0:00:02 > 0:00:05THUNDER RUMBLES
0:00:10 > 0:00:15A century ago, the most famous and controversial artist in Britain
0:00:15 > 0:00:19fled London to paint the wilderness of North Wales.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26His name was Augustus John.
0:00:26 > 0:00:33Bohemian, boozer, wannabe gypsy and a man who gave up doing this
0:00:33 > 0:00:35to do this.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40John was a perfectly good draughtsman and he was wasting his talent on this. Get on and paint!
0:00:41 > 0:00:44John had fallen under the influence of a young genius
0:00:44 > 0:00:47and fellow Welshman James Dickson Innes,
0:00:47 > 0:00:51and unknown painter who loved the mountains so much
0:00:51 > 0:00:53it was literally killing him.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57He was committing slow suicide, people said.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02He knew he was ill, he shouldn't drink, he shouldn't live a life of dissipation, but he did.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05THUNDER BOOMS
0:01:09 > 0:01:13Their canvas was the Arenig Valley in North Wales,
0:01:13 > 0:01:19a sliver of craggy, swirling peaks and haunting plateaux east of Snowdonia.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Here, despite living the lives of itinerants,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30drinking, fighting and womanising,
0:01:30 > 0:01:35they still found time to paint a series of delirious landscapes.
0:01:36 > 0:01:43In little more than two years, John and Innes would reinvent British landscape painting.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47Wales had never been painted like this before.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51It was an absolute revelation and probably a sensation.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56Even today, a century later,
0:01:56 > 0:02:01their vision draws followers to the mountain to unravel their story.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06A story which would drag British art kicking and screaming
0:02:06 > 0:02:08into the 20th century.
0:02:28 > 0:02:34100 years ago, British painting, more often than not, looked like this
0:02:34 > 0:02:37or this or this.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41It was an idealised vision of the past.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43And the public lapped it up.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51In 1910, however, everything changed.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56The catalyst was an exhibition in London of European art.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01Art which up until then had made little impact here.
0:03:03 > 0:03:07Famously called the Post-Impressionists, four of them,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Seurat, Van Gogh,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14Gaugin and Cezanne,
0:03:14 > 0:03:16were already dead.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20Yet their work and that of others caused an sensation.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24Some attacked the paintings as childish and crude.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28But others saw in them the beginning of a new age.
0:03:28 > 0:03:33In 1910, the British finally noticed modern painting.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37But was modern painting already here?
0:03:38 > 0:03:41THUNDER RUMBLES
0:03:52 > 0:03:55A few months before the exhibition,
0:03:55 > 0:04:00a young painter had been wandering the remote hills of North Wales.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11Born in 1887,
0:04:11 > 0:04:15James Dickson Innes was the son of an engineer from Llanelli.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20At 19, he'd left Wales to study art in London.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23Now, four years later,
0:04:23 > 0:04:25he'd come home.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35Innes had been wandering round for three or four days,
0:04:35 > 0:04:37staggering round, sleeping out in the open.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40He came off the moor. His long black coat,
0:04:40 > 0:04:44his black hat, his sodden boots.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48Can you imagine the figure that he must have painted
0:04:48 > 0:04:54as he walked down? Sad, desolate, in a terrible state.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57He had been looking for something to paint...
0:04:58 > 0:05:00..and he'd eventually found it.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05It was a mountain.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09And that mountain was Arenig.
0:05:13 > 0:05:19Arenig Fawr, a brooding 500-million-year-old edifice
0:05:19 > 0:05:21on the edge of Snowdonia.
0:05:21 > 0:05:28Below its twin peaks, Innes had stumbled across the most beautiful landscape he'd ever seen.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33A landscape he was now desperate to paint
0:05:33 > 0:05:35in a new and radical way.
0:05:49 > 0:05:56Art historian Eric Rowan has come to see just how radical Innes was.
0:05:56 > 0:06:01He believes that even before the 1910 show in London,
0:06:01 > 0:06:07Innes was producing work which gave the French Post-Impressionists a serious run for their money.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13His proof is one of Innes's first North Wales paintings,
0:06:13 > 0:06:15The Waterfall.
0:06:15 > 0:06:17Extraordinary.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21Extraordinary. I've never seen this before.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25It's quite amazing to actually handle it
0:06:25 > 0:06:28because I've only seen it in black and white illustrations.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30And it's so exciting.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37I think this is a remarkable picture. It was painted by Innes
0:06:37 > 0:06:41in the same year as the Post-Impressionist exhibition in London
0:06:41 > 0:06:43but beforehand, so he hadn't see the exhibition.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51What marks it out as what I would define as Post-Impressionist
0:06:51 > 0:06:56is that you can detect the origins of Impressionism
0:06:56 > 0:07:03but it's left that behind now, it's going on towards abstraction where it's the formal elements,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07the things that make up the picture are more important than representing a scene.
