Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice

0:00:03 > 0:00:09For most of human history, winter has been our most bitter adversary.

0:00:09 > 0:00:14Our ancestors faced brutal months of terrible cold,

0:00:14 > 0:00:20and the constant anxiety that food and fuel would last until the thaw.

0:00:20 > 0:00:24This heroic battle of endurance was ignored by artists,

0:00:24 > 0:00:27who saw nothing to paint in this harshest of seasons.

0:00:28 > 0:00:31But once we were able to protect ourselves from the worst the weather

0:00:31 > 0:00:36could do, we began to look at winter in a new way, to appreciate

0:00:36 > 0:00:41its transient beauty, its seasonal variety and its terrible power.

0:00:43 > 0:00:47Winter began to inspire images that are now amongst the most

0:00:47 > 0:00:50popular paintings of all time.

0:00:50 > 0:00:54The struggle for survival in a Flemish village,

0:00:54 > 0:00:57a temporary terra firma on the frozen Thames,

0:00:57 > 0:01:02the most remarkable out-flanking manoeuvre in the history of war.

0:01:02 > 0:01:06The more we understood the power of winter, the more we used art to

0:01:06 > 0:01:10explore our fascination with its effect on our lives.

0:01:10 > 0:01:15As our confidence grew, we developed a rational disregard for the cold

0:01:15 > 0:01:19and learnt to love the things that had previously scared us.

0:01:19 > 0:01:22But when winter occasionally reasserts its authority,

0:01:22 > 0:01:26we can still experience the terror our forebears knew.

0:01:58 > 0:02:01Across Northern Europe, the winter of 1564

0:02:01 > 0:02:03was the coldest of the century.

0:02:05 > 0:02:09Crops failed, and towns and cities were plagued with famine and riots.

0:02:11 > 0:02:15A deep and prolonged frost left many dying from starvation

0:02:15 > 0:02:17and hypothermia.

0:02:18 > 0:02:22This terrible period of cold was the first great

0:02:22 > 0:02:24winter of the Little Ice Age.

0:02:25 > 0:02:28By the time we get into the 16th century,

0:02:28 > 0:02:33there set in what has become known as the Little Ice Age.

0:02:33 > 0:02:38It's a very traumatic period for an agricultural society,

0:02:38 > 0:02:45and it's not until the 1800s that we start to warm up again.

0:02:45 > 0:02:49The winters were terrible, this winter of 1564-5

0:02:49 > 0:02:55saw the largest snowfalls that had been experienced in a generation.

0:02:55 > 0:02:59Nowhere were the effects of this vicious winter more keenly felt than

0:02:59 > 0:03:03in the Netherlands, where political turmoil and religious strife,

0:03:03 > 0:03:07caused by the Spanish occupation, added to the misery.

0:03:07 > 0:03:11But another revolution was taking place that winter,

0:03:11 > 0:03:14in the studio of a Flemish painter in Brussels.

0:03:14 > 0:03:18Pieter Bruegel was painting the first snowscape in art,

0:03:18 > 0:03:21Hunters In The Snow.

0:03:21 > 0:03:25Hunters In The Snow is one of the most original paintings of all time.

0:03:25 > 0:03:31It's an incredible, almost a seismic shift, in the world of art.

0:03:31 > 0:03:34Just forgetting about the snow for a moment, it's actually one of the

0:03:34 > 0:03:40first great landscapes. Bruegel has this trick of conveying immense

0:03:40 > 0:03:44amounts of territory and expressing the world itself,

0:03:44 > 0:03:47a sense of being on a planet, "This is what Earth is like in winter."

0:03:47 > 0:03:51CHORAL SINGING

0:03:55 > 0:03:59This picture, you know, it's one of the most famous landscape paintings

0:03:59 > 0:04:03in the world. I've asked myself, as an artist, why it's so iconic.

0:04:03 > 0:04:07You know, why is it sort of seared itself into the public imagination?

0:04:07 > 0:04:10We look at the hunters and their sort of slumped poses,

0:04:10 > 0:04:14and the way the dogs' heads are all kind of drooping down towards the

0:04:14 > 0:04:17snow. You know, we immediately get feelings of abjection,

0:04:17 > 0:04:22you're taken into that late afternoon, you know...

0:04:22 > 0:04:24For me, it's like,

0:04:24 > 0:04:28"Oh, God there's school tomorrow," it's an awfully depressing thing.

0:04:28 > 0:04:30But then in the background it's light and you're like,

0:04:30 > 0:04:33"Oh, the people are having fun, it's nice, they're all skating

0:04:33 > 0:04:37"on the ice." It's not a kind of uniformly pessimistic painting.

0:04:39 > 0:04:42Bruegel was one of the few Northern European painters who had

0:04:42 > 0:04:45travelled to Italy at this time.

0:04:45 > 0:04:47But it wasn't the great works of the Renaissance that influenced his

0:04:47 > 0:04:52pictures, it was the snowy landscape he had crossed on his journey.

0:04:52 > 0:04:56It's a made-up landscape. I mean, here we have the architecture

0:04:56 > 0:04:59and the people of Flanders juxtaposed with the Alps,

0:04:59 > 0:05:04you know, it doesn't exist this scene. The Alps were like

0:05:04 > 0:05:07the moon to people who lived in the low countries in this period.

0:05:09 > 0:05:14In the Renaissance, nobody thought of painting a winter's day.

0:05:14 > 0:05:18The sky should be blue, the atmosphere should be warm,

0:05:18 > 0:05:20that was what was beautiful,

0:05:20 > 0:05:24so winter was really a new idea in art,

0:05:24 > 0:05:27snow is beautiful, as well.

0:05:27 > 0:05:30It seems obvious to us now because it has been depicted in art for

0:05:30 > 0:05:34so long, but it was something that had to be invented,

0:05:34 > 0:05:35discovered, thought about.

0:05:36 > 0:05:40He's used the snow totally in the way that an art gallery

0:05:40 > 0:05:43works against the back of a painting,

0:05:43 > 0:05:48it's a stark nothingness against which, life moves.

0:05:48 > 0:05:51And so that's why it works, there's no different tones of snow,

0:05:51 > 0:05:55it's all crisp, white, there's no melting going on here,

0:05:55 > 0:05:58this is your perfect fantasy of a snowy day.

0:05:58 > 0:06:01And there is an element of truth about that. If you're

0:06:01 > 0:06:04out in the landscape in the snow, it always has a sort of a fluorescent

0:06:04 > 0:06:08glow to it that kind of comes up from the ground, and it bleaches out

0:06:08 > 0:06:13all the shadows like a slightly overexposed photograph.

0:06:13 > 0:06:16I mean there are the footprints of the hunters but, yeah,

0:06:16 > 0:06:19it's a pretty pristine scene, it is fairyland.

0:06:24 > 0:06:27Bruegel was one of the first painters whose work had

0:06:27 > 0:06:29overtly social and political messages,

0:06:29 > 0:06:33and this has made his pictures easily adaptable for parody.

0:06:33 > 0:06:36Hunters In The Snow remains immensely popular

0:06:36 > 0:06:39with political cartoonists.

0:06:39 > 0:06:43Most people know the title of the painting so they know what

0:06:43 > 0:06:47the context is that you're putting your political figures in.

0:06:47 > 0:06:51And so I subvert it, really, and it has to have a theme,

0:06:51 > 0:06:54if you like, and the one I did for The Spectator at Christmas

0:06:54 > 0:06:59last year was based on the Eurozone, and how that was collapsing.

0:06:59 > 0:07:02It's quite a depressing painting in a strange way,

0:07:02 > 0:07:06the colours are very muted and green, green-grey.

0:07:06 > 0:07:11And one of the great joys of parodying it

0:07:11 > 0:07:17is the fact that snow is obviously white, and what you're leaving is

0:07:17 > 0:07:19the whiteness of the paper, and that's terrific.

0:07:19 > 0:07:22I'll show you, basically, how it's done.

0:07:24 > 0:07:26I have several trees.

0:07:26 > 0:07:29I think there are four or five trees in the painting.

0:07:29 > 0:07:32Trees were the nicest thing to draw, actually, in a strange way.

0:07:32 > 0:07:39But where the trees end you've got this lovely absence of anything,

0:07:39 > 0:07:45which is what the snow is and just by leaving areas completely white

0:07:45 > 0:07:48and empty, you're creating something

0:07:48 > 0:07:53that's physically there, and you're making a picture out of it.

0:07:53 > 0:07:57He was just good at making it look bloody cold, really.

0:08:02 > 0:08:06Hunters In The Snow was an immediate hit for Bruegel.

0:08:06 > 0:08:09He had connected with something elemental about the experience

0:08:09 > 0:08:13of winter that we can still find in the picture today.

0:08:15 > 0:08:22The picture actually captures a very primal scene, one that is,

0:08:22 > 0:08:28in some way, hard-wired into our perception of the seasonal, maybe

0:08:28 > 0:08:35that's why it keys in so strongly to those of us who experience a winter.

0:08:35 > 0:08:40To this day, I cannot come over the snowy brow of a hill without

0:08:40 > 0:08:46thinking of that image, it's so intrinsic to the way that I perceive

0:08:46 > 0:08:51the juxtaposition between the cold outdoors and the warm inside.

0:08:51 > 0:08:54These elements seem to me

0:08:54 > 0:09:02to speak of a deep, atavistic human need for security and shelter, and

0:09:02 > 0:09:09also a kind of delight to the eye in wandering between the evocations of

0:09:09 > 0:09:12cold and winter in the foreground, and then, although of course it's

0:09:12 > 0:09:16very snowy in the mid-ground, there is the suggestion everywhere that

0:09:16 > 0:09:19there will be warmth down there, around the churchyard

0:09:19 > 0:09:22and around the hamlet and in the village.

0:09:22 > 0:09:25You know, even if we're with the hunters in the snow for a minute,

0:09:25 > 0:09:28there's a kind of Potterton boiler just down here.

0:09:30 > 0:09:35We have to ask why does the winter landscape gradually become

0:09:35 > 0:09:38a thing we can appreciate as beautiful,

0:09:38 > 0:09:40a thing that we can enjoy?

0:09:40 > 0:09:42And, of course, we can enjoy winter landscapes today

0:09:42 > 0:09:45because we can go back indoors and put the central heating on,

0:09:45 > 0:09:48so it's rather fascinating to look back

0:09:48 > 0:09:53and wonder at what points people have felt comfortable enough,

0:09:53 > 0:09:57have had a good enough quality of life, enough food and firewood,

0:09:57 > 0:10:02to be able to go outside into the cold and enjoy it.

0:10:05 > 0:10:09The position that the viewer occupies is sort of slightly up

0:10:09 > 0:10:12and behind the hunters.

0:10:12 > 0:10:15You're actually in the kind of position you're in nowadays

0:10:15 > 0:10:20in computer gaming when you pull back behind the head of an avatar.

0:10:20 > 0:10:24We're in a highly cinematic position to see

0:10:24 > 0:10:26the development of where the hunters are going to go,

0:10:26 > 0:10:31and ineluctably, you want to go with the hunters, quite clearly

0:10:31 > 0:10:33you're with the hunters, you want to seek that warmth.

0:10:35 > 0:10:39The painting perfectly captured a universally-shared emotional

0:10:39 > 0:10:43response to the experience of winter and showed that this darkest

0:10:43 > 0:10:46time of year could make a powerful subject for art.

0:10:48 > 0:10:53No-one seemed more pleased with this discovery than Bruegel himself.

0:10:53 > 0:10:55There is evidence he may even have gone back

0:10:55 > 0:10:58and added snow to paintings he had already finished.

0:11:02 > 0:11:05Bruegel was also a pioneer in another sense.

0:11:05 > 0:11:08Though there is no mention in the Bible of the time of year

0:11:08 > 0:11:12when Jesus was born, the Christian church had established

0:11:12 > 0:11:16the festival of the Nativity in the depths of winter.

0:11:16 > 0:11:19Bruegel was the first person to take this literally

0:11:19 > 0:11:23and set the events of the Christmas story in the snow,

0:11:23 > 0:11:26giving them a dramatic new realism for people who were

0:11:26 > 0:11:31experiencing exactly the conditions they saw in his paintings.

0:11:31 > 0:11:36Perhaps his most shocking scene is The Massacre Of The Innocents.

0:11:36 > 0:11:39He was working in a time when there was war in Flanders,

0:11:39 > 0:11:44the Spanish army were engaged in quite severe reprisals.

0:11:44 > 0:11:50He sets it not in ancient times but in his own time, in a village

0:11:50 > 0:11:54in a sort of village high street and soldiers are coming down the street,

0:11:54 > 0:12:00not Roman soldiers, they're Spanish soldiers, and it's terrifying.

0:12:00 > 0:12:04It's a bit like nowadays they might set a Shakespeare play in Iraq.

0:12:04 > 0:12:07This painting is very political in that it's

0:12:07 > 0:12:11set in a very brutal biblical scene, I mean, probably

0:12:11 > 0:12:14one of the most brutal, The Massacre Of The Innocents,

0:12:14 > 0:12:18and he's using that to get at the Spanish invaders.

