copy but Greece itself had
00:13:01
remained largely unknown artists like
00:13:04
Pusa were depicting imaginary landscapes
00:13:07
and then during the 18th century the
00:13:10
discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii
00:13:12
Baalbek and Palmyra opened a new horizon
00:13:14
on the ancient world and that was the
00:13:21
time the theorists like vinkle Minh and
00:13:23
slightly later Goethe propounded their
00:13:25
theory that the Greek style this noble
00:13:28
simplicity was the true style was the
00:13:30
perfection of art that the Greeks had
00:13:33
known true an entire Liberty because of
00:13:37
the light of reason and that their art
00:13:39
had attained its perfection because of
00:13:42
Liberty the message for the 18th century
00:13:44
then was clear that this was the art for
00:13:47
free peoples a vision of an ordered and
00:13:50
harmonious universe governed by
00:13:53
classical ideals of perfection and
00:13:55
harmony neoclassicism then perhaps it is
00:13:59
but better to call it the art of the age
00:14:02
of reason in the last half of the 18th
00:14:04
century these ideas grew more and more
00:14:07
influential even architectural forms
00:14:09
would be interpreted in terms of the
00:14:11
search for rationality as seen here in
00:14:14
one of the finest examples of the art of
00:14:16
the age of reason the palais wire
00:14:19
the palais-royal comparatively quiet and
00:14:22
sedate place today but once upon a time
00:14:25
this was the hub of Paris this was the
00:14:28
center of high and low life
00:14:29
it was great speculative venture put up
00:14:33
to bolster the early on family fortunes
00:14:36
and it worked was full of shops wanted a
00:14:39
book you came here he wanted ribbons you
00:14:41
came here prints anything so it was full
00:14:43
of cafes to everybody in the evening
00:14:47
congregated here CAD emissions writers
00:14:50
artists everybody came in from town
00:14:54
travelers soldiers on leave and of
00:14:58
course the girls came to not that they
00:15:00
ever stopped the ministers coming at all
00:15:03
but that's not the real reason why we're
00:15:05
here we're here to look at this world
00:15:08
which in a way represents the obsessions
00:15:11
of architects for the previous hundred
00:15:14
years they've been trying to create
00:15:15
order and here you can see order staked
00:15:18
out for you you can see all these
00:15:20
columns and even rhythm you can
00:15:22
calculate exactly where you are you're
00:15:25
in a world you can judge you can
00:15:27
understand the column for instance which
00:15:30
had for so long been used as a
00:15:32
decorative element stuck on two walls
00:15:34
was made freestanding not only
00:15:39
freestanding to reveal its forms but its
00:15:41
structural form it became a support once
00:15:44
again and which shown off it in this way
00:15:46
this honest demonstration seemed to give
00:15:49
a new moral dimension to architecture
00:15:56
one of the first buildings in which this
00:15:58
new honesty of expression had been
00:16:00
consciously attempted was the East front
00:16:02
of the Louvre dating back from the 17th
00:16:05
century 1667 to 1674 but it remained a
00:16:09
model of architecture throughout the
00:16:10
18th century which was designed by
00:16:13
Charles Perrault a scientist Ferrer made
00:16:16
the outline of his building almost
00:16:17
rectangular the long facade is almost
00:16:20
flat says they outline
00:16:21
there's no piling up no modelling there
00:16:23
even orders the fact that the
00:16:25
architectural emphasis is on the linking
00:16:27
elements the freestanding runs of
00:16:29
columns the building became known not
00:16:32
surprisingly as the Louvre colonnade
00:16:36
Peres was determined that his columns
00:16:39
should not be decorative elements but as
00:16:41
he thought in ancient Greek architecture
00:16:43
the supports of the building strong
00:16:46
structural supports he introduced
00:16:51
engineering of a very high order into
00:16:53
his design the columns are threaded
00:16:55
through with bars of iron which are
00:16:57
linked to cross bars in the stone of the
00:16:59
ceiling and anchored into the walls
00:17:01
behind here is the initial idea that led
00:17:04
to the development of reinforced
00:17:05
concrete in the 20th century almost a
00:17:11
hundred years later exactly these same
00:17:13
ideas were taken up by another architect
00:17:15
tzuf dev when he was commissioned to
00:17:17
build the grandest the noblest church in