0:07:09 > 0:07:15The clouds are almost as solid as the mountains, almost sculptural, and this is a watercolour.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20I think it's the most marvellous painting and it's true Post-Impressionism.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45When I'm out here, I feel tremendous. I feel free.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48I feel inspired.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51And I need to come here.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53I need this space.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57In the valley below Arenig Fawr,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00artist Keith Bowen is looking for the exact spot
0:08:00 > 0:08:04where Innes created The Waterfall.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37This is the place. This is it.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40This is fantastic.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Falling water, rocks.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Everybody responds to it.
0:08:50 > 0:08:55The rocks just down in the front there, there they are, leaning,
0:08:55 > 0:09:01and he would've taken the force of the water against the static of the rocks.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08He wasn't trying to copy the thing photographically,
0:09:08 > 0:09:14but what he did do was get the elements from this and made something else of it.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19To come to the place,
0:09:19 > 0:09:25you get the buzz, you get the thing, the catalyst that sparked Innes off.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29He must have been so excited.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32Brilliant.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36It's a good one.
0:09:40 > 0:09:46At 23, JD Innes had found himself seduced by the beauty of North Wales.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Now he needed to tell someone.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55150 miles away in London, the man he told
0:09:55 > 0:09:58was fellow artist Augustus John.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04And here he is, the monster. If you are above him...
0:10:04 > 0:10:08Well, no, actually, if you were below him, he's very fierce.
0:10:08 > 0:10:11Very fierce. A sort of bear.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13But when you come above him,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15he's more like a teddy bear.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20John and Innes had met in 1906
0:10:20 > 0:10:23at London's Slade School of Art.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28Innes, the brilliant student who'd barely enrolled before being hired as a teacher.
0:10:28 > 0:10:34Augustus, nine years his elder, the old Slade boy made good.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Augustus John was one of the most gifted, notorious,
0:10:41 > 0:10:46controversial, famous people in the country, an early celebrity.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51But he was considered beyond the pale, really,
0:10:51 > 0:10:53by conventional people.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56His life in the early 1900s
0:10:56 > 0:11:02was an agitated tale of two cities, Paris and London,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06and two wives, one Ida, his legitimate wife,
0:11:06 > 0:11:09and then his common-law wife, Dorelia.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13That is Ida
0:11:13 > 0:11:17and that is Dorelia in profile looking at her.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20Both of them were to have his children,
0:11:20 > 0:11:24several children. He lost count. And so did they, really.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32John's wife Ida would grown to accept Dorelia and the other lovers.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37"Men must play," she wrote, "and women must weep".
0:11:38 > 0:11:42Look at this drawing of Dorelia.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45It says strong, it says tender,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48it's well observed, it's unsentimental.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52You really have caught her there.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56John's early draughtsmanship was really quite wonderful.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59John Singer Sargent, the American painter,
0:11:59 > 0:12:04said that he hadn't seen anything better than this since the Italian Renaissance.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10John's instinctive drawing skills
0:12:10 > 0:12:13had received universal praise.
0:12:13 > 0:12:18But was art merely a vehicle for technical ability?
0:12:18 > 0:12:21Neither he nor Innes thought so.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39Two years before stumbling across Arenig Fawr,
0:12:39 > 0:12:42Innes had visited Collioure in the South of France.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49It was 1908 and Innes had come to experience
0:12:49 > 0:12:54the work of one of France's most exciting artists, Henri Matisse.
0:12:56 > 0:13:01Matisse was entranced by the Mediterranean's vibrant light and colour.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07Critics called him La Fauve, the wild beast,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10and his style became known as Fauvism.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Innes immediately began painting Collioure himself.
0:13:18 > 0:13:24Seduced by Fauvism, he ignored the normal rules of painting,
0:13:24 > 0:13:29allowing his landscapes to reflect what he felt, not what he saw.
0:13:32 > 0:13:39Not wanting to miss out, Augustus John also booked a painting holiday in France.
0:13:39 > 0:13:45Like Innes, his French landscapes also stuck two fingers up at the British art establishment.
0:13:45 > 0:13:51He had, it seemed, abandoned his God-given talent for drawing.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56But what would the art critics back home make of it all?
0:14:11 > 0:14:14I got this painting early on
0:14:14 > 0:14:22and I was very keen to get it because it shows Augustus John in France, this is Martigues.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27When paintings such as this were first shown by John, and by Innes, too,
0:14:27 > 0:14:32they were considered just daubs. What were the artists doing?
0:14:32 > 0:14:37They haven't painted it properly. Where was the detail? It didn't come together.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41It was a glimpse of something. It was like the first draft of something. Get on and paint!
0:14:41 > 0:14:44They were thought to be provoking everybody.
0:14:44 > 0:14:50They were thought sometimes to be rather immoral, inartistic, strange.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54And for somebody like John to be wasting his talent,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58he was a perfectly good draughtsman and he was wasting his talent on this.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02The English were very insular.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06They didn't want to know what was happening across the channel.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09John was more brave, more curious.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12And when he came back from France, he was a different sort of painter.