0:12:18 > 0:12:22And here, Bruegel has painted it in the snow,

0:12:22 > 0:12:25emphasising the time of year, but also the kind of abject

0:12:25 > 0:12:30misery of the scene, the brutality and harshness

0:12:30 > 0:12:34is made all the more stark against the white background of the snow.

0:12:35 > 0:12:40In Bruegel's darkest paintings, the cruelty of winter is

0:12:40 > 0:12:45an image of the harshness of mortal life.

0:12:45 > 0:12:49It's merciless and it's an image of the unrelenting nature of winter,

0:12:49 > 0:12:53and perhaps, by extension, of the unrelenting nature of war.

0:12:58 > 0:13:01The cruel snow of Bruegel's Massacre

0:13:01 > 0:13:03was a reflection of the time in which he lived.

0:13:04 > 0:13:10The extreme cold of the Little Ice Age set in for the next 250 years,

0:13:10 > 0:13:14but these bitter winters could sometimes provide

0:13:14 > 0:13:16opportunities for amusement.

0:13:18 > 0:13:22The change in the climate was keenly felt in Britain, too,

0:13:22 > 0:13:25most famously causing the Thames to freeze over more regularly.

0:13:28 > 0:13:33In 1621, as a consequence, the Lord Mayor licensed more butchers

0:13:33 > 0:13:36to compensate for the scarcity of fish.

0:13:38 > 0:13:43But the cold was not the only thing that contributed to this phenomenon.

0:13:43 > 0:13:46The way that Old London Bridge was built was also a factor.

0:13:49 > 0:13:54This view of the river in 1677 was painted by Abraham Hondius,

0:13:54 > 0:13:58a Dutchman who had recently moved to London.

0:13:58 > 0:14:02The Old London Bridge has lots and lots of little arches,

0:14:02 > 0:14:06and these are big platforms in between, which block the flow

0:14:06 > 0:14:11of the river. As you soon as you had a few blocks of ice in the river,

0:14:11 > 0:14:17they'd nudge up against the piers, get trapped, and before you know it,

0:14:17 > 0:14:22the whole area to either side of London Bridge was frozen solid.

0:14:22 > 0:14:25Hondius has painted a confident Dutchman

0:14:25 > 0:14:27on skates amongst the revellers.

0:14:27 > 0:14:29He would have been very familiar with the frozen dykes

0:14:29 > 0:14:31and canals of Holland,

0:14:31 > 0:14:36but his Londoners are astonished by this alien environment.

0:14:36 > 0:14:38The British are not used to this.

0:14:38 > 0:14:40They're clambering and falling all over the place.

0:14:40 > 0:14:43I think there's a way in which Hondius is having

0:14:43 > 0:14:47a laugh at them. These are grown men turned into children again.

0:14:47 > 0:14:50He gives chaps like this a kind of heroic position,

0:14:50 > 0:14:53clambering on top of the ice floes here.

0:14:53 > 0:14:57The river has frozen right from the bridge up to

0:14:57 > 0:14:59Southwark Cathedral, which we can see over there,

0:14:59 > 0:15:04which at that point dominated the skyline. But it's not a flat

0:15:04 > 0:15:10surface at all, we've got these shards and splinters of ice.

0:15:11 > 0:15:14The ferrymen were out of work

0:15:14 > 0:15:18because they couldn't ply their trade across the water,

0:15:18 > 0:15:21and so they, rather proprietarily, decided that they could

0:15:21 > 0:15:24charge people to come down onto the ice, and then charge them again

0:15:24 > 0:15:27to leave the ice the other side. So people queued up,

0:15:27 > 0:15:30you can see them queuing to come down the steps here.

0:15:30 > 0:15:34And chap here being told to reach in his pocket for coins, but it

0:15:34 > 0:15:36was clearly worth paying your few coins

0:15:36 > 0:15:38cos this was like some kind of theme park.

0:15:41 > 0:15:46Hondius was very interested in the ways in which we imagined remote

0:15:46 > 0:15:49and extreme places, and in this same year, 1677,

0:15:49 > 0:15:54he painted what he called an arctic adventure, which actually looks very

0:15:54 > 0:16:01similar to this in that he imagines this barren, ice-clad landscape.

0:16:01 > 0:16:03So actually, he's making the centre of London

0:16:03 > 0:16:05into a version of the Arctic.

0:16:07 > 0:16:11Five years later, the arctic conditions returned.

0:16:11 > 0:16:15In 1683, Britain suffered what may have been the coldest

0:16:15 > 0:16:17winter of the Little Ice Age.

0:16:18 > 0:16:21Once again, the Thames froze but on this occasion

0:16:21 > 0:16:24the stillness of the air and the abrupt and dramatic drop

0:16:24 > 0:16:29in temperature left the river with a surface as smooth as glass.

0:16:29 > 0:16:33This virgin real estate was quickly colonised by entrepreneurial

0:16:33 > 0:16:37Londoners, who created a winter wonderland of epic proportions

0:16:37 > 0:16:41without paying a penny in rent for their premises.

0:16:41 > 0:16:46We're just in the right spot here, we can see Temple straight ahead,

0:16:46 > 0:16:49and this whole area became known as Temple Street,

0:16:49 > 0:16:51because it was actually a street.

0:16:51 > 0:16:54There were carriages crossing the river at this point.

0:16:54 > 0:16:57There were people queueing, thousands of people,

0:16:57 > 0:17:01flocking down onto the Thames to see this spectacle.

0:17:01 > 0:17:05And hundreds of little booths

0:17:05 > 0:17:08selling anything that you wanted on the ice.

0:17:08 > 0:17:12There was an unwritten but widely respected feeling that this

0:17:12 > 0:17:16temporary terra firma was somehow not part of the realm,

0:17:16 > 0:17:19and not subject to the normal laws of the land.

0:17:19 > 0:17:23The huge crowds attracted by the spectacle contained an uneasy mix

0:17:23 > 0:17:28of all classes and the courtesies of society were not respected.

0:17:28 > 0:17:31The King brought the Royal Family down

0:17:31 > 0:17:32to see what all the fuss was about,

0:17:32 > 0:17:36and left with this commemorative card recording his attendance.

0:17:37 > 0:17:42I suppose the whole obsession with souvenirs was really

0:17:42 > 0:17:49the sense that this absolutely transitory carnival would vanish

0:17:49 > 0:17:51overnight, absolutely just vanish.

0:17:51 > 0:17:56This city on ice - it really is a whole city, isn't it? -

0:17:56 > 0:17:59would be gone in an instant.

0:18:00 > 0:18:03The sense that the punters at the frost fair were

0:18:03 > 0:18:07living on borrowed time subsided as the cold continued.

0:18:07 > 0:18:11The river was frozen for ten weeks and this enforced holiday had

0:18:11 > 0:18:14a devastating effect on the economy of the city.

0:18:15 > 0:18:19The fact that the Thames froze over almost brought the city

0:18:19 > 0:18:21to a standstill. And what do you do if you're forced to have

0:18:21 > 0:18:25a holiday in England? You go and put on a carnival like this.

0:18:27 > 0:18:32London's frost fairs demonstrated our ability to adapt to anything

0:18:32 > 0:18:36the weather could throw at us, and have a good time in the process.

0:18:36 > 0:18:40In the 19th century, the medieval London Bridge was rebuilt,

0:18:40 > 0:18:44the river embanked and the ice never returned.

0:18:44 > 0:18:47Londoners may have lost their opportunity for a midwinter party,

0:18:47 > 0:18:51but we were not alone in challenging the elements by having

0:18:51 > 0:18:53fun at the coldest time of the year.

0:18:55 > 0:18:58The Catholic Church adroitly adapted ancient

0:18:58 > 0:19:02seasonal rituals to its own ends, and before the austerity of Lent,

0:19:02 > 0:19:05revellers had traditionally celebrated their last chance

0:19:05 > 0:19:09for feasting and excess in the depths of winter with a carnival.

0:19:17 > 0:19:20Nowhere was this tradition more indulgently embraced

0:19:20 > 0:19:23than in the serene Republic of Venice.

0:19:24 > 0:19:29This picture by Francesco Guardi, painted in the 1780s,

0:19:29 > 0:19:33shows the celebrations on Giovedi Grasso, the Thursday before Lent.

0:19:35 > 0:19:40Well, what's so fantastic about this picture is the atmosphere, really.

0:19:40 > 0:19:44There's just this sort of extraordinary sense of a party

0:19:44 > 0:19:47going on, which I really, really like.

0:19:47 > 0:19:50I think there are lots of reasons for the carnival.

0:19:50 > 0:19:56Fundamentally, it was about surviving this long, often really bitterly

0:19:56 > 0:20:01cold winter. It's saying, "Winter's OK, winter can actually be fun."

0:20:01 > 0:20:04And it's also about what Venice is,

0:20:04 > 0:20:10it establishes a kind of great sense of collective solidarity

0:20:10 > 0:20:13between all the different people who lived in Venice.

0:20:14 > 0:20:17As a good Venetian, Guardi was reflecting this

0:20:17 > 0:20:20solidarity in one crucial respect -

0:20:20 > 0:20:23no-one in his painting looks ready to admit that it was too cold

0:20:23 > 0:20:26to be behaving like this.

0:20:26 > 0:20:31I don't know what time Easter was that year, but it's on the

0:20:31 > 0:20:34Thursday, Giovedi Grasso,

0:20:34 > 0:20:38and we're here on a Saturday,

0:20:38 > 0:20:41two days later, in other words,

0:20:41 > 0:20:46and all I can say is that it's seriously, freezing cold.

0:20:46 > 0:20:49They all look quite relaxed,

0:20:49 > 0:20:52and actually, the woman in the front, she's in a state

0:20:52 > 0:20:56of slight undress. And of course, during the carnival in Venice that

0:20:56 > 0:21:00would actually be quite difficult because what the picture doesn't

0:21:00 > 0:21:05show us is how incredibly cold it can be in the winter in Venice.

0:21:05 > 0:21:09The wind seems as though it's coming straight from Russia.

0:21:11 > 0:21:13Francesco Guardi was a vedutista,

0:21:13 > 0:21:17a Venetian view painter, a few years younger than Canaletto,

0:21:17 > 0:21:20but he outlived his more famous rival by 25 years.

0:21:22 > 0:21:25I prefer Guardi to Canaletto, because he really does

0:21:25 > 0:21:29capture a sense of the movement and people of Venice.

0:21:29 > 0:21:32In Canaletto, it's all about order,

0:21:32 > 0:21:36and kind of Venice as it ought to be. Whereas in this painting, you've

0:21:36 > 0:21:41got Venice as it really is and it's about people having a great time.

0:21:41 > 0:21:45Guardi didn't know it but his picture showed the Doge

0:21:45 > 0:21:48presiding over one of the last carnivals.

0:21:48 > 0:21:54Four years after his death in 1797, Napoleon invaded Northern Italy

0:21:54 > 0:21:57and brought an end to 1,000 years of the Republic.

0:21:57 > 0:22:00The defeated Venetians stopped celebrating

0:22:00 > 0:22:02the carnival at the same time.

0:22:02 > 0:22:07The carnival was only revived in the 1970s,

0:22:07 > 0:22:12really for commercial reasons, it was to bring tourists into the city

0:22:12 > 0:22:16in February when normally it was a very low season.

0:22:16 > 0:22:20There is still quite a lot about it that we can recognise.

0:22:20 > 0:22:23There's a temporary structure over there in Piazza San Marco,

0:22:23 > 0:22:29just like the temporary structure in Guardi's painting. And, also a whole

0:22:29 > 0:22:34kind of atmosphere of dance and chaos and movement. You look at

0:22:34 > 0:22:39the acrobats and it looks as though they're just about to fall over.

0:22:39 > 0:22:42Although it is more commercial, you look around you

0:22:42 > 0:22:46and people are really having fun, people are wearing masks,

0:22:46 > 0:22:51people are really getting together and having a party.

0:22:51 > 0:22:54The joy, the sheer joy, despite the freezing cold,

0:22:54 > 0:22:58of being in Venice for an event like this, and I think in that

0:22:58 > 0:23:03respect there are really a lot of similarities

0:23:03 > 0:23:07between this painting and what we're seeing going on around us today.

0:23:12 > 0:23:17Venice became a political bargaining chip in Napoleon's European wars,

0:23:17 > 0:23:20and began a long period of decline.

0:23:22 > 0:23:24But centuries of indolence

0:23:24 > 0:23:27and extravagance had fitted her quite well for her new

0:23:27 > 0:23:29role as a tourist curiosity.

0:23:34 > 0:23:39Celebrating in winter didn't have to be such an ostentatious affair.

0:23:39 > 0:23:41The city of Edinburgh could certainly match Venice

0:23:41 > 0:23:43when it came to cold weather,

0:23:43 > 0:23:47but the new rational sensibilities of the Scottish Enlightenment

0:23:47 > 0:23:50led to more reserved ways to have fun in the cold.

0:23:53 > 0:23:57Since the union with England in 1707, Scotland had steadily

0:23:57 > 0:24:01increased in material prosperity, but it was in the fields

0:24:01 > 0:24:05of science and the arts that a new confidence was most evident.