00:17:20
all of Europe the church known as Santa
00:17:22
Genevieve
00:17:23
called the Ponte on today actually you
00:17:25
can even see it from here right over
00:17:28
there
00:17:38
tradition and reason were also soufflés
00:17:40
concerns he too used freestanding
00:17:42
columns to mark out his space
00:17:46
and also to do the actual work of
00:17:48
supporting the vaults and dome he wanted
00:17:52
to combine the structural elegance of a
00:17:54
Greek temple with the lightness of a
00:17:56
gothic Church here the classical rhythms
00:18:00
appear in the nave and aisles with their
00:18:01
rows of Corinthian columns gothic is
00:18:04
hinted at in the flying buttresses
00:18:05
hidden above the vaults he used the same
00:18:08
freestanding columns carrying lintels to
00:18:11
create a rectangular geometry on the
00:18:12
outside to
00:18:13
[Music]
00:18:19
this is called post and lintel
00:18:21
construction
00:18:24
the church was a nightmare to build but
00:18:27
his thought of the masterpiece of French
00:18:29
18th century architecture
00:18:45
everyone who could win to Rome in the
00:18:47
18th century that seemed to be in the
00:18:49
center of the ancient world it became a
00:18:51
new center for art lovers of all kinds
00:18:54
architects artists gentlemen and their
00:18:56
hangers-on everybody went death souffle
00:18:59
went there as a companion of Madame de
00:19:01
Pompadour brother souffle in fact went
00:19:04
further south he went down to Naples the
00:19:06
place called paestum where there were
00:19:08
three surviving Greek temples and he
00:19:10
measured them up he was one virtually
00:19:12
the first architect had actually seen a
00:19:14
Greek temple let alone recorded it
00:19:25
Giambattista pyrenees he was most upset
00:19:28
by the idea that Greek was the divine
00:19:31
source of architecture he wasn't in fact
00:19:34
Roman at all his venetian he'd come to
00:19:36
Rome at the age of 19 but he timed over
00:19:38
the ruins he excavated and he recorded
00:19:41
the past over a thousand beers during
00:19:44
sin class time not in the past but in
00:19:46
fact the present of Rome - Rome was the
00:19:48
center of his world copper of course was
00:19:50
very expensive and he put his wife's
00:19:53
diary into an investment into these
00:19:55
great plates so he was very worried
00:19:58
indeed thought that the French might
00:20:00
start going off to Athens so although he
00:20:02
had a lot of French friends amongst
00:20:03
these critics and architects in Rome he
00:20:06
started attacking them he ridiculed
00:20:09
Greek architecture but then just before
00:20:11
he died in 1778 he himself went south to
00:20:15
paestum and he was 15 or 16 wonderful
00:20:19
drawings he conjured up the magic of
00:20:22
Greek architecture as never before
00:20:24
he showed that the column that the
00:20:26
French for so long had thought of as a
00:20:28
structural element which they wanted to
00:20:30
express honestly was really a piece of
00:20:33
sculpture a piece of beautiful sculpture
00:20:36
after that with the discovery of
00:20:38
Testament Greek architecture itself the
00:20:40
aesthetic vision of Europe changed
00:20:42
[Music]
00:20:47
so as often in the history of Western
00:20:49
art changes in ways of seeing coincide
00:20:52
with and even anticipate social change
00:20:55
and so it was in the build-up to the
00:20:57
French Revolution the Saturday Night
00:20:59
Fever of revolution began in earnest
00:21:01
when Camille Dumoulin a left-wing
00:21:03
agitator her and an inflamed crowd here
00:21:06
in the Palais Royale calling for the
00:21:08
overthrow of the monarchy and the
00:21:10
establishment of the Republic there was
00:21:12
rising unemployment a growing sense of
00:21:14
injustice and a devastating failure of
00:21:16
the harvest had led to a shortage of the
00:21:18
main staple of the French diet bread
00:21:20
people were exasperated it had been seen
00:21:23
in the American Revolution how a tyranny
00:21:26
could be overthrown by the force of will
00:21:28
of the people alone and now those
00:21:32
democratic ideals ran through the
00:21:34
population here like wildfire from the
00:21:37
moment the Bastille fell in July 1789
00:21:40
artists were at the center of events in
00:21:43
a way they'd never been before and in
00:21:45
the career of Jacques Louie David art
00:21:47
and politics have never been closer
00:21:49
David dominated French painting for 35
00:21:52
years through the reign of Louis the