0:15:26 > 0:15:32In 1910, Innes also returned a different man.
0:15:32 > 0:15:37Back home in Wales, he'd found a vision he could call his own.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41But before he could start painting it, he needed a place to stay.
0:15:43 > 0:15:48At the foot of Arenig, he found the Rhyd-y-Fen Hotel.
0:15:48 > 0:15:54Today, it's a farmhouse where Geraint and Sharon Jones live with their two boys.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00It hasn't changed much really, has it?
0:16:00 > 0:16:04No, but the sign's gone. Is the dairy there?
0:16:04 > 0:16:07No, there wasn't a dairy built there at that time.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14It wasn't long before Innes persuaded Augustus to join him at Rhyd-y-Fen.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20Now, for the first time, the two of them could paint together.
0:16:21 > 0:16:25By day, they painted bold and primitive landscapes,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29drawing on the lessons of France to reinvent the Welsh mountains.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38By night, they drank themselves stupid in the hotel bar.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45They used to get the beer from the cellar, bring it round
0:16:45 > 0:16:48and they used to serve it through the window.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50That window wasn't there. It was like a hatch thing.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54So just think, Augustus John and JD Innes,
0:16:54 > 0:16:57they've been sitting in there.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01They would've sat in there having a drink with their friends.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06It's hard imagining Rhyd-y-Fen being a hotel. I can't imagine it.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12There's somewhere else John and Innes would've sat.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14Here's the old toilet.
0:17:14 > 0:17:17If you look down here,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20you can see there's a stream running.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24- It's quite cosy.- I wouldn't like to come out here in the winter
0:17:24 > 0:17:28because it might be cold
0:17:28 > 0:17:33- and I wouldn't like to. - And your privates might catch a cold.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40Do you think we should go and have a look? Open the gate.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43Go through the gate.
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Innes and John's love of drinking was eclipsed only by their passion for Arenig.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55- Look at the colours. It is the colours we see today? - No. Is it in winter?
0:17:55 > 0:17:58- I think so. What colour is this? - White.- Mm.- Like snow.
0:17:58 > 0:18:03That's the old bridge, which would've been over there.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08As individuals, the two men couldn't have been more different.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12John was a wealthy celebrity in the prime of life.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17Innes, still in his early 20s, was completely unknown.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21- It's a nice picture. Do you like it? - Yes.
0:18:24 > 0:18:29This is the only photograph which exists of him.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36There's no biography and only a handful of letters survive.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44But here in Cardiff, there's something else.
0:18:52 > 0:18:56It's a portrait of James Dickson Innes by Augustus John.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01And Innes is leaning on his elbow in such a debonair way
0:19:01 > 0:19:04and he's looking rather intense,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07like he's almost about to address you.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10And he's wearing the clothes that are very distinctive.
0:19:10 > 0:19:16Augustus John said Innes dressed with a distinction that owed nothing to the rules of fashion.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20And he has a black Quaker hat, a cadaverous cast of features
0:19:20 > 0:19:24and always the same dark suit and a bright scarf
0:19:24 > 0:19:26and apparently he always had a cane.
0:19:28 > 0:19:34It feels like every aspect of Innes's personality in his features has been intensified
0:19:34 > 0:19:37in the way that you find in many of Augustus John's portraits.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41There's a very strong sense of the person there.
0:19:46 > 0:19:52I think John was someone who drew particular qualities from the people he met
0:19:52 > 0:19:55and he saw in Innes a sort of childlike vision.
0:19:55 > 0:20:00He called him an intellectual virgin, which is not necessarily very complimentary,
0:20:00 > 0:20:04but he felt Innes had this direct connection
0:20:04 > 0:20:08with the landscape, particularly of Wales.
0:20:08 > 0:20:14And to someone like Augustus, who was perhaps always looking for excitement and diversion,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17that would've been a very attractive quality.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42I think the landscape of Wales has an eternal mystery to me.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45It's very similar to the mystery of painting.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48It doesn't have a definite image.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53And I suppose I've associated myself with this landscape for such a long time now,
0:20:53 > 0:20:55I feel totally immersed in it.
0:20:57 > 0:21:03Painter Iwan Gwyn Parry has come to Arenig to find out for himself
0:21:03 > 0:21:05how John and Innes worked.
0:21:09 > 0:21:14I saw the paintings of Arenig by John and Innes 20 years ago when I was a student
0:21:14 > 0:21:19and I was taken back by them and surprised equally.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23I was completely taken back by the fact that they were free of the constraints
0:21:23 > 0:21:26of Victorian academic painting.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29And they felt fresh and alive
0:21:29 > 0:21:33and I suppose it's paved the way for generations of painters
0:21:33 > 0:21:36to express their feelings and thoughts
0:21:36 > 0:21:38in a manner which is vigorous
0:21:38 > 0:21:42rather than a sombre, austere quality
0:21:42 > 0:21:45which a lot of Welsh landscape is depicted as.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48And John and Innes broke free of those constraints
0:21:48 > 0:21:52and liberated the Welsh landscape pictorially.