0:24:05 > 0:24:09An English visitor famously claimed to be able to stand at the

0:24:09 > 0:24:15cross in Edinburgh and take 50 men of genius and learning by the hand.

0:24:15 > 0:24:18Had he done so, it's a safe bet that many of them would have

0:24:18 > 0:24:22recently had their portrait painted by Sir Henry Raeburn.

0:24:24 > 0:24:28In the 1790s, amusing themselves away from their books,

0:24:28 > 0:24:31several of these men of learning established

0:24:31 > 0:24:33the Edinburgh Figure Skating Club,

0:24:33 > 0:24:36and met at The Sheep Heid Inn in Duddingston.

0:24:36 > 0:24:40In the depths of winter, when the cold weather froze the nearby loch,

0:24:40 > 0:24:43their leading light, the Reverend Robert Walker, took to the ice.

0:24:46 > 0:24:50I think the Reverend Walker's right in front of us, because there,

0:24:50 > 0:24:52going up the back of Arthur's Seat and then over to

0:24:52 > 0:24:55Duddingston village, you've got the gentle hills moving down.

0:24:55 > 0:24:57You can't see any of the houses of Duddingston village,

0:24:57 > 0:25:01but I think he was being observed by Raeburn

0:25:01 > 0:25:03roughly from where we are now.

0:25:03 > 0:25:08The sky is that icy, watery, grey-blue of a Scottish winter

0:25:08 > 0:25:12and I remember days like that, because as a child,

0:25:12 > 0:25:15we went skating on the lochs all the time so it must have been colder.

0:25:15 > 0:25:18Also, in Scotland, people were very stoic in the winter.

0:25:18 > 0:25:20Winters were long and hard and dark.

0:25:20 > 0:25:23Look, here he is, making the most of it.

0:25:23 > 0:25:25If you look at the way Raeburn has done the cuts in the ice,

0:25:25 > 0:25:30there's lots of gliding movement, there's lots of circular movements,

0:25:30 > 0:25:33the Reverend Walker has been skating round for quite a while here.

0:25:33 > 0:25:35I don't think Raeburn painted this oil painting

0:25:35 > 0:25:39on the water, but he certainly took the sketches for it and he made sure

0:25:39 > 0:25:42that he showed that the Reverend Walker had to work for his portrait

0:25:42 > 0:25:44for quite a long time.

0:25:46 > 0:25:49Presbyterianism, the strict Protestant doctrine

0:25:49 > 0:25:53of the Church of Scotland, greatly approved of stoicism,

0:25:53 > 0:25:58but in many other respects it was an institution seemingly at odds

0:25:58 > 0:26:03with the rational and humanist ideals of the Enlightenment.

0:26:03 > 0:26:06Presbyterianism is regarded as being incredibly dour, but actually,

0:26:06 > 0:26:11this is not a pompous picture of a minister of the kirk saying,

0:26:11 > 0:26:14"Look at me, I can skate so beautifully on the loch,"

0:26:14 > 0:26:17"you know, I've been skating all my life." This is a minister who says,

0:26:17 > 0:26:19"Let's have a bit of fun." Look, he looks like a dandy.

0:26:19 > 0:26:23It's almost camp. He's got this beautiful frock-coat on,

0:26:23 > 0:26:27and his lovely hat and this white tied shirt at the neck,

0:26:27 > 0:26:32and he's got a slight smile on his face, which is what I love about it.

0:26:32 > 0:26:34A lot of the clergy were involved with the literati

0:26:34 > 0:26:37of the Scottish Enlightenment, and liked the conversation about science

0:26:37 > 0:26:40and the natural world, geology, geography.

0:26:40 > 0:26:43In Edinburgh, in this tiny area,

0:26:43 > 0:26:47you could just feel their brains sizzling.

0:26:47 > 0:26:50This is my favourite Scottish painting. This is my absolute

0:26:50 > 0:26:55favourite Scottish painting. This, to me, is what Scotland's all about.

0:26:58 > 0:27:02One of the great changes in the 18th century was homes have

0:27:02 > 0:27:06barometers in them, it's something that ordinary people start doing,

0:27:06 > 0:27:10is tapping their barometers to see whether today is changeable to fair.

0:27:10 > 0:27:16People have thermometers and so where Bruegel couldn't measure how

0:27:16 > 0:27:21cold his snowy scene was, it was only measurable in terms of what he

0:27:21 > 0:27:27felt on his skin. But for the 18th century artist,

0:27:27 > 0:27:32this is a very particular kind of cold. This is however many degrees

0:27:32 > 0:27:35below zero. So when we talk now about

0:27:35 > 0:27:38"the coldest winter since records began",

0:27:38 > 0:27:42we're really looking back to this time in the 18th century,

0:27:42 > 0:27:45when it occurred to people to start measuring.

0:27:48 > 0:27:52The casual grace of the Skating Minister, apparently immune

0:27:52 > 0:27:55to the bite of the Scottish winter, reflected a general lack of

0:27:55 > 0:27:59concern in these enlightened times for the threat from the weather.

0:28:01 > 0:28:04Protected in their modern houses in the terraces

0:28:04 > 0:28:08of Edinburgh's New Town, it seemed science and rational thought

0:28:08 > 0:28:12could solve all the problems that beset their superstitious ancestors.

0:28:14 > 0:28:17Winter was merely a natural consequence of the rotation

0:28:17 > 0:28:21of the Earth, and held no fear for men of learning.

0:28:24 > 0:28:27But the hubris of the Scottish Enlightenment's attitude to

0:28:27 > 0:28:31the weather was nothing compared to that of the newly appointed

0:28:31 > 0:28:34First Consul of France.

0:28:34 > 0:28:37Napoleon Bonaparte was confident he could conquer

0:28:37 > 0:28:41winter as a first step on his way to conquering the world.

0:28:44 > 0:28:48The Great St Bernard Pass, crossing the Alps between France

0:28:48 > 0:28:51and Northern Italy, was the scene of one of the most successful

0:28:51 > 0:28:53surprises in military history.

0:28:56 > 0:29:01Even today, the road through the pass is only open in the summer,

0:29:01 > 0:29:05but in the winter of 1800, Napoleon marched his army

0:29:05 > 0:29:07through these mountains.

0:29:16 > 0:29:20This extraordinary feat was painted by the French revolutionary

0:29:20 > 0:29:23enthusiast, Jacques-Louis David.

0:29:23 > 0:29:28His dramatic and inspirational portrait was designed to put

0:29:28 > 0:29:31Napoleon up there with the greatest generals of all time.

0:29:33 > 0:29:36In the pantheon of military greats there is a special place

0:29:36 > 0:29:39reserved for those who have campaigned in winter.

0:29:39 > 0:29:41It's the ultimate challenge.

0:29:42 > 0:29:46I mean, look at this painting, it's the apotheosis of heroic leadership.

0:29:46 > 0:29:49He looks calm, collected, the windswept hair,

0:29:49 > 0:29:51his mighty stallion rearing in the air,

0:29:51 > 0:29:55his finger pointed towards Italy and his enemies.

0:29:55 > 0:29:59This is the foundation myth of Napoleon as a warrior,

0:29:59 > 0:30:00leader of the French people.

0:30:02 > 0:30:06Napoleon's goal was the re-conquest of Northern Italy,

0:30:06 > 0:30:09and his enemies, the Austrians, were waiting for him in Genoa,

0:30:09 > 0:30:14confidently looking west along the coast for a French invasion.

0:30:14 > 0:30:18By taking a short cut across the Alps, Napoleon arrived unexpectedly

0:30:18 > 0:30:22at their rear and won a great victory at the Battle of Marengo.

0:30:24 > 0:30:26The most remarkable thing about this

0:30:26 > 0:30:29is that David never saw this pass, Napoleon never even sat

0:30:29 > 0:30:33for this portrait. He simply said he wished to be painted

0:30:33 > 0:30:36"Calme sur un cheval fougueux" -

0:30:36 > 0:30:38"Calm on a fiery steed."

0:30:38 > 0:30:41And that's exactly what David has done for him here.

0:30:43 > 0:30:46David was a believer, he was a political believer.

0:30:46 > 0:30:48He believed in the French Revolution,

0:30:48 > 0:30:51and I think when he painted this, he believed in Napoleon.

0:30:51 > 0:30:54This is a vision of Napoleon as more god than man.

0:30:55 > 0:30:59One thing about David, he's not a landscape artist.

0:30:59 > 0:31:02He is only interested in the crossing of the Alps

0:31:02 > 0:31:07as metaphor, as a historical image, so nature was only there

0:31:07 > 0:31:10to set off the man.

0:31:10 > 0:31:1450 years later, when another Frenchman, Paul Delaroche,

0:31:14 > 0:31:17painted the same event, the metaphor was gone.

0:31:17 > 0:31:21The only thing his far more historically accurate picture

0:31:21 > 0:31:25had in common with David's version was Napoleon's hat.

0:31:25 > 0:31:28Delaroche produces a very, very different painting

0:31:28 > 0:31:31but one, in fact, that is just as heroic because it's a far

0:31:31 > 0:31:34more realistic impression of the incredible odds that Napoleon

0:31:34 > 0:31:37had to overcome in order to get his army across this pass.

0:31:37 > 0:31:40We see, not a mighty stallion,

0:31:40 > 0:31:43but a mule pressed into service from a local village.

0:31:43 > 0:31:46The men behind him had their hats couched down, trying to keep the wind

0:31:46 > 0:31:50from blowing them off. Napoleon's breeches are mud-spattered,

0:31:50 > 0:31:54he's wearing his campaigning greatcoat, huddled against the cold.

0:31:54 > 0:31:57And he has a guide here, a peasant guide, leading him.

0:31:57 > 0:32:01The mighty First Consul of France in the hands of a Swiss peasant.

0:32:01 > 0:32:04Whichever version you buy into, what both these paintings do is provide

0:32:04 > 0:32:08evidence of the enduring obsession with people for Napoleon Bonaparte.

0:32:08 > 0:32:10Very embarrassingly, as a teenaged boy

0:32:10 > 0:32:13I had this painting on the wall of my bedroom, just as I was

0:32:13 > 0:32:16developing a great love of military history. And whatever you thought

0:32:16 > 0:32:21about Napoleon Bonaparte as a man, as a general, as a force of nature,

0:32:21 > 0:32:24he's one of the most exceptional commanders who has ever lived.

0:32:28 > 0:32:32It seemed perfectly reasonable of the Austrians to have ignored

0:32:32 > 0:32:35the possibility that Napoleon would arrive this way.

0:32:35 > 0:32:39The challenge of taking an army over this pass was unimaginable.

0:32:39 > 0:32:44At nearly 10,000 feet, the thin air makes every footstep an effort.

0:32:46 > 0:32:50At the very top of the pass is the Hospice of St Bernard.

0:32:50 > 0:32:54They say there's no such thing as a free lunch but no-one told Napoleon.

0:32:57 > 0:33:00The religious community up here have been providing

0:33:00 > 0:33:02life-saving hospitality for centuries.

0:33:02 > 0:33:05But I doubt they ever had a more demanding guest

0:33:05 > 0:33:07than Napoleon Bonaparte.

0:33:07 > 0:33:10Napoleon was famous for saying an army would march on its stomach,

0:33:10 > 0:33:11he was a famous logistician.

0:33:11 > 0:33:15And while they were here, the consumed 22,000 bottles of wine,

0:33:15 > 0:33:19a tonne and a half of cheese, and nearly a tonne of meat.

0:33:19 > 0:33:22He was also famous for being quite rapacious.

0:33:22 > 0:33:25He didn't tend to pay the bills that much and he certainly never paid the

0:33:25 > 0:33:28bill up here. But eventually, the monks got their own back.

0:33:28 > 0:33:31Francois Mitterrand, president of France, visited this wonderful

0:33:31 > 0:33:36monastery in the 1980s, and he finally, after about 200 years,

0:33:36 > 0:33:37paid the bill.

0:33:41 > 0:33:45Napoleon's achievement continued to inspire painters,

0:33:45 > 0:33:49becoming even more celebrated in the late 19th century.

0:33:49 > 0:33:54Outside, in front of the hospice, Edouard Castres painted this

0:33:54 > 0:33:56scene of the passage of Napoleon's soldiers.

0:33:58 > 0:34:01I'm looking down on Italy.

0:34:01 > 0:34:04And behind me, several hundred miles, is Paris.

0:34:04 > 0:34:07If you draw a line from Paris where Napoleon was to the Austrian

0:34:07 > 0:34:10army in Northern Italy, you come through here.

0:34:10 > 0:34:13Standing up here on the top of the world, he must have thought

0:34:13 > 0:34:16he had winter licked. He was a commander like no other.

0:34:16 > 0:34:21But 12 years later, it turned out he was a mere mortal, after all.

0:34:21 > 0:34:23He invaded Russia without the necessary supplies

0:34:23 > 0:34:28and winter clothing, and half a million of his men died.

0:34:28 > 0:34:30In the end, winter got its own back.

0:34:32 > 0:34:36In the years following his remarkable feat in this pass,

0:34:36 > 0:34:40Napoleon seemed invincible, a situation that led to a great deal

0:34:40 > 0:34:42of soul-searching in the nations he defeated.