00:21:53
sixteenth the Revolution Napoleon's
00:21:56
Empire and finally the restoration of
00:21:58
the Bourbon Kings
00:21:59
he had a talent not only for painting
00:22:01
but for survival as the revolution
00:22:06
approached paintings demonstrating
00:22:08
themes of allegiance to state rather
00:22:10
than to family began to abandon today's
00:22:14
before the Revolution
00:22:15
David's oath of the Horatio would become
00:22:18
one of the great images of the time the
00:22:20
theme of the Horatio is a sacrificial
00:22:22
oath of allegiance to Republican Rome
00:22:27
it is taken by three brothers before
00:22:29
departing for combat these are men
00:22:32
willing to die out of patriotic duty
00:22:35
supported by their father the courage
00:22:38
and resolve of the brothers is evident
00:22:40
even in their taut and outstretched
00:22:42
limbs here men are seen as moral symbols
00:22:49
of the highest virtues while the women
00:22:52
are relegated to sit home weep and wait
00:22:55
[Music]
00:23:00
the mothers and sisters wrapped in soft
00:23:03
pliant draperies seemed to melt into
00:23:05
tender gestures of suffering
00:23:07
[Music]
00:23:13
David's great pictures show us how the
00:23:16
classical tradition could be used not
00:23:18
for the academic or the picturesque but
00:23:20
as a model for political action
00:23:22
these are moral fables dramas with our
00:23:25
austere heroism their severe sacrificial
00:23:29
devotion to the ideal of the state no
00:23:32
wonder that some people who went so far
00:23:34
as to blame the cult of classical
00:23:36
antiquity for helping bring the
00:23:37
revolution about and nothing better
00:23:39
demonstrates the connection between this
00:23:41
art and the politics of the time than an
00:23:43
extraordinary event which took place
00:23:45
only months into the Revolution when
00:23:47
Voltaire's old play on the life of
00:23:49
Brutus was revived at the National
00:23:51
Theatre at the end
00:23:53
David's picture of Brutus was enacted as
00:23:56
a tableau vivant when Brutus cried gods
00:24:00
give us death rather than slavery the
00:24:02
roars and applause of the audience were
00:24:04
so great that it was minutes before
00:24:06
order was reestablished never said an
00:24:08
eyewitness was the illusion more
00:24:10
complete the spectators became so many
00:24:14
Romans they believed they had
00:24:16
participated in the action
00:24:24
all the great themes of this tumultuous
00:24:26
epoch come together in David's painting
00:24:29
of the oath of the tennis court this
00:24:31
great declaration of the rights of man
00:24:33
in June 1789 was the symbolic beginning
00:24:36
of the revolution men are born free the
00:24:39
deputies swore and shall remain free and
00:24:41
equal in rights David himself was deeply
00:24:44
committed to the revolution a member of
00:24:46
the National Convention and he was the
00:24:48
obvious choice to paint it for him this
00:24:51
was contemporary reportage but the
00:24:54
gestures belong to those nerveless Roman
00:24:56
heroes the Horatio in the tennis court
00:25:02
then David showed the spectators had
00:25:04
indeed become the actors become new
00:25:07
Romans as a fellow deputy said to paint
00:25:10
this moment we have chosen the painter
00:25:12
of the Horatio this patriot whose genius
00:25:15
anticipated the revolution unfortunately
00:25:19
their high ideals were not destined to
00:25:22
last long
00:25:26
[Applause]
00:25:29
during those first radical years David
00:25:32
devoted his offer to the New Republic
00:25:34
one of his friends and heroes was
00:25:36
jean-paul Marat the journalist this
00:25:41
friend of the people came to a violent
00:25:44
end he was murdered in his bathtub by
00:25:48
his political enemy Charlotte a cold day
00:25:53
the day after Mara's death a deputation
00:25:56
appeared in the National Convention to
00:25:58
offer regrets on behalf of the people
00:26:00
one of the deputies made a speech which
00:26:02
is recorded by contemporary of David the
00:26:04
historian dela Cruz what a crime is this
00:26:08
a parricidal hand has robbed us of the
00:26:11
people's most determined defender a man
00:26:14
who died for liberty we still look among
00:26:18
you expecting to see him here among you
00:26:20
are representatives what a spectacle it
00:26:23
was this man in the moment of his death
00:26:27
where are you David you have another
00:26:30
picture to paint and Ivy despo cup his
00:26:35
voice choked with emotion yes I will