0:21:56 > 0:22:03Iwan wants to paint the mountain just as Innes and John did 100 years ago.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06First though, he must find the perfect spot.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15The idea of trying to paint this is an undertaking
0:22:15 > 0:22:19because there's not one definite angle that one could approach it.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22Personally, for me,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26I'm kind of interested in so many aspects of the mountain here,
0:22:26 > 0:22:30from the way the weather constantly changes direction
0:22:30 > 0:22:37and equally the way the light suddenly illuminate a piece of the mountain which has remained hidden.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41It'll be a challenge indeed.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54DOGS BARK
0:23:01 > 0:23:05Tiring of hotel life, in the spring of 1911,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08Innes and John decided to rent a cottage.
0:23:09 > 0:23:14Crouching at the base of Arenig, it was called Nant Ddu.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17BOTH: Whoa!
0:23:17 > 0:23:20THEY SPEAK WELSH
0:23:23 > 0:23:27John brought Dorelia and the children to stay,
0:23:27 > 0:23:30as well as a rag-bag of friends and acquaintances.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35One of them was the social butterfly Euphemia Lamb.
0:23:35 > 0:23:40They were both married, yet Euphemia let John first draw her
0:23:40 > 0:23:46and then bed her before quickly moving on to a new lover, Innes.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51She was a great romancer, an adventurous spirit,
0:23:51 > 0:23:54very eccentric and beautiful.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57Well, this was irresistible.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59And certainly, I think,
0:23:59 > 0:24:05the most important man in her life became Innes. That is what I think.
0:24:05 > 0:24:10I don't think that John and he were rivals over her.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15She was not an exclusive sort of person, you know.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21Totally besotted, Innes has painted his own portrait of Euphemia
0:24:21 > 0:24:24in the kitchen at Nant Ddu.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29For him, capturing the human form had never been a strong point.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33Whilst John easily adapted his drawing skills
0:24:33 > 0:24:37to create delicate impressions of Dorelia,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Innes's figures, charming though they are,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44sometimes sit strangely in the landscape.
0:24:49 > 0:24:56His childlike vision of Augustus and family does, however, reveal one thing.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59John's passion for gypsies.
0:25:05 > 0:25:08John felt at home with the Welsh Romanies.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12To him, they represented the wild landscape in human form.
0:25:16 > 0:25:23This intense self-portrait suggests it was a wildness he aspired to.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28Augustus owned several gypsy caravans,
0:25:28 > 0:25:31lovingly decorating them with his own family
0:25:31 > 0:25:35who became accessories in a Romany fantasy.
0:25:41 > 0:25:48This, as you can see, is the considerable presence that John has.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53He loved the gypsy life.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56It was something exotic.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02He spent a lot of his time out of doors, on the road,
0:26:02 > 0:26:06free from encumbrances.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12Here is a letter that he wrote
0:26:12 > 0:26:15and there is a drawing at the top
0:26:15 > 0:26:19which expresses the sort of open-air life he liked,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23moving from place to place, meeting new people and then leaving them.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28It was something that...
0:26:28 > 0:26:31He had been warned as a child
0:26:31 > 0:26:33never to speak to the gypsies
0:26:33 > 0:26:35or he would be kidnapped.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39He longed to be kidnapped, to escape,
0:26:39 > 0:26:45and here he was doing it. He'd achieved what he'd dreamt of doing as a child.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58Close to Arenig, at the White Lion in Bala,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02John would drink and fight with the gypsies.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07Introductions were made by his close friend John Samson.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11Samson had spent years studying the Romanies
0:27:11 > 0:27:14and he too had a house near Arenig.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18This is the visitors' book
0:27:18 > 0:27:21from John Samson's home in North Wales.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24We've got a signature here
0:27:24 > 0:27:29of Augustus John, March 12th 1911,
0:27:29 > 0:27:33of Mr JD Innes, March 12th 1911.
0:27:33 > 0:27:38And here is a drawing, a self-portrait of Augustus.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Absolutely incredible.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46The partying, the dancing, the drinking that's going on
0:27:46 > 0:27:50must have been instigated by this connection with Samson.
0:27:50 > 0:27:55And, of course, Innes would revel in it.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02When John Samson died...
0:28:03 > 0:28:08..the gypsies came in mass from all over the country.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12The ceremony with full Romany ritual
0:28:12 > 0:28:16was conducted by Mr Augustus John, RA,
0:28:16 > 0:28:20who wore a light slouch hat and a red and white muffler.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24Mr Augustus John delivered the funeral oration
0:28:24 > 0:28:28with a cigarette still smouldering between his fingers.