0:34:44 > 0:34:48In Dresden, the work of the Romantic landscape painter,

0:34:48 > 0:34:52Caspar David Friedrich, reflected this brooding, sombre mood.

0:34:56 > 0:35:00Caspar Friedrich is born at a very interesting time in German history.

0:35:00 > 0:35:05On October 14th, 1806, Napoleon had crushed the

0:35:05 > 0:35:08Prussian army at Jena Auerstedt, and the Prussian army was

0:35:08 > 0:35:11considered the greatest professional army, at the time, in Europe.

0:35:11 > 0:35:16So this caused a real crisis in the way Germans and the German nations

0:35:16 > 0:35:18thought about themselves.

0:35:18 > 0:35:21They'd been defeated in the war and they really felt, well,

0:35:21 > 0:35:23"Who and what are we, where are we going,

0:35:23 > 0:35:25"we've got to reconstruct ourselves."

0:35:26 > 0:35:31What they find in this dark wounded space, is the Gothic sensibility.

0:35:31 > 0:35:34You might find vampires, you might find ruins,

0:35:34 > 0:35:39graveyards, areas which, represent melancholy, represent the sublime,

0:35:39 > 0:35:43represent terror, represent fear, represent anxiety.

0:35:43 > 0:35:46These are the areas that are really becoming more interesting to romantic

0:35:46 > 0:35:48writers and painters.

0:35:50 > 0:35:53The picture itself is a fairly grim image.

0:35:53 > 0:35:56Winter is obviously very bleak, everything's dead.

0:35:56 > 0:36:00We have in the forefront the snow-covered ground,

0:36:00 > 0:36:05a landscape of monks, of burial, and out of that comes these,

0:36:05 > 0:36:08almost fingers, or skeletal trees, grasping at the light which is

0:36:08 > 0:36:11coming from the sky.

0:36:11 > 0:36:14And at the top you see this little circle of the moon,

0:36:14 > 0:36:18which is suggestive of the redemptive force of Christianity.

0:36:21 > 0:36:27The Christian message of Friedrich's picture is not immediately evident.

0:36:27 > 0:36:32The ruined gothic tracery and bleak winter setting offer little comfort

0:36:32 > 0:36:36to a believer, but Friedrich's northern European Protestant faith

0:36:36 > 0:36:41led him to explore new ways to paint the experience of divinity in a

0:36:41 > 0:36:42secular world.

0:36:45 > 0:36:48I think it is radical, I think it would have been really

0:36:48 > 0:36:50startling for people looking at this

0:36:50 > 0:36:52at the beginning of the 19th century.

0:36:52 > 0:36:54We look at it and I suppose we see Gothic horror,

0:36:54 > 0:36:57and tropes of horror films and Twilight, perhaps,

0:36:57 > 0:36:59but for them it was something that was new.

0:36:59 > 0:37:03If you look at Christian art in the Catholic period

0:37:03 > 0:37:07it's full of stories and people and stuff.

0:37:07 > 0:37:10What he's doing as a good Lutheran is trying to look in nature,

0:37:10 > 0:37:13and finding evidence of the sublime, evidence of God, by looking

0:37:13 > 0:37:16into the book of nature, as Calvin would have put it,

0:37:16 > 0:37:18and reading in the book of nature,

0:37:18 > 0:37:21evidence of the presence and the purposes of God,

0:37:21 > 0:37:24and that would have been a new thing.

0:37:24 > 0:37:26Friedrich uses the power of nature

0:37:26 > 0:37:28to heighten the drama of his picture.

0:37:30 > 0:37:34In winter, in the face of this barren, unforgiving scene,

0:37:34 > 0:37:38we feel the need for solace more than ever.

0:37:38 > 0:37:42I mean, to a Christian, God in winter comes as no surprise because

0:37:42 > 0:37:44the incarnation, the birth of Jesus is

0:37:44 > 0:37:48something that happens not, you know, in bright sunshine

0:37:48 > 0:37:51and not in a fanfare and blaze of glory but somewhere very unexpected,

0:37:51 > 0:37:55the back of beyond, in the darkness of night, in winter, and the birth

0:37:55 > 0:37:59of a baby, in a manger. That's become so familiar to us

0:37:59 > 0:38:02we forget sometimes how surprising it is, but I think there's something

0:38:02 > 0:38:05about surprise, the sheer, counterintuitiveness of it,

0:38:05 > 0:38:07that Friedrich tries to capture.

0:38:07 > 0:38:11At the heart of Christianity, is Christ crucified, abandoned on the

0:38:11 > 0:38:15cross, who cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

0:38:15 > 0:38:18which is a cry which the world would seem to take up in the dead of

0:38:18 > 0:38:21winter, when the earth stands hard as iron and it's cold and it's

0:38:21 > 0:38:25wretched and it's miserable, and that's that sense in Friedrich.

0:38:25 > 0:38:28He doesn't underestimate that at all, he doesn't gloss

0:38:28 > 0:38:30the darkness and the fierceness and the cold,

0:38:30 > 0:38:34but he never loses grip on the hope that's implicit in it, too.

0:38:34 > 0:38:36It's very subtle.

0:38:38 > 0:38:42The subtlety of Friedrich's Gothic imagination would ultimately see his

0:38:42 > 0:38:46powerful imagery become the stock in trade of the horror movie, but his

0:38:46 > 0:38:48popularity has been very variable.

0:38:50 > 0:38:54Though this painting had been bought by the King of Prussia,

0:38:54 > 0:38:56by the time of his death he was largely forgotten.

0:38:57 > 0:39:00Friedrich was revived in the early 20th century,

0:39:00 > 0:39:04specifically by German Expressionist filmmakers who directly take their

0:39:04 > 0:39:08ideas from Friedrich. Now this is interesting because Friedrich's

0:39:08 > 0:39:11painting, of course, comes straight after a terrible German defeat,

0:39:11 > 0:39:15by Napoleon, and in the same way, this same anxiety,

0:39:15 > 0:39:19this same introspection comes straight after the First World War,

0:39:19 > 0:39:22with the rise of German Expressionist cinema.

0:39:22 > 0:39:25We see this in films like Dr Caligari,

0:39:25 > 0:39:27which deals specifically with mental illness,

0:39:27 > 0:39:30and with Nosferatu which deals with the invasion of a

0:39:30 > 0:39:34foreign, plague-ridden vampire, into the midst of a German town.

0:39:35 > 0:39:40The cinematic drama of Friedrich's dark winter landscapes was a sombre

0:39:40 > 0:39:44Germanic response to the Napoleonic Wars, but for his restless British

0:39:44 > 0:39:46contemporary, Joseph Turner,

0:39:46 > 0:39:49the fighting was merely an irritating inconvenience that

0:39:49 > 0:39:52prevented him from travelling to the continent.

0:39:53 > 0:39:58In 1802 he managed a brief visit to Switzerland during a lull in the

0:39:58 > 0:40:02conflict, but he was still using the sketches as inspiration eight years

0:40:02 > 0:40:07later when he painted this view of an avalanche in the Alps.

0:40:07 > 0:40:10He's a painter's painter, you could say that Caspar David Friedrich,

0:40:10 > 0:40:14his great German contemporary, is a photographer's painter,

0:40:14 > 0:40:17he has a kind of stillness which appeals very much now.

0:40:17 > 0:40:21But Turner is about what painting can do, what oil paint can do.

0:40:21 > 0:40:25This is paint making a world and then smashing that world

0:40:25 > 0:40:27and then stirring it about

0:40:27 > 0:40:29and then loving the results.

0:40:29 > 0:40:33Winter, avalanche, snow, blizzards,

0:40:33 > 0:40:38these massive forces give Turner the opportunity to depict abstract

0:40:38 > 0:40:43energy and colour. If you wanted to depict the kind of abstract

0:40:43 > 0:40:50mystery of blinding whiteness, snow was the opportunity to do so.

0:40:50 > 0:40:54Bruegel saw that in the 16th century, and Turner sees it again.

0:40:54 > 0:40:58Snow for him is an opportunity to blast apart

0:40:58 > 0:41:01the conventions of realism.

0:41:02 > 0:41:05The British liked their conventions though,

0:41:05 > 0:41:09and took some persuading to see mountains in a new light.

0:41:10 > 0:41:14The Alps were generally regarded as something rather unpleasant

0:41:14 > 0:41:18and dangerous, to hurry through on your way to more congenial pleasures

0:41:18 > 0:41:19further south.

0:41:19 > 0:41:23The philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, put up the shutters on his coach

0:41:23 > 0:41:26with a shudder as they hove into view.

0:41:27 > 0:41:31Turner, the son of a London barber who grew up in Covent Garden,

0:41:31 > 0:41:35was struck dumb by their majesty,

0:41:35 > 0:41:39but their effect on his great friend and champion, John Ruskin, was akin

0:41:39 > 0:41:41to a divine revelation

0:41:41 > 0:41:45and it was his love of mountains that would bring about a profound

0:41:45 > 0:41:50change in our attitude to the whole idea of what winter was good for.

0:41:52 > 0:41:54Ruskin was first brought here by his parents

0:41:54 > 0:41:56when he was about 14 years old, in 1833,

0:41:56 > 0:41:59and, the experience, it's only fair to say, was religious.

0:41:59 > 0:42:02He felt that seeing something this beautiful,

0:42:02 > 0:42:05this astonishing, was absolute proof positive,

0:42:05 > 0:42:07that there was a benevolent God.

0:42:07 > 0:42:11Ruskin we remember as an art critic, but long before he became interested

0:42:11 > 0:42:14in painting he was fascinated by geology. Had he not become an art

0:42:14 > 0:42:17critic he would probably have become England's greatest geologist.

0:42:17 > 0:42:20Long before the problems that are raised by Darwin with biological

0:42:20 > 0:42:23difficulties with Genesis,

0:42:23 > 0:42:26in fact, geology was the science which really started to inflict the

0:42:26 > 0:42:29wounds much earlier than Darwin. And Ruskin says that every time he

0:42:29 > 0:42:34reads his Bible nowadays, he hears the chink of the geologist's hammers

0:42:34 > 0:42:37at the end of every cadence, and it's as though there's a literal

0:42:37 > 0:42:40undermining of his faith by these people with their little pickaxes.

0:42:40 > 0:42:43So geology at once leads him to God and leads him away from God.

0:42:43 > 0:42:46It's a really fascinating paradox.

0:42:47 > 0:42:51Above the town of Chamonix, on the slopes of Mont Blanc,

0:42:51 > 0:42:55Ruskin recorded the progress of the Mer de Glace glacier.

0:42:57 > 0:42:59It's really amazing to look at this

0:42:59 > 0:43:02because Ruskin, though he didn't give himself any great airs

0:43:02 > 0:43:04as an artist, was very precise and if you

0:43:04 > 0:43:08look at the upper part of this engraving, you see the skyline is

0:43:08 > 0:43:12absolutely identical, every little chip, every little spur, every

0:43:12 > 0:43:15little needle, exactly the same.

0:43:15 > 0:43:18But then if you come down and look at the lower half of the picture,

0:43:18 > 0:43:23it's completely changed, it's dropped 150 metres.

0:43:24 > 0:43:27While Ruskin the artist painted the valley,

0:43:27 > 0:43:31Ruskin the scientist, an early enthusiast for the new medium of

0:43:31 > 0:43:36photography, made this Daguerreotype image of the scene.

0:43:36 > 0:43:39But for the local population, whichever way you looked at it,

0:43:39 > 0:43:43the glacier was a malevolent thing.

0:43:43 > 0:43:46We tend to think about glaciers as being relatively static,

0:43:46 > 0:43:50relatively immobile, but in fact,

0:43:50 > 0:43:55this particular gigantic flow of ice one year advanced by as much as

0:43:55 > 0:43:59450 metres, eating into local farmlands, destroying local livelihoods.

0:43:59 > 0:44:02There was a cartoon done at the time of the

0:44:02 > 0:44:06glacier as a kind of voracious white dragon, eating its way down through

0:44:06 > 0:44:09the hills with its wings spread out behind it, wings of snow.

0:44:09 > 0:44:12Ruskin would have loved that, for him dragons encapsulate everything that

0:44:12 > 0:44:14was evil, and in fact this whole

0:44:14 > 0:44:17area used to be known as the cursed mountain, the Mont Maudit.

0:44:17 > 0:44:21Bishops used to have to come and sprinkle holy water over it to

0:44:21 > 0:44:23diffuse the evil spirits.

0:44:23 > 0:44:27So, by loving this place so much, by saying that it's actually not a

0:44:27 > 0:44:30place of evil but a place of beauty, Ruskin was really going against a

0:44:30 > 0:44:33very substantial folk tradition in the area.

0:44:36 > 0:44:39The farmers of Chamonix were never going to love the glacier as Ruskin

0:44:39 > 0:44:43did, but he won an increasingly adoring following

0:44:43 > 0:44:45back home in Britain.

0:44:45 > 0:44:48His passion for this landscape was so infectious that,

0:44:48 > 0:44:52almost single-handedly, he started the fashion for winter tourism.