00:26:39
undertake it
00:26:45
[Music]
00:26:48
daveed painted the picture in three
00:26:51
months the death of maha is a murder
00:26:56
story and we see all the clues to the
00:26:59
murder the blood
00:27:03
the knife
00:27:06
the letter Maha received from charlotte
00:27:09
corday
00:27:09
just before she murdered him it's a very
00:27:12
realistic picture strongly movingly
00:27:14
realistic but it is more than that it
00:27:17
has an almost religious intensity like a
00:27:20
secular pietà an icon to a martyr for
00:27:23
the cause of freedom in painting this
00:27:26
David created perhaps the greatest
00:27:28
single image of the revolution
00:27:32
[Music]
00:27:41
now finally the age of reason lost its
00:27:45
nerve
00:27:46
soon after Mara's death daveed watched
00:27:48
from a window in the plaster la
00:27:50
revolucion while Marie Antoinette went
00:27:52
to the guillotine
00:27:53
he left us a poignant and eloquent
00:27:55
sketch the murder of thousands followed
00:28:00
in the purge known as the terror the
00:28:03
frailty of Reason was tragically exposed
00:28:06
and are so often in history fear of
00:28:09
worse disorder led even reasonable men
00:28:11
like David to turn to a strong leader to
00:28:13
solve their dilemma the man they thought
00:28:16
their Savior was Napoleon Bonaparte
00:28:18
[Music]
00:28:40
in 1850 in the aftermath of Napoleon's
00:28:45
defeat at Waterloo Czar Alexander of
00:28:48
Russia visited Paris and saw the von
00:28:50
dome cult crown by its imperial statue
00:28:52
of Napoleon were I to be so highly
00:28:56
elevated equipped my head would surely
00:28:58
spin with vertigo even the Tsar could
00:29:01
not imagine such dizzying heights of
00:29:03
glory
00:29:05
but as he added
00:29:07
the higher you climb the harder you fall
00:29:11
[Music]
00:29:27
and what hides Napoleon fell from in
00:29:31
those brief few years he led French
00:29:33
armies to Italy Egypt Spain Austria
00:29:37
Prussia and even Moscow itself and
00:29:40
during that meteoric time this room is
00:29:45
library at the Chateau of Malmaison was
00:29:48
his still point a place to which he
00:29:50
could return it was here for example
00:29:53
that he worked on his famous law code
00:29:54
the code Napoleon at this desk the desk
00:29:58
painted by David here he returned after
00:30:01
his abdication in 1814 in such despair
00:30:05
that he'd attempted to commit suicide he
00:30:12
came back once more to meditate during
00:30:15
the fateful hundred days before Waterloo
00:30:17
and after that last catastrophic defeat
00:30:20
the English allowed him to return here
00:30:23
just once more before his final exile to
00:30:26
distance st. Helena the house was empty
00:30:29
then his former wife the Empress
00:30:33
Josephine whose house it was had died
00:30:36
she had kept this room exactly as it had
00:30:41
been during the happiest moments
00:30:43
together here Napoleon had enjoyed
00:30:46
moments of his greatest triumphs and
00:30:50
moments of his greatest creativity for
00:30:53
in the story of art - Napoleon was an
00:30:56
extraordinary catalyst not merely in the
00:30:59
pictures that he commissioned or
00:31:00
inspired here in France and in the
00:31:02
Empire but throughout Europe for
00:31:05
everywhere artists were touched by his
00:31:07
aura Napoleon's official architect
00:31:12
specia and Fontaine periodically had
00:31:14
sent an illustrated newsletter of
00:31:16
engravings to Tsar Alexander showing the
00:31:18
most recent public works commissioned by
00:31:20
Napoleon
00:31:21
for after the coup d'etat that brought
00:31:24
Napoleon to power there was no end to
00:31:26
his plans for making Paris into a
00:31:28
capital worthy of Imperial Rome la
00:31:31
Madeleine begun as a church was
00:31:33
continued by Napoleon as a temple to
00:31:35
glory
00:31:36
the architect Vignon intended it to be a
00:31:38
replica of an antique Roman temple
00:31:41
incorporating statues and bar reliefs
00:31:43
and the use of rich materials the purity
00:31:48
and severity of greek doric was replaced
00:31:50
by corinthian splendor to commemorate
00:31:52
ancient rome as was befitting an emperor
00:31:55
who took as his ancestors the Emperor's
00:31:57
Trajan
00:31:58
and Alexander
00:32:03
some of the most extravagant monuments
00:32:06
since the fall of the Roman Empire were
00:32:07
built by Napoleon as symbols of his
00:32:09
Dominion and many are still tourist
00:32:11
attractions in Paris today Percy and
00:32:14