0:28:42 > 0:28:48I remember him at his marvellous home, Fryern Court, near the New Forest.
0:28:48 > 0:28:54He was an old man with a rather terrifying appearance to a small child.
0:28:54 > 0:28:59And very deaf, so it was difficult to have a conversation with him.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02In fact, one didn't have a conversation.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07You've had the need to follow beauty wherever you've struck it, I suspect.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Well, isn't that my profession as an artist?
0:29:15 > 0:29:18You've got to get excited before you can do anything.
0:29:21 > 0:29:23And beauty is a great exciter.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27There's an inconsistency that I'm interested to ask you about,
0:29:27 > 0:29:30because one of the things that is known about you
0:29:30 > 0:29:34is the long stability and happiness of your family life
0:29:34 > 0:29:39and yet, at the same time, you've written candidly about many of these adventures that are well known.
0:29:39 > 0:29:44- And yet it's also quite clear... - It's not inconsistency.- It's not?
0:29:44 > 0:29:46- Tell me why not.- I wouldn't know.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50How much have women really meant to you in your life?
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Certainly, I'm interested in women.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58- In beauty primarily or in love? - I don't...
0:29:58 > 0:30:02Beauty, I should think. If it's beauty, it's love, in my case.
0:30:07 > 0:30:13He was not, in his old age, a very happy man.
0:30:19 > 0:30:24I wish I'd known Augustus as a young man, not as a grumpy old man.
0:30:30 > 0:30:35John's granddaughter Rebecca has come to Arenig to follow in his footsteps
0:30:35 > 0:30:39and search out the places where he painted.
0:30:42 > 0:30:48Unlike Innes, John liked to use the landscape as a background,
0:30:48 > 0:30:50placing his models centre stage.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57His lover Dorelia appears in many such works.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08But like Innes, he was still breaking the time-honoured rules of British painting.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17Both worked quickly
0:31:17 > 0:31:19and they worked outside,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22completing a landscape in as little as an hour.
0:31:25 > 0:31:30Look at that. That is exactly...
0:31:32 > 0:31:34..what we're looking at.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37It's even the same colouring. It's all fairly cursory.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40- A few blobs for sheep. - SHE LAUGHS
0:31:42 > 0:31:44In Augustus's landscapes,
0:31:44 > 0:31:49he paints the rushes and the gorse bushes and sort of dots and dashes.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53He's more concerned with the bigger picture.
0:31:54 > 0:31:56But this is definitely the spot.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00Fascinating.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11Well, this is simply given the title Welsh Mountains and we don't know where it is.
0:32:11 > 0:32:13But this reservoir surely gives you a clue.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16It does. This track goes down to Llandecwyn at the bottom
0:32:16 > 0:32:21- where the church is. - I know Llandecwyn, yes.- Up there.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25And as for Lily at Tanygrisiau...
0:32:25 > 0:32:29- Tanygrisiau.- Under the stairs.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32- You think this is... - That's the Moelwyn there
0:32:32 > 0:32:36and this is where... There's a dam there now.
0:32:36 > 0:32:40- And this girl came from the East End of London. - THEY LAUGH
0:32:40 > 0:32:43She came a long way.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45There's a wonderful story about her.
0:32:45 > 0:32:50A poor girl from London of classic proportions who had never travelled beyond the city.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54And she recognised the sheep because she'd seen them in Hyde Park.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56THEY LAUGH
0:33:16 > 0:33:21John wasn't alone in enjoying the company of young women.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23Innes also drafted in models
0:33:23 > 0:33:27to paint and seduce.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30He liked gypsy girls, too,
0:33:30 > 0:33:34famously chasing after one as she left Arenig for new pastures.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37He never caught her.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42Collapsing with exhaustion, Innes instead had to be rescued by a passer-by.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45He should've known better.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48Euphemia was his one true love.
0:33:48 > 0:33:54But not only was their affair now breaking down, so was he.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57Innes had contracted tuberculosis.
0:33:58 > 0:34:00And he was dying.
0:34:26 > 0:34:30So, this is the pulpit room and here is the James Dickson Innes.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40I bought it in the 1980s
0:34:40 > 0:34:43and it's rather a lovely story, I think.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47It was on sale at Christie's in South Kensington
0:34:47 > 0:34:52and this painting was actually on the cover of the catalogue
0:34:52 > 0:34:56and the painting failed to meet its reserve.
0:34:56 > 0:35:00When the sale was over, I asked Christie's who had bought it
0:35:00 > 0:35:03and they said it had been bought in,
0:35:03 > 0:35:08but they told the owner that we were very interested in it
0:35:08 > 0:35:11and she let us have it for £2,500,
0:35:11 > 0:35:14which was very generous of her,
0:35:14 > 0:35:16and she gave us six months to pay.
0:35:28 > 0:35:33I imagine that it was probably a bit shocking at the time.