0:44:57 > 0:44:59Ruskin has to be held culpable for developments

0:44:59 > 0:45:02that would have made him weep.

0:45:02 > 0:45:05With all due respect to the people who come here for their vacations,

0:45:05 > 0:45:08that's fine, but had Ruskin seen the ski lifts, had he seen the

0:45:08 > 0:45:11cafes, had he seen all the attendant paraphernalia,

0:45:11 > 0:45:13I'm afraid he would have broken into tears.

0:45:15 > 0:45:21Another of Ruskin's favourite views is on the other side of the valley.

0:45:21 > 0:45:24Today the ski lift cuts short what, for Ruskin,

0:45:24 > 0:45:28would have been a quite considerable expedition,

0:45:28 > 0:45:31climbing several thousand feet above the town.

0:45:39 > 0:45:41This view across Chamonix to what used to be called

0:45:41 > 0:45:44the Waterfall of Madness, Cascade de la Folie,

0:45:44 > 0:45:46was a scene he was particularly fond of.

0:45:46 > 0:45:49It's a very fine piece of work and of course it's charged with Ruskin's

0:45:49 > 0:45:51notion that this is as close as you

0:45:51 > 0:45:54can get, almost literally, to paradise on earth.

0:45:54 > 0:45:57Ruskin is a late romantic, which is one way of saying that he learned to

0:45:57 > 0:46:00find beautiful things that previous generations had found completely

0:46:00 > 0:46:02ugly, snow for example.

0:46:02 > 0:46:04In some ways his love of snow is an extension of

0:46:04 > 0:46:07his love of geology, in general, and of precious

0:46:07 > 0:46:09stones in particular.

0:46:09 > 0:46:12It's as though the mountainsides around us were simply cascaded with

0:46:12 > 0:46:15beautiful white jewellery, but, of course, no-one

0:46:15 > 0:46:18before Ruskin would have seen it that way.

0:46:18 > 0:46:21This was all completely new to people as an aesthetic idea,

0:46:21 > 0:46:24but Ruskin was so trusted that they followed his example, I mean, it's

0:46:24 > 0:46:28almost impossible to exaggerate quite how much faith the broad,

0:46:28 > 0:46:31Victorian-educated public put in Ruskin, he has almost no

0:46:31 > 0:46:35counterpart in the modern world, you have to combine David Attenborough

0:46:35 > 0:46:39with Terence Conran with Jamie Oliver, or whatever. None of those

0:46:39 > 0:46:44even, none of those people singly, none of them put together, had quite

0:46:44 > 0:46:47the sway over the British public and were held in quite such affection

0:46:47 > 0:46:49and respect.

0:46:50 > 0:46:54Like Bruegel, Ruskin used his art to completely change the way people

0:46:54 > 0:46:56thought about winter. The precision

0:46:56 > 0:47:01of his draughtsmanship tamed the Alps and made them seem accessible.

0:47:01 > 0:47:04He established the idea that winter

0:47:04 > 0:47:06was something you could visit for a holiday.

0:47:08 > 0:47:10But his obsessive pursuit of accuracy was about to be turned on

0:47:10 > 0:47:14its head by a group of young Frenchmen who admired Turner as much

0:47:14 > 0:47:18as he did - but for all the wrong reasons.

0:47:21 > 0:47:25In their own way, the Impressionists were just as keen on accuracy,

0:47:25 > 0:47:28and were obsessive about something they called "snow effect,"

0:47:28 > 0:47:32the elusive colour of the shadows in a snowy landscape.

0:47:33 > 0:47:42This is Monet's first stab at snow effect, painted in Honfleur in 1867.

0:47:42 > 0:47:46As paintings, I personally think Monet's snow scenes, are the best

0:47:46 > 0:47:49since Bruegel. He's a painter of light, he's a painter of

0:47:49 > 0:47:55transitory effects, impressions, he's not interested in, sort of,

0:47:55 > 0:47:58underlying realities of things, he's interested in what it looks like

0:47:58 > 0:48:01right now, right now before my eyes as it changes.

0:48:01 > 0:48:05And it's that sense of the passing world, the effect of light on snow,

0:48:05 > 0:48:10these incredibly light, sensitive, graceful capturings of passing

0:48:10 > 0:48:14moments, this is what Monet's about.

0:48:14 > 0:48:17The notoriety of the early Impressionist exhibitions did not

0:48:17 > 0:48:22immediately lead to financial security for Monet. In 1878, poverty

0:48:22 > 0:48:27forced him to move to a rented house, shared with another family,

0:48:27 > 0:48:30in the village of Vetheuil, on the banks of the Seine,

0:48:30 > 0:48:3340 miles from Paris.

0:48:33 > 0:48:37Soon after the family moved to the village, Monet's wife Camille became

0:48:37 > 0:48:41seriously ill and, after the birth of their second child,

0:48:41 > 0:48:44her condition deteriorated.

0:48:44 > 0:48:49He was often forced to choose between paint or medicine for his wife.

0:48:49 > 0:48:51In a letter he said,

0:48:51 > 0:48:55"I haven't been able to work for a month now, lacking all colours."

0:48:57 > 0:49:00When you know what Monet was going through, in his life at the time,

0:49:00 > 0:49:03it makes you feel really differently about this painting. Monet is in the

0:49:03 > 0:49:09winter of his life, so it's fairly apt that it's so snowy.

0:49:09 > 0:49:12It's that bit where snow has gone from being really beautiful

0:49:12 > 0:49:15to being just like junky and dirty.

0:49:15 > 0:49:19It's not pristine snow, it's not about smoothness and purity,

0:49:19 > 0:49:22and everything looking peaceful, it's sort of out of

0:49:22 > 0:49:24control a little bit.

0:49:24 > 0:49:27I suppose that's probably how he felt at the time, out of control.

0:49:27 > 0:49:29What you can see here, are people.

0:49:29 > 0:49:33You don't see it at first because they're almost completely engulfed

0:49:33 > 0:49:37in the landscape, they're more like ghosts.

0:49:37 > 0:49:40And I think that's, incredibly poignant, as what's about

0:49:40 > 0:49:44to happen is that he will lose Camille. And she'll become a ghost.

0:49:51 > 0:49:55Camille died in September 1879.

0:49:55 > 0:49:59Some 40 years later, Monet described to a friend

0:49:59 > 0:50:01the thoughts that went through his mind

0:50:01 > 0:50:04as he sat next to their bed, looking at her corpse.

0:50:05 > 0:50:08"I caught myself in the act of mechanically analysing

0:50:08 > 0:50:11"the succession of appropriate colour gradations

0:50:11 > 0:50:15"which death was imposing on her immobile face.

0:50:15 > 0:50:18"Tones of blue, of yellow, of grey.

0:50:18 > 0:50:21"Even before I had the idea of setting down the features

0:50:21 > 0:50:24"to which I was so deeply attached,

0:50:24 > 0:50:28"my organism automatically reacted to the colour stimuli,

0:50:28 > 0:50:32"and my reflexes caught me up in spite of myself,

0:50:32 > 0:50:36"in an unconscious operation which was the daily course of my life."

0:50:38 > 0:50:41In this painting, she seems to be cocooned in ice.

0:50:43 > 0:50:47'This is such a tragic picture of Camille.'

0:50:47 > 0:50:50It might seem macabre that he was painting her on her deathbed,

0:50:50 > 0:50:54but, actually, it's completely what you have to do,

0:50:54 > 0:50:55what HE had to do.

0:50:55 > 0:51:01This compulsion to cherish her, and treasure her

0:51:01 > 0:51:03and, I guess, to not lose her completely.

0:51:03 > 0:51:07Trying to capture her in the brushstrokes, and stroking her.

0:51:07 > 0:51:12Because every single mark, is, that brush and that's a caress.

0:51:12 > 0:51:17And it's this kind of terrible, painful moment

0:51:17 > 0:51:20and the only way that he could have got through it is painting.

0:51:22 > 0:51:26Camille's death was followed by a brutally severe winter.

0:51:26 > 0:51:28On the 10th of December,

0:51:28 > 0:51:33the temperature reached a record low of -25 degrees.

0:51:33 > 0:51:36The Seine froze over completely.

0:51:36 > 0:51:38But by the thaw, Monet had managed to sell

0:51:38 > 0:51:41some of his winter landscapes of the village,

0:51:41 > 0:51:43and was busy painting the vast blocks of ice

0:51:43 > 0:51:47as they broke up and drifted downstream.

0:51:47 > 0:51:51His time in Vetheuil was to prove the turning point in Monet's life.

0:51:51 > 0:51:54He gained confidence, raised his prices,

0:51:54 > 0:51:56and his career began to prosper.

0:51:59 > 0:52:02Financial success for the French Impressionists

0:52:02 > 0:52:06was cemented by an exhibition that took place in 1886,

0:52:06 > 0:52:09and featured over 40 of Monet's paintings,

0:52:09 > 0:52:12but it didn't happen in Paris or London.

0:52:12 > 0:52:13It happened in New York.

0:52:15 > 0:52:18After suffering years of critical scorn at home,

0:52:18 > 0:52:20the Impressionists were immensely successful

0:52:20 > 0:52:23on the other side of the Atlantic.

0:52:23 > 0:52:25Monet's dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, said,

0:52:25 > 0:52:29"The American public does not laugh. It buys."

0:52:33 > 0:52:35In a great cultural exchange,

0:52:35 > 0:52:37many American painters travelled to Paris

0:52:37 > 0:52:40to learn about Impressionism first-hand.

0:52:40 > 0:52:42Amongst them was the man who was to become

0:52:42 > 0:52:44the pre-eminent American Impressionist,

0:52:44 > 0:52:45Childe Hassam.

0:52:49 > 0:52:51"The man who will go down to posterity

0:52:51 > 0:52:54"is the man who paints his own time

0:52:54 > 0:52:56"and the scenes of everyday life around him,"

0:52:56 > 0:53:00said Hassam, and there was certainly lots going on to paint.

0:53:01 > 0:53:04New York was just beginning to emerge

0:53:04 > 0:53:06as one of the world's great cities

0:53:06 > 0:53:09with its own distinct style and culture,

0:53:09 > 0:53:13and needed its own artists to recognise its changing status.

0:53:14 > 0:53:18Hassam loved snow and painted it wherever he was.

0:53:18 > 0:53:21He made this picture in his native Boston.

0:53:22 > 0:53:25Like Monet, Hassam wanted to paint the elements

0:53:25 > 0:53:28as he saw them in front of him at that moment,

0:53:28 > 0:53:31and was equally fascinated by the winter light,

0:53:31 > 0:53:34but his most enduring images of winter are of New York.

0:53:39 > 0:53:44This picture shows horse-drawn cabs struggling down Fifth Avenue.

0:53:44 > 0:53:46For Hassam, capturing winter in New York

0:53:46 > 0:53:49wasn't a question of getting out in the sunshine

0:53:49 > 0:53:52and exploring the snow effect in the shadows.

0:53:52 > 0:53:54He wanted to paint the blur of driving snow

0:53:54 > 0:53:56in the teeth of the storm.

0:53:59 > 0:54:02During that same winter, on the same street,

0:54:02 > 0:54:03a similar scene was created

0:54:03 > 0:54:06by another man who saw himself as an artist,

0:54:06 > 0:54:08but he was using a camera.

0:54:13 > 0:54:14This image is probably

0:54:14 > 0:54:18the world's first successful photograph of falling snow.

0:54:22 > 0:54:25Alfred Stieglitz was born in New York

0:54:25 > 0:54:27but spent ten years as a young man in Europe.

0:54:27 > 0:54:30When he returned to his native Manhattan,

0:54:30 > 0:54:33he was fired with enthusiasm for photography,

0:54:33 > 0:54:35convinced it was the art form of the future.

0:54:38 > 0:54:42At a time when serious photography required a bulky plate camera,

0:54:42 > 0:54:46Stieglitz purchased a smaller 4x5 inch model

0:54:46 > 0:54:50and began to photograph life on the streets of New York.

0:54:50 > 0:54:54His return to the city coincided with a run of terrible winters,

0:54:54 > 0:54:56and many of his most famous pictures

0:54:56 > 0:54:59are scenes of Manhattan in the snow,

0:54:59 > 0:55:03like this photograph, The Terminal.

0:55:03 > 0:55:05'Winter in New York is brutal.

0:55:05 > 0:55:07'It is absolutely brutal.'

0:55:07 > 0:55:09But what really happens in New York

0:55:09 > 0:55:11in the winter is life slows down,

0:55:11 > 0:55:15people stay inside as much as possible.

0:55:15 > 0:55:17So I imagine that Stieglitz had...

0:55:17 > 0:55:21I imagine he had a lot of fun walking around the city

0:55:21 > 0:55:23and kind of seeing it laid bare a little bit more,

0:55:23 > 0:55:25just like leaves fall off trees

0:55:25 > 0:55:27and you get to see the skeletons of the trees,

0:55:27 > 0:55:30you get to see kind of the inner workings of the city

0:55:30 > 0:55:32a little bit more, because there's less life on the street.