Fontaine were also responsible for much
00:32:16
of the replanting of Paris they made a
00:32:18
triumphal east-west route across the
00:32:20
city another Roman touch was the long
00:32:23
arcaded street
00:32:24
lalu della valle they prepared designs
00:32:27
for linking the tuile eerie gardens with
00:32:29
the Louvre and even started on the
00:32:31
interior of the museum itself where
00:32:33
their inventive details can still be
00:32:35
admired today the newly constituted
00:32:37
Louvre museum became Napoleon's domain
00:32:40
he commissioned France's finest artists
00:32:43
to glorify his deeds and the most
00:32:44
celebrated of all was Jacques we dahveed
00:32:48
disappointed with the aftermath of the
00:32:50
revolution David had sworn never to
00:32:52
trust in men again only in ideas yet he
00:32:55
was fascinated by Napoleon and quickly
00:32:57
succumbed to his spell when he first met
00:33:03
the young general and First Consul of
00:33:05
France he said oh my friends what a
00:33:07
beautiful head he has it is pure it is
00:33:10
great it is as beautiful as the antique
00:33:13
yes Bonaparte is my hero decades before
00:33:18
the Revolution the encyclopedist Diderot
00:33:21
had suggested the Louvre be used for the
00:33:23
public display of the royal collections
00:33:25
afterwards in 1793 it opened as the
00:33:28
museum Santa fell desire then came the
00:33:31
brief but dazzling era of the musée
00:33:33
Napoleon filled with the state treasures
00:33:36
and the loot of his campaigns it was
00:33:38
here that David presented his newly
00:33:40
finished canvas the Sabine women it
00:33:43
tells of the reconciliation between two
00:33:45
warring tribes the Romans and the
00:33:47
Sabine's affected by a central
00:33:50
allegorical female figure art historian
00:33:56
Eva Burkhardt explains the remarkable
00:33:58
device used by David to show this veiled
00:34:01
plea for national reconciliation among
00:34:04
the feuding factions of
00:34:06
post-revolutionary France this mirror is
00:34:11
not here by accident
00:34:13
during my research on the painter daveed
00:34:15
in Paris I had discovered that it was
00:34:18
actually a part of the original
00:34:20
exhibition that they read organized to
00:34:23
show his painting the Sabine women the
00:34:26
exhibition took place in this very
00:34:28
Museum the function of the mirror was
00:34:31
twofold first of all it was to draw the
00:34:35
visitors attention to the central and
00:34:37
most important part of the painting the
00:34:39
women the oval shape of the mirror
00:34:42
occurred the circular arrangement of the
00:34:45
women painted by daveed secondly it was
00:34:49
to control the way the painting was
00:34:51
looked at the video on today people not
00:34:54
only look at the painting but actually
00:34:57
participate almost physically in it
00:35:00
the visitors show themselves reflected
00:35:04
in the mirror side-by-side the actors
00:35:07
painted by the lead
00:35:20
the video finding female models for his
00:35:24
painting the rumor has it that the
00:35:27
famous society women of the period
00:35:29
offered to pose for the painter at the
00:35:35
opening of the exhibition they arrived
00:35:37
dressed in the sublime costumes and they
00:35:39
actually kept them throughout the
00:35:41
evening when they went to the theater so
00:35:43
that all of Paris would know that they
00:35:45
were the ones who posed for the vide but
00:35:47
dahveed didn't mean his female figures
00:35:50
to be portraits he wanted them to
00:35:53
represent a political ideal seeing
00:35:56
themselves in the mirror reflection just
00:35:59
as I can see myself now the visitors to
00:36:01
the exhibition were invited by daveed to
00:36:05
rally to the Republican cause that this
00:36:08
women represented
00:36:21
not only dahveed but also his pupils
00:36:24
grow and are truly believed Napoleon was
00:36:27
the only one capable of leading France
00:36:29
out of the impasse of the Revolution
00:36:31
without sacrificing its principles they
00:36:34
joined in the glorification and
00:36:36
Napoleonic images their art became a
00:36:38
vehicle for propaganda centred on the
00:36:41
cult of the Emperor's achievement
00:36:42
virtues and personality here daavid
00:36:46
painted the victorious Bonaparte on a
00:36:48
magnificent rearing horse crossing the
00:36:50
Alps if the truth be known he was riding
00:36:53
a common mule
00:37:00
another famous image of the Bonaparte
00:37:03
count shows Napoleon walking fearlessly
00:37:06
into the plague house at Jaffa in the
00:37:08
Holy Land unafraid of contagion because
00:37:11
of his almost divine power to heal his
00:37:19
first officer a mere mortal holds a
00:37:21
cloth to his face to shield himself from
00:37:23
the plague revolted by the stench less
00:37:27
ethereal more practical Arab and French
00:37:30
medical officers are desperately trying
00:37:32
to provide medical aid to the plague
00:37:33
victims
00:37:40
[Music]
00:37:44
Bonaparte's great deeds during his life
00:37:46
as a soldier would continue to be
00:37:48
recorded and represented throughout his
00:37:50
reign it has been said that modern
00:37:52
propaganda was Napoleon's invention
00:37:57
now first painter of the empire dahveed
00:38:01
was given his most important commission
00:38:02
a monumental work called Lusaka the
00:38:05
coronation his early sketches show
00:38:10
Napoleon audaciously crowning himself
00:38:14
the final canvas portrays Napoleon
00:38:16
crowning Joseph
00:38:24
daveed painted himself sketching the
00:38:27
scene
00:38:28
[Music]
00:38:36
everyone had to be recognizably
00:38:38
portrayed including the members of the
00:38:40
church and the Pope sitting quietly and
00:38:44
unhappen as he watches Josephine kneel
00:38:47
before the Emperor who holds the crown
00:38:49
in his upraised arms
00:38:57
Napoleon's sisters were not only jealous
00:39:00
of Josephine but also of Josephine's
00:39:02
daughter from a former marriage whose
00:39:04
child was rumored to be Napoleon's
00:39:10
even Napoleon's mother who in fact
00:39:13
refused to attend the ceremony was
00:39:15
dueling painted in
00:39:18
[Music]
00:39:25
all the stars of the Empire were
00:39:27
gathered the coronation was as much the
00:39:31
triumph of Josephine as it was of
00:39:33
Napoleon for though she would never
00:39:35
present Napoleon with an heir she was
00:39:38
the love of his life and wanted the
00:39:40
world to know it
00:39:43
[Music]
00:39:53
Angra zone infatuation with the emperor
00:39:55
prompted him to paint the official
00:39:57
portrait of Napoleon in imperial robes
00:40:07
after the French Revolution when the
00:40:10
Louvre was transformed from a royal
00:40:11
palace with private collections to a
00:40:14
public museum it was here that young
00:40:16
painters could complete their art
00:40:18
education by copying old masters
00:40:20
learning from the examples of the past
00:40:35
this tradition is still going on in the
00:40:37
Louvre today where Pierre Rosenberg is
00:40:46
chief curator of painting when angle
00:40:51
painted his picture in 1814 he was very
00:40:54
much admired and also very much
00:40:56
criticized criticized because critics
00:41:00
said there were three verticals to much
00:41:02
in the back of this order Liske
00:41:09
what is another disc another disc is a
00:41:12
Turkish harem harem girl and your
00:41:16
cognise are very well through a costume
00:41:22
the colors are very soft very precise
00:41:26
very beautiful the Armony of it is
00:41:28
reverse of the very strong coloring that
00:41:32
the vide had used for his great pictures
00:41:34
I really do love this picture why well
00:41:38
it's not central it's erotic it's an
00:41:42
intellectual picture it's painted with
00:41:44
his brain in spite of this it's erotic
00:41:46
it's connected in fact it's a connection
00:41:50
between brain and eroticism everything
00:41:53
about a rotor system is happening in the
00:41:55
brain here and nowhere else it's a very
00:41:57
hot picture but then by an artist whose
00:42:03
conception about art is of a very high
00:42:05
level and in a strange way
00:42:08
Angra was very much criticized in the
00:42:10
19th century because thought to be a
00:42:12
reactionary artist an artist of the past
00:42:14
an academic artist a man bringing
00:42:17
nothing new to art and in the reverse
00:42:20
has happened in our century in our
00:42:22
century we're angry in a certain way is
00:42:25
so much and so rightly admired and is
00:42:27
considered as one of the father of
00:42:29
modernity and of modern art
00:42:38
but such warm and luscious fantasies
00:42:41
were far removed from the cold and
00:42:43
appalling reality of the distant
00:42:45
battlefields where the drama's of
00:42:47
Napoleon's campaigns have taken place
00:42:50
[Music]
00:42:53
go was a pupil of Danny
00:42:56
but his art is quite different of
00:42:58
David's art here you have the
00:43:02
battlefield of a low so they after the
00:43:04
Battle of course the hero of the battle
00:43:07
Napoleon is in the middle of the picture
00:43:17
but they're also not only the victor of
00:43:20
the bathroom but also the victims of the
00:43:22
bathroom and that's quite new in French
00:43:24
art to present human beings anonymous
00:43:27
soldiers dead soldiers as aware in this
00:43:30
after this terrible battle and of course
00:43:33
this will open all the tradition all in
00:43:36
the 19th century French art but goal was
00:43:40
a first in French art to do so and it
00:43:43
did so in a very moving touching a way
00:43:52
now the once glorious Napoleonic armies
00:43:54
began their retreat from Moscow to
00:43:57
Waterloo with defeat the French began to
00:43:59
identify themselves with those fallen
00:44:02
foreground figures with the anonymous
00:44:04
victims rather than with the glories of
00:44:06
Bonaparte
00:44:08
[Music]
00:44:12
myths of heroic or noble ends turned
00:44:15
into deceptions and more often than not
00:44:17
only pointless suffering and senseless
00:44:20
torture remained the blackness of war
00:44:22
between Spain and France inspired Goya
00:44:25
and to sketch this series on the horrors
00:44:27
of war showing the factual account of
00:44:29
man's cruelty to man gore watched the
00:44:32
arrival of the foreign conqueror
00:44:34
believing at first that he was bringing
00:44:36
reason progress order and liberty but in
00:44:39
fact he came to destroy and devastate to
00:44:42
violate and to Massacre
00:45:32
the sleep of Reason produces monsters in
00:45:45
his picture third of May go I showed the
00:45:49
church in darkness impotent before the
00:45:52
faceless executioner's of a secular
00:45:54
martyr
00:46:03
Gaia's nameless peasant symbolizes the
00:46:06
whole of Spain which rose against the
00:46:08
Napoleonic invaders fire destruction
00:46:12
violence death this was Spain between
00:46:15
1808 and 1814 the only source of
00:46:20
illumination is the soldiers huge
00:46:22
lantern we are far from the beam of the
00:46:25
Enlightenment
00:46:31
soon after the Napoleonic Wars and
00:46:33
inspired by the French enlightenment the
00:46:36
Greeks began their struggle for
00:46:38
independence against the Turks the
00:46:41
French Romantic painter dellacroix was
00:46:43
passionately committed to the Greek
00:46:45
cause
00:46:48
he lent his support to the Greeks in
00:46:50
Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi of
00:46:52
1826 Greece is portrayed as an idealized
00:46:57
impassioned woman dressed in white
00:46:59
reminiscent of David's central figure in
00:47:01
the Sabine women she rises heroically
00:47:04
above the rubble arms extended appealing
00:47:07
for help in the cause of Liberty
00:47:11
[Music]
00:48:15
and so the electrifying effects of the
00:48:20
Napoleonic era creative and destructive
00:48:22
left their mark on artists as well as on
00:48:25
everybody else the neoclassical style
00:48:27
would continue into the 19th century but
00:48:30
arid and academic incapable of imparting
00:48:33
true feeling and true feeling is at the
00:48:36
core of the sensibility which followed
00:48:38
the revolution the period we know now is
00:48:41
the age of Romanticism there's no real
00:48:44
definition of romanticism we think
00:48:46
perhaps of wild-eyed artists and poets
00:48:48
like Keats and Shelley of melancholy
00:48:51
gothic ruins and mysterious northern
00:48:56
landscapes where 19th century men
00:48:58
communed with nature
00:49:00
[Music]
00:49:02
and all that is a part of it but the
00:49:05
poet Baudelaire said that the key to
00:49:07
romanticism was not the subject matter
00:49:09
or even truth itself but feeling that
00:49:12
you should listen to that inner voice
00:49:14
and that alone would give art its merit
00:49:17
and so the old morality which had driven
00:49:22
art in the past religion traditional
00:49:25
ethics civic virtues and so on were
00:49:28
thrown out of the window even reason
00:49:30
itself was seen to be insufficient all
00:49:33
that counted was feeling an experience
00:49:35
this new sensibility heroic and
00:49:39
sentimental self-assertive and profound
00:49:42
the individualist would lie the center
00:49:45
of Western art from that time until the
00:49:47
present day
00:49:51
[Music]
00:49:52
France like the rest of Europe was now
00:49:55
changing fast a rapid rise in population
00:49:58
the spread of Industry a shift from
00:50:01
country to city and the emergence of an
00:50:03
urban proletariat helped bring about the
00:50:05
growth of new social structures and with
00:50:08
them political conflicts the printing
00:50:10
press was now enabling millions to
00:50:12
receive new ideas in a time of growing
00:50:14
turmoil and it was in a newspaper
00:50:16
perhaps like a zet the Jericho read the
00:50:19
horrifying account of the tragedy of the
00:50:22
Medusa
00:50:28
in the summer of 1816 the French frigate
00:50:31
the Medusa carrying soldiers and
00:50:34
passengers was wrecked off the African
00:50:36
coast the captain of noble birth and a
00:50:39
political appointment was proved
00:50:41
incompetent of the hundred and fifteen
00:50:44
men and women who tried to save
00:50:46
themselves on a makeshift raft only 15
00:50:49
survived 13 days on a floating coffin
00:50:52
human beings reduced to a state of
00:50:55
animal despair a poignant human drama of
00:50:58
corpses and victims who suffered
00:51:00
atrociously but for no noble cause
00:51:06
above on the apex of the human pyramid
00:51:09
men and women gesturing frantically this
00:51:16
painting came to be regarded as a
00:51:18
political allegory of a deeper sort the
00:51:21
French historian Misha lay wrote France
00:51:23
herself our whole society is on that
00:51:26
raft
00:51:42
the clouds of revolution were gathering
00:51:45
again at the end of July 1830 Paris was
00:51:56
up in arms it was the end of the bull
00:51:59
walls the ruling family of France for so
00:52:02
many centuries everyone hoped in Liberty
00:52:05
and in freedom was a great moment of
00:52:08
French history the Lacroix was not at
00:52:10
all a radical politically speaking
00:52:11
speaking he was quite famous artist at
00:52:14
this moment of his life and he
00:52:16
immediately understood that it was for
00:52:18
him the occasion to paint a great
00:52:19
picture and he painted a very great
00:52:21
danger
00:52:22
it's of course a political picture it is
00:52:25
also a history picture by history I mean
00:52:28
it's an allegory an allegory of freedom
00:52:30
and the lady in the middle of the
00:52:32
picture the woman in the middle of the
00:52:34
picture represents freedom and liberty
00:52:36
she has in her hand the French flag the
00:52:39
three colours of France and she is
00:52:41
dominating the picture where you see a
00:52:44
lot of people dead soldiers workers an
00:52:48
intellectual wearing a head all these
00:52:53
figures are taking in everyday life
00:52:59
the figure of Liberty herself is wearing
00:53:03
a slipped dress barefooted like a Greek
00:53:05
goddess this woman of the people is no
00:53:09
longer simply cast in antique language
00:53:11
as well the Sabine women she is an
00:53:15
ardent vital bare-breasted vision
00:53:17
brandishing a flintlock and waving her
00:53:20
country's new flag a woman of the people
00:53:22
wearing the Phrygian cap the red bonnet
00:53:25
she has now become a universal symbol of
00:53:28
revolution and finally of course the
00:53:30
figure of the French Republic itself
00:53:32
[Music]
00:53:40
ironically Delacroix's Liberty was
00:53:42
bought by the Liberal King
00:53:44
louis-philippe who never dared show it
00:53:46
it wasn't publicly exhibited until 1861
00:53:49
two years afterwards a distant ancestor
00:53:53
of Delacroix's allegorical figure
00:53:55
arrived in Paris the winged victory of
00:53:58
samothrace it was sculpted in ancient
00:54:04
Greece in about 200 BC like Liberty
00:54:08
victories portrayed as female inspiring
00:54:12
alluring even as she lights gently on
00:54:16
the prow of a victorious warship the
00:54:18
wind streaming against her body it's a
00:54:22
theme which turns up in many forms in
00:54:24
the story of Western art like Liberty
00:54:27
victory is a beguiling idealized
00:54:31
personification of an abstraction for
00:54:33
which men and women have been prepared
00:54:36
to die in the 18th century the age of
00:54:38
reason used symbols like this in the
00:54:42
belief that the humane values of
00:54:44
classical tradition could be attained
00:54:46
even today the revolution hung on to
00:54:49
such symbols both to express their high
00:54:52
hopes and in the end to justify their
00:54:54
worst excesses and of course these are
00:54:57
still potent myths in our culture today
00:55:00
in the story of Western art though by
00:55:03
the middle of the 19th century changes
00:55:05
in the air
00:55:06
artists begin increasingly to be
00:55:09
interested in portraying modern life and
00:55:11
they will turn their back on the
00:55:13
classical tradition
00:55:14
[Music]