0:35:33 > 0:35:39These are revolutionary colours, aren't they, for 1911 in Britain.
0:35:51 > 0:35:57It looks as though it's done quite quickly. You can see the board, particularly underneath the blue.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03And the subject itself is fiendishly difficult to paint.
0:36:03 > 0:36:11So you have to enjoy it for the fact that it was being tackled in an entirely new way.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19The way we came to acquire it also has great poignancy.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24When I sent the final cheque in to the previous owner,
0:36:24 > 0:36:29the following morning, her husband told us that she'd died the day before.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36She never told us that she was ill
0:36:36 > 0:36:40and when you think that Innes, when he was painting it,
0:36:40 > 0:36:44was also terminally ill, there is sadly
0:36:44 > 0:36:46an extraordinary parallel.
0:37:09 > 0:37:15Below Arenig Fawr, Iwan Gwyn Parry has begun painting.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22Like Innes and John, he's working in oil on wood panel.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26But with the sun setting fast,
0:37:26 > 0:37:29he has little more than an hour to finish his landscape.
0:37:32 > 0:37:37One could copy the mountain, but Matisse famously said
0:37:37 > 0:37:40that exactitude is not necessarily truth
0:37:40 > 0:37:44and I subscribe to that school of thinking, really.
0:37:46 > 0:37:48Innes radically reinvented the mountain
0:37:48 > 0:37:54and painted it not through a stylised academic tradition
0:37:54 > 0:37:58but through this newly-found language of personal expression.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06A painting's a lot more than a place.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09It's a place within one's self, a place in the mind,
0:38:09 > 0:38:12and I think he's translated that through Arenig.
0:38:12 > 0:38:17But I'm sure he sat and gazed in wonderment at this spectacle
0:38:17 > 0:38:22and wrestled with himself and wrestled with a painting
0:38:22 > 0:38:24which is the spirit of a human being
0:38:24 > 0:38:27in relationship to a sense of place.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37The light is fading beautifully.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41I have perhaps half an hour to resolve this
0:38:41 > 0:38:44and that's the end of the painting.
0:38:44 > 0:38:48And whatever it looks like in half an hour, that will be the final work.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16Yes, this is the gentleman called JD Innes.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19Looks a handsome fellow there, doesn't he?
0:39:19 > 0:39:23- Yes.- Look at his clothes. What kind of clothes are they? - Posh, expensive.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25- You think so? - Really posh. Truly posh.
0:39:25 > 0:39:32And this is a picture of his girlfriend, a lady called Euphemia.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34- And...- That's a name you don't hear every day.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38And this lady was the love of his life.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42And the story goes that she was JD Innes's girlfriend
0:39:42 > 0:39:45but she didn't want to carry on being his girlfriend
0:39:45 > 0:39:51and he was so heartbroken that he gathered all the letters she'd sent to him,
0:39:51 > 0:39:55put them in a casket and took them up Arenig Fawr and buried them
0:39:55 > 0:39:57cos he was so upset.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00- What do you think of that story? - It's very sad, though.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04- Mm.- Mm.- I think he was very upset.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10The Jones boys, Oisin and Hugh,
0:40:10 > 0:40:15are keen to know if the myth of Euphemia's casket is true.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18And that means climbing Arenig.
0:40:38 > 0:40:43At the top, there's no sign of a casket.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45But there is something else.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51BOTH: In memory of the crew of the Flying Fortress
0:40:51 > 0:40:56which crashed on the Arenig 4th August 1943.
0:41:03 > 0:41:05During the Second World War,
0:41:05 > 0:41:10an American bomber crew lost their bearings on a night mission over Wales.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13All 12 on board died
0:41:13 > 0:41:16when the aircraft smashed into the top of Arenig Fawr,
0:41:16 > 0:41:20apparently slicing off one of its peaks.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25If Euphemia's casket was here,
0:41:25 > 0:41:30it would've been vaporised in a fireball of molten aluminium.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42When we were exploring in the rocks over there,
0:41:42 > 0:41:47we found these old pieces of aluminium,
0:41:47 > 0:41:51little pieces of the aeroplane that crashed here.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54When the aeroplane crashed, it burst into flames
0:41:54 > 0:41:58and the aluminium turned into these.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09John later said that burying the letters
0:42:09 > 0:42:13was Innes's way of embracing the mountain.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18In Innes's head, Arenig and Euphemia were the same thing.
0:42:19 > 0:42:25This desire to connect with the wilderness was something Augustus John perfectly understood.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29For him too, the landscape was everything.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50This is a painting called Llyn Treweryn by Augustus John
0:42:50 > 0:42:55and it shows a view looking west from Arenig,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00looking towards the Moelwyn Mountains, which is probably that peak there in the distance,
0:43:00 > 0:43:06and I think it's a beautiful painting. I think it's one of John's best. It's certainly my favourite
0:43:06 > 0:43:10because there's no clutter, there's no trying to impress anybody,
0:43:10 > 0:43:14it's a very simple response to his home country, to his native land.
0:43:17 > 0:43:24Quite subtle touches, the warm blue of the sky reflecting in the warm blue of the lake,
0:43:24 > 0:43:30and then there's the cold blue of the mountain, that funny peak in the distance, which is quite stylised.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36I think he just was good at landscapes.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41He didn't have to do these big symbolic figures that he was painting beforehand
0:43:41 > 0:43:43which ranked him as a symbolist,
0:43:43 > 0:43:46and they had to have some sort of enigmatic content.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50This was just a response to his own country and it was simple painting.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54Very beautiful. Very much catches the spirit of the place.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57You just feel you want to go there and look for it.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18Augustus John's granddaughter Rebecca
0:44:18 > 0:44:22first came looking for Llyn Treweryn ten years ago.
0:44:23 > 0:44:28In the distance is this very defined... It looks like a pyramid.
0:44:30 > 0:44:37Rebecca's hoping that one of the locals can spot the pyramid-shaped mountain from John's picture.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40There is it. Come on. You'll see it.
0:44:42 > 0:44:47Can you see it, to the right of the left-hand-most pylon?
0:44:48 > 0:44:52See a little... You used to see far more, but the trees have grown up.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55- I know.- Trees are...
0:44:55 > 0:44:59- Bit of a nuisance, aren't they? - They are in a way, yes.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06- This is Cwm Prysor. - Cwm Prysor, yeah.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08- There's the gate you climbed over. - Yes.
0:45:08 > 0:45:10It's jammed shut to stop sheep getting out.
0:45:10 > 0:45:16My father remembers coming to this station aged nine
0:45:16 > 0:45:23and he said that the station mistress would always put out some hot lardy cakes from the oven.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27- Well, you do.- He's never forgotten. - It's right in the wilds
0:45:27 > 0:45:30and when people come visiting, they're always very welcome.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37When I came here ten years ago,
0:45:37 > 0:45:40I felt a tremendous feeling of the past,
0:45:40 > 0:45:44of a century ago.
0:45:44 > 0:45:51You know, my grandfather had stood here, painted this not brilliant painting, actually, I don't think,
0:45:51 > 0:45:54and my father was here as a child and...
0:45:56 > 0:46:02..you get this sense of... time staying still.
0:46:05 > 0:46:09Yes, I was overwhelmed, to be honest.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34There are three things an artist needs.
0:46:34 > 0:46:36His eye,
0:46:36 > 0:46:39his hand
0:46:39 > 0:46:41and his heart.
0:46:41 > 0:46:43And two won't do.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55This is my favourite painting.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Innes's Arenig Fawr of 1911.
0:47:02 > 0:47:04When I first saw it,
0:47:04 > 0:47:07it just bowled me over.
0:47:07 > 0:47:10It's strange. It's a tiny little panel
0:47:10 > 0:47:15and half the picture is the sky, the huge cumulus clouds that come here in the spring.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18It's got the Fauvish brush mark and the stroke.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21Look at the marks around there.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25That's pure Fauvism. That's where that comes from.
0:47:25 > 0:47:30Even these little dots here. There must have been Welsh black cattle down there at the time.
0:47:35 > 0:47:42The impact, for me, was he's doing something with something I know about, somewhere I've been,
0:47:42 > 0:47:45and he's making something of it
0:47:45 > 0:47:48and I think that was the trigger.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50It's never wavered.
0:47:57 > 0:48:00After a little over two years in North Wales,
0:48:00 > 0:48:05Innes and John had produced hundreds of paintings.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Both passionately believed in what they were doing.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12The question was, would anyone else?
0:48:22 > 0:48:29In February 1913, New York City played host to a major event in the history of art.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33The International Exhibition of Modern Art
0:48:33 > 0:48:37introduced America to the same group of European artists
0:48:37 > 0:48:40who'd wowed London three years earlier.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43Men like Picasso,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46Seurat
0:48:46 > 0:48:48and Van Gogh.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50But also two new names,
0:48:50 > 0:48:53James Dickson Innes...
0:48:55 > 0:48:58..and Augustus John.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03For Innes in particular, New York was a triumph.
0:49:03 > 0:49:08Three years before, he was unknown, even in England.
0:49:08 > 0:49:14Now he stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the world's greatest artists.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17But his euphoria was short-lived.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22Innes had repeatedly ignored doctors' orders to stay off the mountain
0:49:22 > 0:49:24and the booze.
0:49:24 > 0:49:30Now the tuberculosis was tightening its grip on his life.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55I think the last light is clearly a metaphor in his paintings,
0:49:55 > 0:50:00as if he was staring into his mortality, really.
0:50:02 > 0:50:07And I think his escapism was lost
0:50:07 > 0:50:10once the ray of sunshine would disappear.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18Every time I've looked at the landscape,
0:50:18 > 0:50:20I see something completely different
0:50:20 > 0:50:23and I realise that it's quite a haunting sight
0:50:23 > 0:50:26to just stare at the top of an ancient mountain
0:50:26 > 0:50:30hoping that you could capture something.
0:50:31 > 0:50:38So I'm trying to come up with inventive solutions to explain the space across the plateau here.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42I'm trying to find inventive solutions to deal with the changes of light.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46So the painting's constantly in shift.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58Innes painted with confidence and verve when he was up here.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01It's a very reflective period in his life
0:51:01 > 0:51:07where I think he saw enlightenment and meaning in this particular place
0:51:07 > 0:51:12and his paintings, for me, are not just of this topography,
0:51:12 > 0:51:16they're metaphors for his state of mind.
0:51:22 > 0:51:29Yes, and I think... I think I've concluded the image now.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39It's a thrill if Innes knew we were still discussing him
0:51:39 > 0:51:44and his work was taken seriously, not just the story of him coming here,
0:51:44 > 0:51:48but his paintings, his magnificent body of work that he's left.
0:52:16 > 0:52:21Six months after triumph in New York, Innes was close to death.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25In one of his final paintings, the Crucifixion,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29he embraces a classical subject for the first time.
0:52:30 > 0:52:35Staging his own death in front of the mountain he loved.
0:52:43 > 0:52:48There was a very moving moment when Augustus took Euphemia Lamb
0:52:48 > 0:52:51to see Innes for the last time.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56This tortuous love affair he'd had with her,
0:52:56 > 0:53:01the letters that he'd buried on the summit of Arenig Fawr in the silver casket.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05John said what a sad meeting it was
0:53:05 > 0:53:08and he left them alone for a while
0:53:08 > 0:53:11but he did say how sad it all was.
0:53:12 > 0:53:14And a tragic end.
0:53:15 > 0:53:21Within a month, August 22nd 1914,
0:53:21 > 0:53:24Innes died of tuberculosis.
0:53:26 > 0:53:28But he left a body of work
0:53:28 > 0:53:34that was done in an absolute flame of passion.
0:53:37 > 0:53:43Just two and a half years of intense creative activity.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46And that, I think, is the only way he knew how to live.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52He was a man in a hurry.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56And sadly it was all over for him.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03JD Innes was 27 when he died.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07Together with Augustus John, he flew the flag,
0:54:07 > 0:54:11and it was a Welsh flag, for British Post-Impressionism.
0:54:12 > 0:54:17I suppose, in a way, Innes could be compared with modern superstars like James Dean.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20He lived a rather quick life,
0:54:20 > 0:54:23he was reckless with his health,
0:54:23 > 0:54:25he was committing slow suicide, people said.
0:54:25 > 0:54:30He knew he was ill, he knew he shouldn't drink, he shouldn't live a life of dissipation, but he did.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33And that's the romantic image that appeals to me.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37And he kept on painting till he couldn't paint any longer.
0:54:37 > 0:54:44I admire him for that. I think that's better than lingering on with a fading reputation.
0:54:46 > 0:54:51Augustus John would outlive JD Innes by 46 years.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54But he largely abandoned landscapes,
0:54:54 > 0:54:59settling comfortably into the role of portrait painter to the stars.
0:55:03 > 0:55:11Do you consider that you are now accepted by the art establishment in this country as being a master,
0:55:11 > 0:55:15or do you think you're still regarded as being rather a wild man of art?
0:55:16 > 0:55:18I think I've got a very fishy reputation.
0:55:18 > 0:55:22- In what respect?- As a painter.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25- Why fishy?- Because I'm out of date.
0:55:28 > 0:55:34Many believe that Wales was Augustus John's finest hour
0:55:34 > 0:55:37and Innes his inspiration.
0:55:41 > 0:55:47John said this was Innes's sacred mountain.
0:55:48 > 0:55:52He also said that the mountain was his spiritual home.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04I find that brief period when they are both working together
0:56:04 > 0:56:08is almost a school of their own, they're equal.
0:56:08 > 0:56:13They had different strengths. They were not competitors.
0:56:13 > 0:56:17I don't think you can say
0:56:17 > 0:56:21that either led the other. They both gained from the other.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25It's a very harmonious combination of two talents.
0:56:35 > 0:56:40I personally prefer Innes's interpretations of the mountain.
0:56:40 > 0:56:47I prefer his colour and he's certainly more decorative with his use of paint
0:56:47 > 0:56:51and somehow they're more fantastical
0:56:51 > 0:56:56and more imaginative and more appealing somehow.
0:56:56 > 0:57:02Not so real. I mean, Augustus's landscapes are more the same colour,
0:57:02 > 0:57:06but Innes had quite a different approach
0:57:06 > 0:57:10and I do prefer Innes's paintings of Arenig, yes.
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