0:55:32 > 0:55:36In this picture you can see the curve of the tracks

0:55:36 > 0:55:37where the streetcars made their turn

0:55:37 > 0:55:39before going back north up to Harlem,

0:55:39 > 0:55:42and actually, this bus right behind me

0:55:42 > 0:55:45is following almost exactly that same curve,

0:55:45 > 0:55:47as it too turns around to go north.

0:55:47 > 0:55:49This picture is a window into the past.

0:55:49 > 0:55:51It's a glimpse into New York

0:55:51 > 0:55:54at a moment when it was changing incredibly rapidly.

0:55:54 > 0:55:56The 1890s was really the period

0:55:56 > 0:56:01where New York went from a local city to being a world capital.

0:56:01 > 0:56:04It was winter that drove those changes

0:56:04 > 0:56:07and really forced the city to become what it is today.

0:56:08 > 0:56:11Like the enlightened Scots 100 years earlier,

0:56:11 > 0:56:1519th century New Yorkers felt secure in their modern city,

0:56:15 > 0:56:19immune to the perils of the natural world.

0:56:19 > 0:56:24But winter likes to remind us of our frailty from time to time.

0:56:24 > 0:56:26The Great White Hurricane,

0:56:26 > 0:56:30a blizzard that hit the city on the night of 12th March 1888,

0:56:30 > 0:56:36killed 200 people and almost every form of infrastructure failed.

0:56:36 > 0:56:38The city was left paralysed,

0:56:38 > 0:56:42with no functioning transport or communication.

0:56:44 > 0:56:46By the end of the 19th century,

0:56:46 > 0:56:50lower Manhattan was turning into a financial capital of the world,

0:56:50 > 0:56:52and it relied on communication.

0:56:52 > 0:56:54Telegraph and telephone wires,

0:56:54 > 0:56:57and then, soon after, electrical wires as well.

0:56:57 > 0:57:00When they had a hard winter, like during the blizzard of '88,

0:57:00 > 0:57:01ice would form on those wires

0:57:01 > 0:57:04and the weight would cause the poles to come down or the wires to snap.

0:57:04 > 0:57:06That made the city decide

0:57:06 > 0:57:10to start enforcing the rules that were already on the books,

0:57:10 > 0:57:13that the utility companies had to put these wires underground,

0:57:13 > 0:57:14and you can see from these two pictures

0:57:14 > 0:57:16the drastic difference that made, right?

0:57:16 > 0:57:20It cleared out the street, which isn't very clear these days.

0:57:20 > 0:57:23But for a while, it cleared out the streetscape.

0:57:27 > 0:57:32For Stieglitz, there was no question what made the streetscape look best.

0:57:32 > 0:57:35Whenever it snowed, he would set out with his camera

0:57:35 > 0:57:37to capture New York transformed.

0:57:39 > 0:57:43He photographed the birth of the city we recognise today,

0:57:43 > 0:57:46like this view of the Flatiron building in the snow,

0:57:46 > 0:57:48at the dawn of the skyscraper age.

0:57:50 > 0:57:53Always experimenting, he dramatically cropped this picture

0:57:53 > 0:57:56to emphasise the building's verticality.

0:57:58 > 0:58:02"It appeared to be moving toward me like the bow of a monster steamer,"

0:58:02 > 0:58:07Stieglitz said, "A picture of a new America still in the making."

0:58:07 > 0:58:09As a prodigal son of New York,

0:58:09 > 0:58:13he returned to the city with a European modernist's eye.

0:58:13 > 0:58:16This picture, City Of Ambition,

0:58:16 > 0:58:18helped to establish the Manhattan skyline

0:58:18 > 0:58:21as a futurist Utopian icon,

0:58:21 > 0:58:24But the street plan still betrays

0:58:24 > 0:58:26the original landscape it was built on.

0:58:30 > 0:58:32There's a clue about what used to be here in the name.

0:58:32 > 0:58:36Canal Street. It used to be a canal that drained lower Manhattan.

0:58:36 > 0:58:40Now the drainage ditch is still here. It's today a sewer,

0:58:40 > 0:58:43and it was actually New York's very first covered sewer.

0:58:43 > 0:58:45When you get a big snowfall, for example,

0:58:45 > 0:58:46and all of that snow melts

0:58:46 > 0:58:48and you don't want it flooding the streets,

0:58:48 > 0:58:51that has to go out to the rivers.

0:58:51 > 0:58:54Steve describes himself as a guerrilla historian

0:58:54 > 0:58:57and his explorations of lost urban infrastructure

0:58:57 > 0:58:59are not always done

0:58:59 > 0:59:02with permission from the relevant authorities.

0:59:02 > 0:59:05So I try not to have an audience sometimes when I do this,

0:59:05 > 0:59:08cos they wouldn't always understand.

0:59:10 > 0:59:13To my mind, what's really cool is that when you go underground,

0:59:13 > 0:59:14you can go into the past.

0:59:14 > 0:59:16You can see how the city used to be.

0:59:16 > 0:59:18Still flowin'!

0:59:24 > 0:59:26SIRENS BLARE

0:59:30 > 0:59:33Even today, blizzards can threaten loss of life,

0:59:33 > 0:59:36but centrally-heated urban environments

0:59:36 > 0:59:40insulate us from the harsh reality of extreme climate events,

0:59:40 > 0:59:42and from the patterns of the year.

0:59:43 > 0:59:45At the end of the 19th century

0:59:45 > 0:59:48the population balance shifted rapidly.

0:59:48 > 0:59:50More and more people became city dwellers,

0:59:50 > 0:59:53and sought to remove the possibility

0:59:53 > 0:59:55that climate could interfere with commerce.

0:59:58 > 1:00:02Winter seemed irksome at worst, and as the last snow melted away,

1:00:02 > 1:00:05the fatal power of the cold was forgotten.

1:00:09 > 1:00:13In pursuit of the elusive connection to the seasonal rhythms,

1:00:13 > 1:00:16the Italian painter, Giovanni Segantini

1:00:16 > 1:00:19left the industrial city of Milan where he had grown up

1:00:19 > 1:00:23for the more extreme climate of the Alps.

1:00:23 > 1:00:27Painting in the mountains above the Swiss town of St Moritz,

1:00:27 > 1:00:31he rediscovered the power of winter as a metaphor for death.

1:00:33 > 1:00:36Housed in a museum dedicated to his work,

1:00:36 > 1:00:39the triptych, Life, Nature and Death

1:00:39 > 1:00:42showed landscapes from the local Engadin valley.

1:00:44 > 1:00:46"Death" is a winter dawn.

1:00:49 > 1:00:52Giovanni Segantini, he was really attracted to winter

1:00:52 > 1:00:56because it was such an extreme season for him.

1:00:56 > 1:00:59The white of the snow fascinated him,

1:00:59 > 1:01:03and he really played also with the light and the colours,

1:01:03 > 1:01:08because the reflections in winter are so much stronger.

1:01:08 > 1:01:11So for him, it was just something magic.

1:01:12 > 1:01:16You can basically feel the crispy air in his paintings.

1:01:18 > 1:01:22That Segantini became a painter at all was something of a miracle.

1:01:25 > 1:01:27He lost his mother when he was only five years-old

1:01:27 > 1:01:31and his father took him to a sister in Milan

1:01:31 > 1:01:35and there he had a very gruesome and difficult childhood.

1:01:35 > 1:01:37He was actually a street kid.

1:01:37 > 1:01:40But he didn't feel comfortable in a big town like Milan

1:01:40 > 1:01:43so he was looking for nature.

1:01:43 > 1:01:47He just wanted to go higher up, and that was towards the light,

1:01:47 > 1:01:49towards the mountains.

1:01:50 > 1:01:52The picture shows a family group

1:01:52 > 1:01:56watching as two undertakers carry a body to a waiting horse-drawn sled.

1:01:59 > 1:02:03Above the mountains hovers a large, billowing cloud,

1:02:03 > 1:02:05glowing in the dawn sunlight.

1:02:06 > 1:02:09His art took the physical reality of winter

1:02:09 > 1:02:12and gave it a strongly metaphorical form.

1:02:12 > 1:02:16Romantic and mysterious, but always rooted in the landscape.

1:02:18 > 1:02:22I think he chose to represent death in winter

1:02:22 > 1:02:28because it's such a brutal and almost cruel season.

1:02:31 > 1:02:36He wanted to show the grandiosity of the mountains, of nature.

1:02:36 > 1:02:41That that would overcome the pain of the loss of this child.

1:02:44 > 1:02:46I would say the direction of the horse,

1:02:46 > 1:02:51that it would carry the child, the dead child, towards the light.

1:02:51 > 1:02:55So there is some sort of hope after death.

1:02:56 > 1:02:59Segantini would take his vast canvases to his subject

1:02:59 > 1:03:03and work in the open, constructing a temporary wooden shelter

1:03:03 > 1:03:05if the weather turned against him.

1:03:06 > 1:03:09He became immensely successful in his lifetime,

1:03:09 > 1:03:12with works exhibited all over Europe,

1:03:12 > 1:03:15but his mother gave up Austrian citizenship

1:03:15 > 1:03:18whilst omitting to replace it with anything else.

1:03:18 > 1:03:23Stateless, Segantini was unable to leave Switzerland.

1:03:23 > 1:03:27He was a very solitary soul and he wasn't able to travel,

1:03:27 > 1:03:30so his only choice and passion

1:03:30 > 1:03:33was actually to stay in his mountains

1:03:33 > 1:03:36and try to get the beauty and the light,

1:03:36 > 1:03:38this very, very special light,

1:03:38 > 1:03:42and that was actually the quest of his life and painting,

1:03:42 > 1:03:45to really show the world

1:03:45 > 1:03:49the beautiful magic light of the Engadin and the mountains.

1:03:52 > 1:03:54Whilst working to finish this picture

1:03:54 > 1:03:57he spent long hours at high altitude in the mountains.

1:03:57 > 1:03:59The strain weakened him.

1:03:59 > 1:04:03He developed peritonitis and died in his painting hut

1:04:03 > 1:04:06overlooking the Engadin valley that he loved.

1:04:08 > 1:04:09He was 41.

1:04:13 > 1:04:17THEY PLAY "SHOUT" BY THE ISLEY BROTHERS

1:04:19 > 1:04:21In St Moritz today,

1:04:21 > 1:04:24it's difficult to see winter as a metaphor for death.

1:04:24 > 1:04:27In temperatures of -20 degrees,

1:04:27 > 1:04:29the frozen lake becomes a horse-racing track

1:04:29 > 1:04:33to stage the White Turf Festival, and its accompanying party.

1:04:37 > 1:04:41These revellers, like the Londoners on Hondius' frozen Thames,

1:04:41 > 1:04:46or the Venetians at their carnival, are perfectly happy out in the cold.

1:04:46 > 1:04:49But this cavalier attitude to the temperature

1:04:49 > 1:04:52requires the certainty of a refuge from the cold.

1:04:52 > 1:04:56For the homeless, winter was still a killer.

1:05:05 > 1:05:07In the rapidly expanding city of New York,

1:05:07 > 1:05:11a group of artists, later known as the Ashcan School,

1:05:11 > 1:05:15gave winter an urban setting every bit as uncompromising

1:05:15 > 1:05:17as Segantini's portrayal of death.

1:05:23 > 1:05:25On the margins of society,

1:05:25 > 1:05:27the bums of Manhattan,

1:05:27 > 1:05:29the subject of this picture by George Bellows,

1:05:29 > 1:05:33were still vulnerable to the cruelty of a bitter winter.

1:05:41 > 1:05:44What I love about this picture is Bellows really captures

1:05:44 > 1:05:46the eternal New York story,

1:05:46 > 1:05:48which is, "Out with the old and in with the new."

1:05:50 > 1:05:53The Queensboro Bridge, which we're standing under,

1:05:53 > 1:05:55hasn't even opened yet.

1:05:55 > 1:05:58It's about to open in, I would say, three or four months.

1:05:58 > 1:06:03This is probably early 1909, and the bridge opens in May.

1:06:03 > 1:06:05And the bridge signifies new New York.

1:06:05 > 1:06:07The city is expanding and growing

1:06:07 > 1:06:10and the subways are only about five years old.

1:06:10 > 1:06:13These are all tremendous changes in the city.

1:06:14 > 1:06:16And these men have no place in it.

1:06:16 > 1:06:18These men are pushed under the bridge.

1:06:18 > 1:06:21What Bellows is telling us is they're New York's refuse.

1:06:21 > 1:06:22They're New York's trash.

1:06:25 > 1:06:28The Ashcan painters saw themselves in opposition

1:06:28 > 1:06:31to the whimsical impressionism of Childe Hassam

1:06:31 > 1:06:32and had more in common

1:06:32 > 1:06:35with the documentary photography of Stieglitz.

1:06:35 > 1:06:38Winter was a frequent subject for both,

1:06:38 > 1:06:39but for Bellows especially,

1:06:39 > 1:06:42his art had a powerful social conscience.

1:06:44 > 1:06:45I think winter underscores

1:06:45 > 1:06:47the rawness and the cruelty.

1:06:48 > 1:06:50This isn't fluffy, wonderful snow

1:06:50 > 1:06:54that you're playing in or that's exciting and beautiful.

1:06:54 > 1:06:56This is a raw scene.

1:06:56 > 1:06:58This is a cold, March day,

1:06:58 > 1:07:01where the wind is coming off the river.

1:07:01 > 1:07:04They're huddled by a fire, but it doesn't matter.

1:07:04 > 1:07:07You know in their bones they are cold.

1:07:07 > 1:07:11And if they have a torn boot, their feet are wet. They feel it.

1:07:11 > 1:07:13This was a whole neighbourhood

1:07:13 > 1:07:16of tanneries and breweries and slaughterhouses.

1:07:16 > 1:07:19I mean, it was a pretty filthy, disgusting place.

1:07:19 > 1:07:22You can just imagine how bad it smelled.

1:07:22 > 1:07:24Nobody in New York City wanted to live near the rivers.

1:07:24 > 1:07:28That's why Fifth Avenue became such a posh street at the time.

1:07:28 > 1:07:30It's the centre of the island of Manhattan.

1:07:30 > 1:07:33It's as far away from this as you can get.

1:07:33 > 1:07:37The aim of the Ashcan School was to celebrate an urban vitality,

1:07:37 > 1:07:41capturing spontaneous moments of everyday life.

1:07:41 > 1:07:43But Bellows was also keen to document

1:07:43 > 1:07:45the rapid change in New York,

1:07:45 > 1:07:48and he knew that both the tenement building

1:07:48 > 1:07:50and the men huddled in its shadow

1:07:50 > 1:07:53would soon be swept away by the expanding city.

1:07:55 > 1:07:59The light is brilliant, and what's interesting about the painting

1:07:59 > 1:08:01is that at the top of the tenement,

1:08:01 > 1:08:04and at the bridge and the sky, the light is very redemptive.

1:08:04 > 1:08:07You can imagine the people who were on the bridge

1:08:07 > 1:08:09or who will be on the bridge in a few months,

1:08:09 > 1:08:12going across in this great, grand new city,

1:08:12 > 1:08:17you know, everything's light and beautiful and promising.

1:08:17 > 1:08:20And underneath it, where nobody can see,

1:08:20 > 1:08:22these men are swept under the bridge.

1:08:22 > 1:08:25Literally swept into the shadows of New York City.

1:08:35 > 1:08:36Another Ashcan painter

1:08:36 > 1:08:40with a romantic love for New York was John Sloan.

1:08:40 > 1:08:43The great thing about painting the city, he said,

1:08:43 > 1:08:45was that landmarks are torn down so rapidly

1:08:45 > 1:08:48that your canvases become historical records

1:08:48 > 1:08:51almost before the paint on them is dry.

1:08:53 > 1:08:55Sloan loved winter.

1:08:55 > 1:08:59He caught perfectly the impersonal and solitary nature of urban life,

1:08:59 > 1:09:01and by setting his subjects in winter,

1:09:01 > 1:09:05he gave them another reason not to linger on their journey,

1:09:05 > 1:09:07hurrying home to the warm.

1:09:07 > 1:09:11He recorded the last days of the "El" trains,

1:09:11 > 1:09:14the elevated tracks that had failed in the blizzard of 1888,

1:09:14 > 1:09:17and had been rendered redundant by the subway.

1:09:20 > 1:09:24Sloan was fascinated by European movements like Cubism,

1:09:24 > 1:09:26and struck up a friendship

1:09:26 > 1:09:29with the pioneer of conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp.

1:09:37 > 1:09:40On a bitter, winter night in January 1917,

1:09:40 > 1:09:45Sloan, Duchamp and several friends broke into the Washington Arch,

1:09:45 > 1:09:48in the artistic ghetto of Greenwich Village.

1:09:48 > 1:09:50It was snowing lightly

1:09:50 > 1:09:53and the Arch Conspirators, as they called themselves,

1:09:53 > 1:09:57decorated the roof with balloons and huddled in blankets,

1:09:57 > 1:10:00drinking tea and moonshine, and letting off cap guns.

1:10:02 > 1:10:05By having this party in what was supposed to be a serious monument

1:10:05 > 1:10:10built by the city, they were making a claim on public space.

1:10:11 > 1:10:14The event did have a serious purpose.

1:10:14 > 1:10:16The United States was on the verge

1:10:16 > 1:10:18of committing troops to the First World War

1:10:18 > 1:10:22and the Arch Conspirators read a proclamation,

1:10:22 > 1:10:23declaring the establishment

1:10:23 > 1:10:27of the Free and Independent Republic of Greenwich Village.

1:10:28 > 1:10:31There was a lot of fear at the time about saboteurs,

1:10:31 > 1:10:33especially about potential anarchists.

1:10:33 > 1:10:36The same thing has been happening since September 11th.

1:10:36 > 1:10:40Today it's terrorists. Back then it was anarchists.

1:10:40 > 1:10:44The fear is actually similar, and the way the city reacts

1:10:44 > 1:10:49to people who want to try to make the city their own is often the same.

1:10:49 > 1:10:51I see similarities with the way

1:10:51 > 1:10:54that Sloan and his peers were painting at the time.

1:10:54 > 1:10:57The Ashcan school of painting took

1:10:57 > 1:11:01really, the existing landscape of the city and celebrated it,

1:11:01 > 1:11:03things that seemed kind of banal.

1:11:03 > 1:11:06So I love that. I think they were doing the same thing with this party.

1:11:06 > 1:11:09They were taking this existing structure

1:11:09 > 1:11:12and making it into their own, making it something fun.

1:11:12 > 1:11:16I've always liked this thing a lot more, knowing that in 1917,

1:11:16 > 1:11:20these crazy artists had a party all night at the top.

1:11:20 > 1:11:22I wish I could have joined them.

1:11:22 > 1:11:26The declaration of independence must surely have been written by Duchamp,

1:11:26 > 1:11:31consisting as it did solely of the repetition of the word "whereas".

1:11:31 > 1:11:35Whereas...whereas...whereas.

1:11:36 > 1:11:40We declare the free and independent Republic of Greenwich Village.

1:11:44 > 1:11:47The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village

1:11:47 > 1:11:51failed to prevent the United States from entering the Great War.

1:11:53 > 1:11:57Napoleon had abolished winter breaks in wartime

1:11:57 > 1:12:01and there was no let-up in the slaughter on the Western Front.

1:12:01 > 1:12:05The Battle of Cambrai in November 1917

1:12:05 > 1:12:09saw the first use of large numbers of tanks by the Allies

1:12:09 > 1:12:12but after a brief period of spectacular success,

1:12:12 > 1:12:14the advance was checked,

1:12:14 > 1:12:16the Germans retook most of the territory

1:12:16 > 1:12:18and by the end of November,

1:12:18 > 1:12:20things were back where they started.

1:12:22 > 1:12:24Then it began to snow.

1:12:27 > 1:12:29The German front line ran

1:12:29 > 1:12:32just to the north of the hamlet of La Vacquerie,

1:12:32 > 1:12:36with the British trenches the other side of an area of high ground

1:12:36 > 1:12:37known as the Welch Ridge.

1:12:41 > 1:12:45On 30th December, the Germans launched a surprise attack,

1:12:45 > 1:12:48turning winter to their advantage.

1:12:50 > 1:12:52The snow was two, three feet deep.

1:12:52 > 1:12:58Everything was white and just before dawn, in the midst of a freezing fog,

1:12:58 > 1:13:00they came over this slope,

1:13:00 > 1:13:03all dressed in white camouflage.

1:13:03 > 1:13:05And they were immensely successful.

1:13:05 > 1:13:07And later that day,

1:13:07 > 1:13:11the British decided to try and launch a kind of counter-attack.

1:13:11 > 1:13:14This painting depicts the moment

1:13:14 > 1:13:19when that regiment was ordered to go over the top.

1:13:20 > 1:13:24Though later employed as a war artist, on this day,

1:13:24 > 1:13:26John Nash was a serving soldier

1:13:26 > 1:13:29fighting in the Artists Rifles Battalion.

1:13:31 > 1:13:33You can see from the painting

1:13:33 > 1:13:35that these guys didn't stand a chance

1:13:35 > 1:13:40because everything here was white, everything in the painting is white.

1:13:40 > 1:13:43Snow white, white clouds,

1:13:43 > 1:13:45white mist, white surface,

1:13:45 > 1:13:48and what are they wearing? They're wearing dark brown greatcoats

1:13:48 > 1:13:51so the German gunners just pick them off.

1:13:51 > 1:13:5380 men went over the top

1:13:53 > 1:13:57and within just a few minutes, 68 of them had been killed

1:13:57 > 1:14:01and, fortunately, one of the dozen men to escape unscathed

1:14:01 > 1:14:05was John Nash, who painted this picture.

1:14:05 > 1:14:07And I think one of the reasons he survived was

1:14:07 > 1:14:11just before he went over the top, he took off his greatcoat

1:14:11 > 1:14:14because he thought it was too conspicuous, too dark in colour,

1:14:14 > 1:14:18and he wore a pale tunic instead, and that probably saved his life.

1:14:18 > 1:14:22And this painting I just find incredibly powerful

1:14:22 > 1:14:24because it's so...

1:14:24 > 1:14:26It's so matter-of-fact, you know,

1:14:26 > 1:14:29there's no sentimentality in it whatsoever

1:14:29 > 1:14:31and it's the body language of these men in the row.

1:14:31 > 1:14:35They're just sort of glumly trudging through the snow up this hill

1:14:35 > 1:14:37towards what they know will be death.

1:14:37 > 1:14:41These guys haven't even got out of the trench with their lives.

1:14:41 > 1:14:44Other people have died the moment they've gone out.

1:14:44 > 1:14:46This guy here has just been shot

1:14:46 > 1:14:48and he's fallen down to his knees.

1:14:48 > 1:14:51Nash hated painting figures. He couldn't paint figures very well

1:14:51 > 1:14:54but he knew he had to do it with this painting because it was so important.

1:14:54 > 1:14:58He thought what happened on these slopes was murder, pure and simple.

1:15:01 > 1:15:04Like so many other actions of this conflict,

1:15:04 > 1:15:07the attack Nash painted was largely pointless.

1:15:07 > 1:15:08No progress was made

1:15:08 > 1:15:11by the sacrifice of the lives of his comrades

1:15:11 > 1:15:14and the few yards of mud over which they fought

1:15:14 > 1:15:16remained a part of no man's land.

1:15:18 > 1:15:21When most people think about the First World War,

1:15:21 > 1:15:25what do they think of? Well, they think of mud and they think of rain

1:15:25 > 1:15:28and they think of lifeless landscapes, trees without leaves,

1:15:28 > 1:15:31they think of long nights and freezing soldiers.

1:15:31 > 1:15:33What they're thinking about is winter.

1:15:33 > 1:15:36That was what the First World War was.

1:15:36 > 1:15:42It was a really long, brutal, murderous winter

1:15:42 > 1:15:43but it wasn't a natural winter.

1:15:43 > 1:15:46It was a winter that we manufactured.

1:15:52 > 1:15:56This man-made misery inspired Nash's contemporary,

1:15:56 > 1:16:00the young futurist painter Richard Nevinson,

1:16:00 > 1:16:02to produce his greatest works.

1:16:02 > 1:16:06La Mitrailleuse combined his fascination for machinery

1:16:06 > 1:16:09with a horror at the brutality of conflict.

1:16:09 > 1:16:11It was described by Walter Sickert

1:16:11 > 1:16:15as "the most authoritative and concentrated utterance on war

1:16:15 > 1:16:18"in the history of painting."

1:16:18 > 1:16:22Nevinson, the son of campaigning liberal parents, was a pacifist

1:16:22 > 1:16:25and worked in the trenches as an ambulance driver.

1:16:26 > 1:16:29After the war, he continued to use his art as a platform

1:16:29 > 1:16:33for social commentary, but in order to reach a wider audience,

1:16:33 > 1:16:34he became a regular columnist

1:16:34 > 1:16:37for the Daily Mail and the Daily Express,

1:16:37 > 1:16:39becoming more curmudgeonly as he grew older.

1:16:41 > 1:16:44One of his pet hates was football.

1:16:44 > 1:16:47He had been a profoundly unhappy schoolboy,

1:16:47 > 1:16:49sent away to boarding school at Uppingham

1:16:49 > 1:16:51to allow his mother and father

1:16:51 > 1:16:54more time to concentrate on their various causes,

1:16:54 > 1:16:58and he associated winter with compulsory organised sport.

1:16:58 > 1:17:01The misery of afternoons on the football field

1:17:01 > 1:17:02was still fresh in his mind

1:17:02 > 1:17:05when he painted this picture

1:17:05 > 1:17:07in 1930, at the age of 41.

1:17:12 > 1:17:13Nevinson would be horrified

1:17:13 > 1:17:16by the idea that this painting would now be being used

1:17:16 > 1:17:19to promote football in any way.

1:17:19 > 1:17:20He despised all sports.

1:17:20 > 1:17:23Right from when he was at Uppingham School and he was bullied,

1:17:23 > 1:17:26he considered that sport was something for brutes, basically.

1:17:26 > 1:17:30Nevinson was very much associated with the Italian futurists,

1:17:30 > 1:17:34and in the Italian futurist manifesto, they included sport

1:17:34 > 1:17:36as something that they felt was really important

1:17:36 > 1:17:38to put right at the heart of culture.

1:17:38 > 1:17:42And Nevinson did put sport within his art,

1:17:42 > 1:17:45but he put it within his art to show us what a waste of time it was.

1:17:45 > 1:17:50Nevinson never indicated the location of Any Wintry Afternoon

1:17:50 > 1:17:53but the dark satanic mills that form its background

1:17:53 > 1:17:56are always assumed to be in Manchester,

1:17:56 > 1:17:58a part of the country he had rarely visited,

1:17:58 > 1:18:03and for which he had a stereotypical southerner's contempt.

1:18:03 > 1:18:05This painting really shows

1:18:05 > 1:18:08that Nevinson thought it truly was grim up north.

1:18:08 > 1:18:11The closer you look at this painting, the more of that you see,

1:18:11 > 1:18:13whether it's the gasometer in the background,

1:18:13 > 1:18:15the train, the steam coming off it,

1:18:15 > 1:18:17the darkness, the thunderclouds, the rain.

1:18:17 > 1:18:20Football had previously been seen very much as a northerner's game.

1:18:20 > 1:18:23No London club had won the league up until this point

1:18:23 > 1:18:25and there's always been great discussion

1:18:25 > 1:18:28about whether the football teams in the painting

1:18:28 > 1:18:31are Manchester United and Manchester City, or not.

1:18:31 > 1:18:32And Nevinson was furious at the idea

1:18:32 > 1:18:34that anyone should even be discussing this

1:18:34 > 1:18:37and you can see, the tops are red and

1:18:37 > 1:18:40the socks are blue. He doesn't care.

1:18:40 > 1:18:41He's not trying to say

1:18:41 > 1:18:44this is a particular player, this is a particular team.

1:18:44 > 1:18:46He would say, "Well, you know, that's not the point.

1:18:46 > 1:18:48"The point is, stop watching football."

1:18:48 > 1:18:51It's often said that the Premiership era is the first time

1:18:51 > 1:18:54where there's really been a major tension

1:18:54 > 1:18:57between the money that is in the game, and the fans of the game

1:18:57 > 1:19:00but actually, a very similar thing was happening in the 1920s.

1:19:00 > 1:19:03This was the time when the first £10,000 footballer

1:19:03 > 1:19:06had just been sold. The clubs were turning into businesses

1:19:06 > 1:19:10and Nevinson wrote extensively about this in his very provocative columns

1:19:10 > 1:19:12in The Mail and the Express at the time,

1:19:12 > 1:19:16you know, openly hostile to what this was doing to our culture.

1:19:16 > 1:19:18This painting goes to show

1:19:18 > 1:19:21that really, he thought that sport was the opium of the masses

1:19:21 > 1:19:23and he wanted the masses to stop taking opium, and to go

1:19:23 > 1:19:26and do something else instead, that was a lot more cultured.

1:19:28 > 1:19:31Nevinson's vision of winter is a far cry from Bruegel's.

1:19:31 > 1:19:35400 years after the hunters' struggle for survival in the snow,

1:19:35 > 1:19:38Nevinson's equally abject figures

1:19:38 > 1:19:41are merely struggling to win a football match.

1:19:41 > 1:19:44Had winter finally given up the fight?

1:19:45 > 1:19:49During the 1930s, winters were noticeably milder.

1:19:49 > 1:19:51Scotland experienced an almost complete absence

1:19:51 > 1:19:55of significant snowfall in the winter of 1931.

1:19:55 > 1:19:59The Reverend Walker's skates would have stayed in the cupboard.

1:20:00 > 1:20:01For the first time,

1:20:01 > 1:20:05scientists began to express concern that the world was warming up.

1:20:05 > 1:20:09The US Weather Bureau concluded in a survey in 1934

1:20:09 > 1:20:13that the winters were indeed colder and the snow deeper

1:20:13 > 1:20:15when Grandad was a lad.

1:20:15 > 1:20:18But winter wasn't giving up yet.

1:20:18 > 1:20:22The euphoria that followed victory in World War II was short-lived.

1:20:22 > 1:20:25Rationing continued, and there was a sense that

1:20:25 > 1:20:29things weren't really working out for Britain in the post-war world.

1:20:29 > 1:20:31In January 1947,

1:20:31 > 1:20:36the country was plunged into the most severe winter of the century.

1:20:36 > 1:20:38MUSIC: "Stormy Weather" by Etta James

1:20:38 > 1:20:40# Don't know why

1:20:40 > 1:20:44# There's no sun up in the sky

1:20:44 > 1:20:46# Stormy weather... #

1:20:49 > 1:20:52Power stations closed down for lack of coal,

1:20:52 > 1:20:56and even the Houses of Parliament operated by candlelight.

1:20:58 > 1:21:02The magazine Picture Post published a special edition on the crisis,

1:21:02 > 1:21:04and chose a dramatic image

1:21:04 > 1:21:07by the photographer Bill Brandt for the cover.

1:21:08 > 1:21:10# Life is bare

1:21:13 > 1:21:17# Gloom and misery everywhere

1:21:17 > 1:21:21# Stormy weather, stormy weather... #

1:21:22 > 1:21:27This was one of the great notorious winters in my lifetime, 1947.

1:21:27 > 1:21:30I was only a 12-year-old boy in that winter.

1:21:30 > 1:21:34I thought it was great fun but it was a wicked winter.

1:21:34 > 1:21:35What this picture is

1:21:35 > 1:21:39is the suffering of stones in silence.

1:21:39 > 1:21:41During 1947, there wouldn't have been

1:21:41 > 1:21:44the constant stream and flow of traffic.

1:21:44 > 1:21:46That kind of traffic didn't exist,

1:21:46 > 1:21:51so this would have been a total wilderness here.

1:21:56 > 1:21:59SHEEP BAA

1:22:03 > 1:22:06This atmospheric picture was not the sort of thing

1:22:06 > 1:22:10Picture Post would usually have used for a cover image.

1:22:10 > 1:22:12When you were talking about

1:22:12 > 1:22:16one of the most dramatic winters for many generations,

1:22:16 > 1:22:19you could have used something much more symbolic

1:22:19 > 1:22:21like the struggle of a human being, you know,

1:22:21 > 1:22:26trying to keep themselves warm and safe from this atrocious winter,

1:22:26 > 1:22:32but they chose to use this poetic image of Stonehenge.

1:22:32 > 1:22:34I mean, there's nobody in it, nothing in it.

1:22:34 > 1:22:37I'm sure that Bill Brandt persuaded the editor

1:22:37 > 1:22:39to go in another direction.

1:22:39 > 1:22:43This is not the kind of thing that Picture Post was known for.

1:22:43 > 1:22:46It's such an epic photograph.

1:22:46 > 1:22:49Captioned "Where stands Britain?",

1:22:49 > 1:22:54it's a monumental proposition here.

1:22:54 > 1:22:57"What does this country stand for? Who are we?"

1:22:57 > 1:23:00And so Brandt's picture is waiting

1:23:00 > 1:23:04for the spirit of the nation to come rising up in some way,

1:23:04 > 1:23:08and what does he use to depict the spirit of the nation but Stonehenge,

1:23:08 > 1:23:13our most ancient monument? This is a going-back to first principles.

1:23:13 > 1:23:17This is thinking about our very first identity

1:23:17 > 1:23:19and what we might want now.

1:23:20 > 1:23:25What are we going to build over the desolation of war?

1:23:25 > 1:23:29And so what Brandt is brilliant at doing

1:23:29 > 1:23:34is looking at the material reality of Britain and making it speak.

1:23:34 > 1:23:36His pictures talk.

1:23:38 > 1:23:43This very stark, very monumental, photograph of Stonehenge

1:23:43 > 1:23:45seems just pausing,

1:23:45 > 1:23:49waiting for the kind of dialogue of modern Britain to start.

1:23:51 > 1:23:54This was published as a sort of state-of-the-nation picture

1:23:54 > 1:23:57but, actually, it's a piece of abstract art.

1:23:57 > 1:24:00The way that Stonehenge divides the picture in two.

1:24:00 > 1:24:02You have the whiteness below it

1:24:02 > 1:24:05and then that exploding, apocalyptic sky above.

1:24:05 > 1:24:07But that sense of three layers

1:24:07 > 1:24:10makes me think of Mark Rothko's abstract paintings

1:24:10 > 1:24:14of exactly the same time, when he was painting vertical abstractions

1:24:14 > 1:24:16that were divided into three layers of colour

1:24:16 > 1:24:20and here, Brandt has managed to do that in a photograph.

1:24:21 > 1:24:25Brandt began his career in Paris in 1929

1:24:25 > 1:24:29and worked for a while as a studio assistant to Man Ray.

1:24:29 > 1:24:33The thing about Bill Brandt was that really deep down,

1:24:33 > 1:24:36I think he considered himself to be an artist

1:24:36 > 1:24:39much more than a photographer.

1:24:45 > 1:24:47Bill used to print his own pictures

1:24:47 > 1:24:52and inject a huge amount of drama and blackness and darkness,

1:24:52 > 1:24:54and that was his hallmark.

1:24:54 > 1:24:57Everybody knew a Brandt print when they saw it,

1:24:57 > 1:25:00but this is...much more tender.

1:25:03 > 1:25:08Bill Brandt was quite notorious for posing up, creating things

1:25:08 > 1:25:12that are not totally the truth, but there's nothing deceitful about this.

1:25:12 > 1:25:14It's haunting, in a way.

1:25:16 > 1:25:18Having made his reputation as a war photographer

1:25:18 > 1:25:21in some of the world's most inhospitable places,

1:25:21 > 1:25:25Don McCullin is now concentrating on landscapes,

1:25:25 > 1:25:28but his love of winter still makes it an uncomfortable calling.

1:25:30 > 1:25:34I see the wintertime as my moment of drama.

1:25:34 > 1:25:38I spend hours standing in waterlogged fields,

1:25:38 > 1:25:40watching the light.

1:25:41 > 1:25:45I love the nakedness and I love the harshness of the light,

1:25:45 > 1:25:49the drama of the light, which we've seen today here,

1:25:49 > 1:25:53the skies, the sun going down early in the afternoon, you know,

1:25:53 > 1:25:58our afternoons in the winter, they don't last very long,

1:25:58 > 1:26:00but for me, that's the magical hour

1:26:00 > 1:26:03when I can be alone in a field somewhere.

1:26:03 > 1:26:07I don't mind standing for two or three hours in the same place,

1:26:07 > 1:26:10knowing that if I stick it out, I'm going to get what I want.

1:26:11 > 1:26:15It has to be remembered that I looked at Bill Brandt's pictures

1:26:15 > 1:26:19as a young photographer, before I could call myself a photographer.

1:26:21 > 1:26:24I took a lot of my disciplines from his composition

1:26:24 > 1:26:29and almost felt sometimes that I was stealing his eye as well,

1:26:29 > 1:26:31but nevertheless, I owe him a great deal.

1:26:40 > 1:26:42Every picture that we're looking at here

1:26:42 > 1:26:45is a kind of dialogue with the elements.

1:26:45 > 1:26:49Art itself is a kind of defence mechanism

1:26:49 > 1:26:52because if you can paint cold and snow,

1:26:52 > 1:26:57you're exercising a kind of command over nature.

1:26:57 > 1:27:00You're trapping it within a frame and coming to understand it,

1:27:00 > 1:27:06and I think we've used art across the centuries as a way of coping,

1:27:06 > 1:27:09as a kind of extra coat we put on.

1:27:09 > 1:27:12The more we can understand winter,

1:27:12 > 1:27:15the better equipped we are to get through it.

1:27:15 > 1:27:17Human beings, I think,

1:27:17 > 1:27:21have a habit of painting the things they're most scared of

1:27:21 > 1:27:25and for so much of history, we were terrified of the winter

1:27:25 > 1:27:27and I think that's why we kept coming back to it.

1:27:27 > 1:27:31We felt that by painting it, by somehow putting it down on canvas,

1:27:31 > 1:27:33we were controlling it.

1:27:33 > 1:27:36We were coming to terms with it, we were understanding it,

1:27:36 > 1:27:38and I think that's why

1:27:38 > 1:27:44winter inspired some of our most powerful and beautiful artworks.

1:27:45 > 1:27:49Today, our relationship to winter is ambivalent.

1:27:49 > 1:27:50The terror has gone.

1:27:53 > 1:27:55If the weather is not forthcoming,

1:27:55 > 1:27:57we can create our own winter wonderland,

1:27:57 > 1:28:00and skate on the ice in the centre of London

1:28:00 > 1:28:03as if the Thames had frozen once more.

1:28:03 > 1:28:06The seasonal shopping frenzy builds towards Christmas,

1:28:06 > 1:28:09and leaves us with a drawn-out battle of endurance

1:28:09 > 1:28:11as the grey light and short days

1:28:11 > 1:28:13drag towards the promise of spring.

1:28:14 > 1:28:19But the images of winter that art has left us for consolation

1:28:19 > 1:28:21can still evoke that elemental sense of awe

1:28:21 > 1:28:25we felt when the hunters set out in the snow.

1:28:46 > 1:28:50Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd