0:00:02 > 0:00:04There comes a time
0:00:04 > 0:00:10when even the most self-absorbed artists look away from the mirror.
0:00:10 > 0:00:11When they get old.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Vanity begone.
0:00:14 > 0:00:15Prepare for the end.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21This was never going to happen to Rembrandt van Rijn.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26Right to the last, he could no more do without the mirror
0:00:26 > 0:00:29than his brushes and paints.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33But he tells it like he sees it - unsparing with the truth.
0:00:34 > 0:00:41Every fold and wrinkle, bag, sag and pouch relentlessly described.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46And yet, deep inside the ruin were all those other Rembrandts.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51The precocious miller's son, mugging for the mirror.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55The photo-booth clown trying out all the faces he'd need
0:00:55 > 0:00:57to give his painted stories passion.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02The up-and-comer, talent spotted by the great -
0:01:02 > 0:01:05in demand by all those who counted in Amsterdam.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11The Master who's made it big in the richest city of the richest
0:01:11 > 0:01:15country in the world - preachers and princes, merchants and doctors
0:01:15 > 0:01:19lining up for him - the owner of a swanky house.
0:01:19 > 0:01:21The working artist -
0:01:21 > 0:01:25getting a bit of flak but just getting on with it,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28hearing voices off, disgruntled patrons, critics -
0:01:28 > 0:01:30well, what did THEY know about art?
0:01:32 > 0:01:36And then, as if to punish the proud, the face of misfortune.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40His wife dead.
0:01:41 > 0:01:46Losses at sea and in trade, mortgage beyond him.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51Rembrandt turfed out and into a small rental.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54But he's not going quietly.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59Not with a slow fade.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01Just the opposite.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04The world which thought it knew Rembrandt
0:02:04 > 0:02:06hadn't seen anything yet.
0:02:10 > 0:02:15I think he saved the best for last - driven by the rage of age,
0:02:15 > 0:02:17going out like a meteor.
0:02:19 > 0:02:24Thought and feeling welded together, masterpiece after masterpiece.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31He achieved things no-one else had dreamt of before him,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35and no-one else could imagine until centuries had gone by.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41Changing what painting could do - what art IS.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44The world had seen nothing like Amsterdam
0:03:44 > 0:03:47in its mid-17th century glittering prime.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58There was nothing you couldn't get here - the whole wide world
0:03:58 > 0:04:00was there for the taking.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Rugs from Turkey, furs from Russia,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06spices from the Indies, porcelain from China,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10Spanish steel, and home-made beauties too,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12silver and glass.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21Money talked in Amsterdam.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25Without it, you lost status, face, respect.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30Rembrandt, who'd flown so high, learned this the hard way.
0:04:33 > 0:04:39In 1656, he lost everything he cared about in bankrupt ruin.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41Even his house would go.
0:04:44 > 0:04:50The next 13 years of his life would be both testing and triumphant.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05So, it's...
0:05:05 > 0:05:08a little, you know, kind of modest space,
0:05:08 > 0:05:10I suppose, by grandee standards
0:05:10 > 0:05:12but certainly not by Dutch standards,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15by Amsterdam standards.
0:05:18 > 0:05:25It is a grand room. It is the reason why he couldn't pay the mortgage.
0:05:26 > 0:05:3113,000 guilders is a lot of money for an artist.
0:05:41 > 0:05:42So up we go.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49So, here's Mr Shopaholic, this is a curiosity cabinet.
0:05:49 > 0:05:55You can see the armour, um, and plaster casts, essentially.
0:05:55 > 0:06:00There is Socrates, for example, and, yes, there's the head.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05That's got to be the Laocoon - the ultimate image of a man in pain.
0:06:05 > 0:06:11So, the rest of him would have been entangled in biting serpents
0:06:11 > 0:06:15but here we have birds of paradise, feathers.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18There's a little caiman crocodile from South America,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22there is an armadillo, is it not, wonderful, hanging.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25I mean, who would have bought the armadillo?!
0:06:25 > 0:06:28I would, actually, is the answer!
0:06:28 > 0:06:30Aw!
0:06:38 > 0:06:43With his bankruptcy, Rembrandt had lost something even more precious
0:06:43 > 0:06:44than his status.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48He lost his art collection.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51All of this - the paintings, the drawings, his pack-rat collection
0:06:51 > 0:06:56of everything imaginable, all the props in the world - helmets,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00musical instruments, dressing-up costumes, stuffed animals -
0:07:00 > 0:07:04the whole kit and caboodle were knocked down at auction
0:07:04 > 0:07:05to settle debts.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12Now, somehow, he's got to carry all this around in his head.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16But the challenge of this doesn't un-man him.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19He's not one to slink off into the shadows.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Instead, we get this...
0:07:31 > 0:07:35One thing about this extraordinary self-portrait,
0:07:35 > 0:07:40it is the very personification of the authority of art itself.
0:07:43 > 0:07:49This is a painter who has been looking up at Titian and Rubens and
0:07:49 > 0:07:55Van Dyck with a mixture of respect and ferocious competitive urge.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00At the same time, taking on what they would teach him
0:08:00 > 0:08:03and wanting to surpass them,
0:08:03 > 0:08:06so he portrays himself -
0:08:06 > 0:08:09Can you see this? - actually enthroned.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13And the dress of art is in fact made of gold,
0:08:13 > 0:08:17so it can be mistaken for something that a king or a prince
0:08:17 > 0:08:19or a bishop would wear.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22Something that you would possibly read as a mahlstick,
0:08:22 > 0:08:25the extended stick which you stuck on the work surface
0:08:25 > 0:08:27in order to do detail,
0:08:27 > 0:08:31has turned into this knobbly, exquisite turned silver cane.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35It's a baton, it's the stick of authority again
0:08:35 > 0:08:37that you associate with palaces
0:08:37 > 0:08:39rather than a dump on the Rozengracht.
0:08:39 > 0:08:43And it's frontal! It's frontal.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46Look how that belly swells out at you.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50This looks like a hostile confrontational torso.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53From passage to passage of the painting,
0:08:53 > 0:08:57apart from the immense authoritative, ferocious
0:08:57 > 0:09:03broad-acred face staring right at you with that beret on top,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07there is, of course, the issue of the vast, meaty hands.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10The hands which are either going to create a masterpiece
0:09:10 > 0:09:13or they're going to strangle the critics.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Those huge hands, which again done with the maximum freedom,
0:09:16 > 0:09:20but the whole picture is a symphony of defiance.
0:09:20 > 0:09:27"This is the way I paint," says Rembrandt. "Love it or leave it."
0:09:33 > 0:09:39But plenty of the most desirable patrons in Amsterdam did just that.
0:09:39 > 0:09:40They went elsewhere.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45Fashions were changing -
0:09:45 > 0:09:49a new, polished style from France was becoming the rage.
0:09:52 > 0:09:56What was wanted on their walls, including pictures of themselves,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59was brightness, colour!
0:10:01 > 0:10:06For them, art was supposed to be all about refinement.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12Rembrandt was coming under attack from critics
0:10:12 > 0:10:16who held their noses at what they said was his "coarseness",
0:10:16 > 0:10:19his "undignified earthiness".
0:10:19 > 0:10:21So much BROWN!
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Such hideous models - what does he think he's doing,
0:10:24 > 0:10:28rubbing our noses in the ugliness of the world?
0:10:28 > 0:10:31And what is this reckless, casual way with the brush,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34all those dashed-off marks?
0:10:34 > 0:10:36Maybe he's lost it?
0:10:36 > 0:10:40Maybe, in middle age, his drawing hand has become unsteady.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, London.
0:11:14 > 0:11:17I first came here with my mum and dad in the 1950s.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20A magic place.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22The fake bridge,
0:11:22 > 0:11:24the elegant Adam house.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27And then, with girlfriends I was trying to impress,
0:11:27 > 0:11:30the outdoor concerts by the lake,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34lying in the long grass composing a face I hoped would say
0:11:34 > 0:11:36"I love Beethoven!" -
0:11:36 > 0:11:39when actually it was more like Roll Over Beethoven.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42It was here I saw my first Rembrandt
0:11:42 > 0:11:45that wasn't on a postcard or in a book,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48especially the little Skira pocket books
0:11:48 > 0:11:49I loved as a child.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53Inside Kenwood, I came across this...
0:11:55 > 0:11:59..and then, for ever haunted by it, came again and again and again,
0:11:59 > 0:12:01usually by myself.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03Just him, and me.
0:12:08 > 0:12:14I think because I'd seen, in books, pictures of the old Rembrandt,
0:12:14 > 0:12:17fluffy and puffy-faced images of pathos,
0:12:17 > 0:12:22like most people I thought of Rembrandt as essentially all heart.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25But there was something else going on with this self-portrait.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31That gaze is almost confrontational. It's almost saying,
0:12:31 > 0:12:36"You think you know me, but here's what I really am."
0:12:36 > 0:12:38It's a mighty head
0:12:38 > 0:12:42as well as a great heart. It's about the mind.
0:12:42 > 0:12:43Just remember, everyone,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47that what Rembrandt's being accused of, as an old duffer,
0:12:47 > 0:12:50is being kind of sentimental, sloppy.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53Someone who can paint, yes - he can do you big, heavy-hearted
0:12:53 > 0:12:57expressive uses of paint -
0:12:57 > 0:12:58but he can't really draw
0:12:58 > 0:13:01like the classical painters of the Renaissance.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04That's what the fashionable word was.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Boy, can he draw!
0:13:06 > 0:13:08Rembrandt says, "I'll show you."
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Those two half-circles
0:13:10 > 0:13:16that have produced shelves of PhD theses on what they might mean -
0:13:16 > 0:13:20have been said, "Oh, one is the celestial globe, the Heavens,
0:13:20 > 0:13:21"one is the Earth"...
0:13:21 > 0:13:25Rembrandt knew about the Italian painter Giotto.
0:13:27 > 0:13:32Giotto was summoned before the Pope and asked to do an instant painting.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34And what Vasari tells us Giotto did
0:13:34 > 0:13:39was the most impossible thing to do with a free hand -
0:13:39 > 0:13:41he drew a perfect circle.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47Rembrandt is saying, "You think I can't draw?"
0:13:47 > 0:13:51Here's your modern Dutch Giotto, if you like.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56So there is an example of exactness in drawing.
0:13:56 > 0:14:01But look at the hand, where it's all supposed to be happening.
0:14:01 > 0:14:04It is just a whirr of motion.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07People say, "Well, it's an unfinished." It's not unfinished.
0:14:07 > 0:14:12"This is the hand that can be as precise, or as expressive,
0:14:12 > 0:14:16"as tight, or as free, as I want.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19"I'm the person who decides what's finished
0:14:19 > 0:14:21"and what's not finished."
0:14:21 > 0:14:26And the rest of the painting is this extraordinary explosion
0:14:26 > 0:14:28of painterly freedom.
0:14:28 > 0:14:36Yes, all the sense of feeling about a truly great artist under attack
0:14:36 > 0:14:38is actually there in this picture.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41But most of all, it's a picture about the confidence
0:14:41 > 0:14:45of the marriage between head and heart.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58The idea that Rembrandt couldn't draw is absurd.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01In his heyday, his reputation as a draughtsman
0:15:01 > 0:15:03travelled all over Europe.
0:15:09 > 0:15:12So this is very moving...
0:15:13 > 0:15:16This is a room for etching.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19Rembrandt loved the actual physical attack,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22whether he's painting or etching.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29He's the ultimate dirty-hand artist, really.
0:15:29 > 0:15:34So this room would have smelled of acid, and um...
0:15:36 > 0:15:39There's Christ Brought Before The People, one of the late etchings.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42An incredible thing. And he's always having second thoughts,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46so there are many different states of the grey etching.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55This one is Jupiter And Antiope -
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Jupiter, he's just staring obsessively
0:15:59 > 0:16:01at the darkened body of Antiope
0:16:01 > 0:16:04with the naughty bits in deep shadow.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11And it's very nice that the wonderful curators
0:16:11 > 0:16:14have put the so-called Three Trees out there.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20What's fantastic about Rembrandt is the combo of dramatic effect
0:16:20 > 0:16:23and tiny, little weenie touches
0:16:23 > 0:16:25of fine motor control,
0:16:25 > 0:16:27fastidiousness.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32So, quite apart from this sort of drama of the gathering storm -
0:16:32 > 0:16:36which is going to pass, because there's a brightness in the sky -
0:16:36 > 0:16:38on the horizon is Amsterdam,
0:16:38 > 0:16:42indeed, the kind of view Rembrandt would have had of Amsterdam
0:16:42 > 0:16:45when he walked into the country and up the Amstel.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47And there are figures in there,
0:16:47 > 0:16:52but there's just a tiny image of windmill sails, you can see.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54And there are tiny little figures
0:16:54 > 0:16:57and details there which are just beautiful.
0:17:03 > 0:17:09Endearingly, there's even a version of himself, happily at work.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24Rembrandt would often escape from the city, and use his walks
0:17:24 > 0:17:27along the Amstel River as an inspiration for his etchings.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07Once, Rembrandt had had his pick of patrons,
0:18:07 > 0:18:11but not quite so many, now that fashions were changing.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13He wasn't completely deserted, though.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17There were those who gloried in being old-fashioned Hollanders
0:18:17 > 0:18:19and some of them were very rich.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25None richer than the arms dealers, the Trip family,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29their wealth given substance in the biggest house in Amsterdam.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33And portraits of Jacob and Margaretha, husband and wife,
0:18:33 > 0:18:35were commissioned to adorn it.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43What the Trips wanted in the midst
0:18:43 > 0:18:46of so much silky, high-coloured vulgarity,
0:18:46 > 0:18:50was something that shouted old-fashioned virtue.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52What they got was all that,
0:18:52 > 0:18:56delivered in a storm of free painting.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08Now, Rembrandt, old Rembrandt, he can do old-fashioned.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10He revels in being old-fashioned.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14He may be almost revolutionary in the way he handles paint,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18but he's conscious that he is summoning the old-fashioned virtues
0:19:18 > 0:19:23of Dutch painting in its glory days earlier in the century.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26Now, Jacob, the patriarch,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29actually is already dead when Rembrandt paints this,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33so Rembrandt would not have been able to do that one from life.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36But, at any rate, it's a kind of an idea in his head
0:19:36 > 0:19:40and the idea is someone who looks like almost a Biblical patriarch,
0:19:40 > 0:19:43who is venerable, but loaded, he's loaded with substance,
0:19:43 > 0:19:47and often, with Rembrandt, it's all about the props.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51And in this case, the prop is the fur collar draping the body,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55and that fantastic silver cane - the cane of authority.
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Next to him is Margaretha,
0:20:01 > 0:20:02the matriarch.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05She comes from a family of enormous power as well.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09Copper, iron, you name it - the De Geers, her family, have it.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13And because Jacob is dead,
0:20:13 > 0:20:17Margaretha de Geer is allowed to look out directly at us.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22If he was still alive, and it was a marriage pair portrait,
0:20:22 > 0:20:26she'd have to incline her head just a little bit towards hubby.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28Sorry, those were the rules!
0:20:28 > 0:20:32But she's a widow, and the Dutch love fierce widows.
0:20:32 > 0:20:33So she doesn't have to do that,
0:20:33 > 0:20:37she can look straight, actually, out at us.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41Granny de Geer is flesh and blood.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43And Rembrandt, the old Rembrandt,
0:20:43 > 0:20:47understands what time does to your face.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51In her case, it sucks in the flesh.
0:20:51 > 0:20:53It's so tight to the bone,
0:20:53 > 0:20:56you can almost see the skull underneath the cheeks
0:20:56 > 0:20:58but he's not that brutal.
0:20:58 > 0:21:03What he does very beautifully is have this raw wind of the Dutch
0:21:03 > 0:21:07create a kind of rosy-red tip of the nose
0:21:07 > 0:21:09and just on the edge of the cheekbone,
0:21:09 > 0:21:11and she's not going to wear any make-up to cover that up.
0:21:11 > 0:21:17So the face has the sense of rosy raw exposure to the Dutch weather,
0:21:17 > 0:21:22which already makes us, I think, feel sympathetic to her.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24She, too, has fur around her.
0:21:24 > 0:21:25She's also draped
0:21:25 > 0:21:29in the kind of old-fashioned substance of her wealth, but
0:21:29 > 0:21:34here, everything Rembrandt's done is about a dialogue of textiles -
0:21:34 > 0:21:36the dialogue between that ruff,
0:21:36 > 0:21:39the bleached, starched millstone ruff,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43and that linen hanky she's clutching
0:21:43 > 0:21:47in the ropey-veined, mottled hand she has.
0:21:47 > 0:21:52So it's the contrast here between the weight of the past
0:21:52 > 0:21:57and the sense... Actually there's a note, isn't there, of anxiety,
0:21:57 > 0:22:02of the way she's holding this soft fabric of the linen hanky
0:22:02 > 0:22:04because her husband's gone,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07she is not going to be long for this world as well.
0:22:07 > 0:22:11Rembrandt knows exactly how she feels.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14She's hanging onto that hanky for dear life.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31Patrons like the Trips who wanted old-fashioned
0:22:31 > 0:22:33were getting thin on the ground in Holland.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36But if his star was dimming a little at home,
0:22:36 > 0:22:39it was still shining brightly abroad.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52Rembrandt was a bold-letter name in much of Europe,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56and especially where you would least expect it, in Italy.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00There were Italian patrons who wanted work by the Dutch master,
0:23:00 > 0:23:05and one of them was Don Antonio Ruffo of Messina in Sicily.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09His palazzo was packed with portraits
0:23:09 > 0:23:12of the high-minded philosophers and poets,
0:23:12 > 0:23:18all advertising the Don as a figure of taste and reflection.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21Rembrandt? Well, yes.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23And this is what he produced.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37There are actually three people in this painting.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40The first one, of course, is the embodiment of the philosophical mind
0:23:40 > 0:23:45weighed down as it is by wistful melancholy,
0:23:45 > 0:23:46as is the case for philosophers,
0:23:46 > 0:23:49at least in the classical writing about them.
0:23:49 > 0:23:55The second one, Aristotle has his right hand on the lyrical pate,
0:23:55 > 0:23:59the beautiful poetic brain of Homer,
0:23:59 > 0:24:02but there is a third person on whom the whole story,
0:24:02 > 0:24:06the narrative that he hoped Don Antonio Ruffo
0:24:06 > 0:24:08would recognise, depends,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12and that person is contained in a medal that hangs
0:24:12 > 0:24:15on the very end of the enormous golden chain
0:24:15 > 0:24:17that dominates the composition.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21If you look hard, you will see that there is a little figure
0:24:21 > 0:24:23turned in profile.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27You can just see his cute, not-very-classical nose,
0:24:27 > 0:24:29but above all, you can see the helmet
0:24:29 > 0:24:32and the helmet would have told everybody
0:24:32 > 0:24:36this can only be Alexander the Great.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Now, the other two figures, Aristotle and Homer,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42both are connected
0:24:42 > 0:24:46in an interesting way to the figure of Alexander the Great.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50Aristotle was Alexander's tutor when he was a child,
0:24:50 > 0:24:54and prepared a new translation of the Iliad
0:24:54 > 0:24:58for the young, brilliant horse-rider and soldier
0:24:58 > 0:25:01to teach him the arts of war.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04So, they are all connected by
0:25:04 > 0:25:08what was called in the 17th century a golden chain of being.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12Both are honoured in antiquity, I need hardly say,
0:25:12 > 0:25:16but both also come to sad ends.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19Homer, blind, despised.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22Aristotle, also, essentially,
0:25:22 > 0:25:27sent into a kind of ignominious isolation.
0:25:27 > 0:25:29So, in some sense or other
0:25:29 > 0:25:32they represent, for Rembrandt,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34the complicated relationship
0:25:34 > 0:25:38between being acknowledged and being rejected.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40And at the heart of it,
0:25:40 > 0:25:44weighing on the painting magnificently
0:25:44 > 0:25:47as though he's kind of welded it to the surface,
0:25:47 > 0:25:50is that bloody great chain.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53And if you go up to the painting closely, you'll see Rembrandt
0:25:53 > 0:25:56who was brilliant at doing metal all through his life -
0:25:56 > 0:25:59he was definitely a heavy-metal artist -
0:25:59 > 0:26:03it's there in beads and buttons and gobs and knots
0:26:03 > 0:26:06and pools and blisters and warts of paint
0:26:06 > 0:26:10which stand out from the picture surface.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12This is going to be the way he will operate.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16So the chain is telling us something. What's it telling us?
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Well, when you were honoured by a great patron,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23you were given a great chain of honour.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26Rembrandt, ever since he was a kid, has been painting himself
0:26:26 > 0:26:28with one of these fancy golden chains.
0:26:28 > 0:26:32Does he ever get one? No, he absolutely doesn't.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35He's massively chainless for his entire life.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37So, a chain will give you honour,
0:26:37 > 0:26:43but, of course, a chain also binds you like a prisoner
0:26:43 > 0:26:45to the whims of your patron.
0:26:45 > 0:26:47And Rembrandt, at this point,
0:26:47 > 0:26:50where he's been snubbed by the poets and the painters,
0:26:50 > 0:26:52who are all busy quaffing
0:26:52 > 0:26:54their malmsey or whatever they were quaffing,
0:26:54 > 0:26:58is saying, "Not me, busters, absolutely not."
0:26:58 > 0:27:03So, this is a kind of manifesto, isn't it?
0:27:03 > 0:27:06It's a manifesto of the thinking mind,
0:27:06 > 0:27:10the dashing hand, the poetic instinct.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14There is a fourth person, I suppose, as there nearly always is
0:27:14 > 0:27:19in a Rembrandt painting, and it is, obviously, himself.
0:27:35 > 0:27:40Don Antonio liked what he got well enough to order two more...
0:27:41 > 0:27:44..but Rembrandt took his time.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47When he finally delivered, in his later years,
0:27:47 > 0:27:51the patron felt as if he'd been slapped in the face.
0:27:52 > 0:27:54The first one was Alexander,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58and was painted on stitched-together bits of old paintings.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01Oops.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03And the second one was this.
0:28:06 > 0:28:11What you see now is terribly damaged by fire, but you get the idea.
0:28:11 > 0:28:12And as usual with Rembrandt,
0:28:12 > 0:28:15there was an IDEA behind the painting
0:28:15 > 0:28:18for which the style was meant to be perfectly suited -
0:28:18 > 0:28:23Homer, thought of as the poet of the people, of lyric roughness.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Don Antonio was furious.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32"This one is unfinished! Take it back!"
0:28:33 > 0:28:35This was more than a snit of egos and business.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39At stake was a huge issue -
0:28:39 > 0:28:43who gets to say when a picture is finished?
0:28:47 > 0:28:50Refinement, or rough poetry?
0:28:52 > 0:28:54The taste of the patron, or the instinct
0:28:54 > 0:28:57and the intellect of the artist?
0:28:58 > 0:29:01Would it prove to be the same old story,
0:29:01 > 0:29:03when in the last decade of his life,
0:29:03 > 0:29:07Rembrandt gets not one, but two substantial commissions?
0:29:07 > 0:29:10Either way, they were make-or-break jobs,
0:29:10 > 0:29:11the biggest you could hope for,
0:29:11 > 0:29:15and both featured men at a table.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26The first commission was a painting for Amsterdam's new town hall,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29built to rival any royal palace.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33It was Amsterdam's answer
0:29:33 > 0:29:36to all the oversized architectural egos of kings.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Here, no grand entrance -
0:29:39 > 0:29:42immense rooms open to the public.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49The interior screamed classical refinement.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Stony white spaces,
0:29:52 > 0:29:55marble floors, rows of tall windows.
0:29:58 > 0:30:03The burgomasters wanted to celebrate the heroism of their ancestry
0:30:03 > 0:30:06embodied in Claudius Civilis,
0:30:06 > 0:30:10the leader of a Dutch revolt against the Roman Empire.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12But the Claudius Civilis they wanted to see
0:30:12 > 0:30:15was a figure of dignified nobility.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22Rembrandt wanted to do something completely different.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25He was listening to a different kind of music,
0:30:25 > 0:30:31and that music was saying, the republic has gone soft.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34If it ever were attacked, woe betide us
0:30:34 > 0:30:40because we're drowning in a kind of swamp of wretched luxury and excess.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43So Rembrandt took the opportunity of this particular story
0:30:43 > 0:30:47to say, "OK, it's not that important that you're civilised,
0:30:47 > 0:30:50"it's incredibly important that you're free."
0:30:50 > 0:30:53And this story, the story of your origins,
0:30:53 > 0:30:57the story of your ability to rebel against the tyrants of Rome,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01is all about the roughness of freedom.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04You're going to get this, surely,
0:31:04 > 0:31:07because I'm going to paint you the roughest canvas
0:31:07 > 0:31:11about freedom, in the roughest possible style you've ever seen.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17So he paints a hero with one eye
0:31:17 > 0:31:19in exactly the way you're not supposed to do.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23You're not supposed to paint any hideous physical deformities,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25that's what the classical rules say.
0:31:25 > 0:31:29So Rembrandt starts with Claudius Civilis himself,
0:31:29 > 0:31:34his one non-eye staring straight out at the beholder,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36and the rest of the gang,
0:31:36 > 0:31:37the fellow conspirators,
0:31:37 > 0:31:41are this bunch of drunken ruffians, basically,
0:31:41 > 0:31:45in whom beats the breath of liberty and of freedom.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48But this is, above all, an expressive -
0:31:48 > 0:31:51one almost wants to say an Expressionist - painting.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54Rembrandt paid the people who commissioned it, and us -
0:31:54 > 0:31:58generation after generation - a huge compliment.
0:31:58 > 0:31:59"It's rough," he says,
0:31:59 > 0:32:03"It's rough because that way, I'm pulling you into the action,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06"into this immense flare of the light of freedom
0:32:06 > 0:32:11"coming off the table, and you will finish the picture
0:32:11 > 0:32:14"in your own imagination, in your own mind."
0:32:18 > 0:32:20But you will have to work twice as hard,
0:32:20 > 0:32:26because what YOU'RE seeing is just a fragment of the immense original.
0:32:26 > 0:32:30Rembrandt set his "oath swearing" in a cavernous Biblical setting.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34You'd have seen it like a sacred apparition -
0:32:34 > 0:32:39yes, this is a supper, but it's the first supper of liberty.
0:32:39 > 0:32:42The altarpiece to republican freedoms.
0:32:46 > 0:32:48So this was the nature of the gamble.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51It turned into a catastrophe.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54If he'd hoped the great and the grand of Amsterdam would get it,
0:32:54 > 0:32:56wow, they did not get it.
0:32:56 > 0:32:58He had to take the painting back,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01he had to cut it up in order to try and sell it,
0:33:01 > 0:33:06he was never really paid, we think, a cent for all this effort.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10But what we have is not just an imperishable masterpiece,
0:33:10 > 0:33:16not just a painting whose style is of a piece with its message,
0:33:16 > 0:33:20but maybe the first true work of modern art
0:33:20 > 0:33:23in the history of Western culture.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34He was down, but he was never to be counted out.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40There were still people who trusted him to deliver decent likenesses,
0:33:40 > 0:33:43and who knew - something extra too.
0:33:43 > 0:33:48A spirit of the group, maybe, even of the Drapers' Guild.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59Oh-oh - another bunch of men sitting round a table!
0:33:59 > 0:34:01If Rembrandt was licking his wounds though,
0:34:01 > 0:34:04over going right over the top with the Claudius Civilis,
0:34:04 > 0:34:09don't think for a moment he's going to go all quiet and respectful on us
0:34:09 > 0:34:12with this extraordinary painting.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14I mean, think about this particular subject.
0:34:14 > 0:34:20This lot of men are the quality-control inspectors
0:34:20 > 0:34:23of the Drapers' Guild having a meeting.
0:34:23 > 0:34:25Fantastically exciting? No!
0:34:25 > 0:34:27So he has to somehow dramatise it as well,
0:34:27 > 0:34:33he can't not bring some kind of energy into the composition.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36So, he turns the table round, doesn't he,
0:34:36 > 0:34:40so that one corner projects out into our own space.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43So we're looking at the group, the entire group,
0:34:43 > 0:34:45including the standing figure
0:34:45 > 0:34:50who's the live-in civil servant of the organisation,
0:34:50 > 0:34:54all facing us. He's also paid some respect to their faces
0:34:54 > 0:34:57which are so beautifully, if roughly, painted.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00And that's very important that it's done sympathetically
0:35:00 > 0:35:03because this lot are different kinds of Christians, and yet
0:35:03 > 0:35:08they all hang together as the quality-control inspectors
0:35:08 > 0:35:10of the Drapers' Guild.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12So we have black, white, black, white, broken up
0:35:12 > 0:35:15by this great, hot surge
0:35:15 > 0:35:20of magnificent crimson rug sitting on the table.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24Look at the angle with which the table sticks out into our space -
0:35:24 > 0:35:26notice something?
0:35:26 > 0:35:31It's the same angle as those men are looking out from the painting.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34They're looking at something. They're looking at SOMEONE.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37Who exactly are they looking at?
0:35:38 > 0:35:40Something else that's really interesting.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44We know, it's been suggested by a very clever art historian,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48who noticed that the preparatory drawings are actually -
0:35:48 > 0:35:53guess what - drawn on account book paper.
0:35:53 > 0:35:59Yes, the same account paper as the ledger book we are looking at,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02which brings up the amazing possibility
0:36:02 > 0:36:04that what they're looking at inside the book
0:36:04 > 0:36:07is a set of drawings made by Rembrandt
0:36:07 > 0:36:10of the poses of the figures.
0:36:10 > 0:36:15They're looking at the painting in the process of its own composition.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19So they are assuming the poses that Rembrandt's given them,
0:36:19 > 0:36:23which means they're looking at someone
0:36:23 > 0:36:25and they're looking at Rembrandt!
0:36:25 > 0:36:28It's Rembrandt who's come into the room,
0:36:28 > 0:36:32but we are standing where Rembrandt is.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35Rembrandt is us - what a compliment!
0:36:42 > 0:36:45Rembrandt knew all about male bonding.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50No painter ever had quite such a grip on its psychology.
0:36:50 > 0:36:53And no-one came even close to understanding something else
0:36:53 > 0:36:56men do all the time...
0:36:56 > 0:36:58look at women.
0:37:06 > 0:37:11Rembrandt was married for eight years to his first wife, Saskia,
0:37:11 > 0:37:14but she dies, aged only 29.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19He then takes up with his son's wet nurse, Geertje,
0:37:19 > 0:37:23but when she sues him for breach of engagement contract,
0:37:23 > 0:37:26he has her committed to a madhouse.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32In middle age, another servant in the house, Hendrickje Stoffels,
0:37:32 > 0:37:37becomes his common-law wife and gives birth to a daughter, Cornelia.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41It was this household -
0:37:41 > 0:37:47Hendrickje, Cornelia, Titus, his son by Saskia,
0:37:47 > 0:37:50and Rembrandt himself -
0:37:50 > 0:37:52who lived together in the Breerstraat
0:37:52 > 0:37:54when his finances began to unravel.
0:38:03 > 0:38:07This is incredibly moving, really.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11Wow. There's this perfect morning light, and...
0:38:13 > 0:38:15..it is sort of overwhelming.
0:38:15 > 0:38:20But you have this kind of opal pearl self-diffused light
0:38:20 > 0:38:23that falls on your working space.
0:38:23 > 0:38:25And this is ridiculous,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29it's like sort of the great art director in the sky has said,
0:38:29 > 0:38:32"Fine. You want a morning's work with Rembrandt,
0:38:32 > 0:38:34"I can do the lighting for you."
0:38:34 > 0:38:36So he's done the lighting,
0:38:36 > 0:38:39so the light is falling on Rembrandt's easel,
0:38:39 > 0:38:43and it's really just unbelievably moving.
0:38:44 > 0:38:48That, over there, the two palettes, one hung on top of each other,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51appear in the very first self-portrait
0:38:51 > 0:38:55when he's a very, very young man in Leiden.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59He's a young man mantled in his working tabard,
0:38:59 > 0:39:03and his eyes are just two little black circles.
0:39:06 > 0:39:08Here are the pigments.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11Crushed lapis lazuli for aquamarine,
0:39:11 > 0:39:13famously very expensive.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15Cinnabar for reds.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18But then you suspend all these pigments in oil,
0:39:18 > 0:39:19the oils are on the right -
0:39:19 > 0:39:23it's all so neat, and linseed oil was a favourite.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26I tried making pigments when I was writing Rembrandt's Eyes.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Didn't work out very well.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Cos I wanted to get the smell of it,
0:39:31 > 0:39:33and I wanted to get the sludgy texture.
0:39:33 > 0:39:37I managed a few of them, but my paintings were sort of crap,
0:39:37 > 0:39:41actually, but, boy, the smell of the pectin!
0:39:41 > 0:39:43My mother hated them being on the breakfast room table.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47But I loved it, really. Loved it.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49So, this is very moving,
0:39:49 > 0:39:51so stretcher frames,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54Dutch stove there.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57What a beautiful working space, really.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07Oh, and here is Hendrickje with her shirt off. This is so touching.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11And one thing Rembrandt plays with all the time is...
0:40:11 > 0:40:13He sees acting their role,
0:40:13 > 0:40:16he sees what our body language is.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19So he's unique in actually giving us our first image
0:40:19 > 0:40:21of what it was to model
0:40:21 > 0:40:24and still actually being who you are.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27So, she's still got her little hat on
0:40:27 > 0:40:30and there are two objects on the table in front of her.
0:40:30 > 0:40:33One is Rembrandt's drawing desk, slightly angled.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36And then there is the cot with the baby in.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39So she's both model and she's mummy, as well.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42She's nursing her baby. So you have the complete world.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46And then, even in this reproduction of that drawing,
0:40:46 > 0:40:48exactly the light I was just talking about.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52It's just falling on this sort of perfect scene.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02Some of Rembrandt's loveliest paintings, warm with intimacy
0:41:02 > 0:41:07and sensual anticipation, came from looking at Hendrickje.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11At the same time, he understood how complicated how ambiguous
0:41:11 > 0:41:15that looking could be. The violation of modesty and how to paint it,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18had long been an obsession of his.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22In his prime, he'd already painted an astonishing picture
0:41:22 > 0:41:26in which WE are turned into Peeping Toms.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Now, the story is an apocryphal addition to the Book Of Daniel.
0:41:37 > 0:41:42It's very simple - it's that Susanna, virtuous wife,
0:41:42 > 0:41:46is spied on by a creepy bunch of elders. They say,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48"Right, if you don't sleep with us,
0:41:48 > 0:41:53"we're going to accuse you of being an adulteress."
0:41:53 > 0:41:54Bad, bad story,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58and it was used constantly as a kind of morality tale,
0:41:58 > 0:42:05but, in a lot of Renaissance art, this is the most hypocritical moment
0:42:05 > 0:42:10in which women's bodies, instead of actually being seen morally,
0:42:10 > 0:42:16were voluptuously turned for the convenience of soft-porn happiness
0:42:16 > 0:42:19of the patrons, over and over again.
0:42:19 > 0:42:21Famously, images of Susanna -
0:42:21 > 0:42:24this is really creepy, everybody, there's no way round the story -
0:42:24 > 0:42:28were used as aphrodisiacs for the elderly like me.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31This is kind of visual Viagra.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33When Rubens is hired actually
0:42:33 > 0:42:37to do a painting of Susanna and the elders,
0:42:37 > 0:42:42Dudley Carleton, sorry, the British Ambassador here in The Hague, says,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45"It is going to be beautiful enough
0:42:45 > 0:42:48"to arouse the appetites of an old codger like me!
0:42:50 > 0:42:53Now, Rembrandt is no moralist
0:42:53 > 0:42:55and he sure isn't a feminist -
0:42:55 > 0:42:58the way he behaves with one particular woman proves that.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02But he has a staggering psychological grip
0:43:02 > 0:43:07that great sexual drama can be made out of telling the truth -
0:43:07 > 0:43:12turning the assumptions of what the nude is upside down.
0:43:12 > 0:43:14This is not a nude.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18This is a story about the observation of the naked.
0:43:18 > 0:43:24Instead, actually, of the body being turned voluptuously towards us
0:43:24 > 0:43:27it's all really about covering up.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29This is a real woman with a real woman's body,
0:43:29 > 0:43:34and look at her, she's looking directly at us.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36In other words, we are implicated.
0:43:36 > 0:43:38Whatever your age, whatever your gender,
0:43:38 > 0:43:41you, the viewer, are in a position of being a dirty old man.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45There IS a dirty, old man hiding in the shrubbery on the right,
0:43:45 > 0:43:47so, it's there, but essentially
0:43:47 > 0:43:51the drama depends on us feeling, not kind of getting our jollies,
0:43:51 > 0:43:57but feeling unbelievably embarrassed and awkward.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59Rembrandt is incredibly interested in modesty.
0:43:59 > 0:44:03So, she takes what she can. She grabs a piece of drapery,
0:44:03 > 0:44:07and in this complicated way of course covers up her groin,
0:44:07 > 0:44:10and in a really wonderful touch,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13a classic, brilliant gesture of the young,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16endlessly visually inventive Rembrandt,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19if you look at the sleeve of her dress,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21we sort of see what she was wearing
0:44:21 > 0:44:24when she was clothed that got them all excited.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28So the hanging-down sleeve almost echoes the arm
0:44:28 > 0:44:32that is the covering up, isn't it?
0:44:32 > 0:44:36And with the other arm, her left arm is pressed to her breast,
0:44:36 > 0:44:40so there's no titillation in any way at all.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43This is a woman who's suddenly horrified
0:44:43 > 0:44:45at the kind of violation of the gaze.
0:44:47 > 0:44:49There are absolutely wonderful little details,
0:44:49 > 0:44:53my favourite is that one of those feet
0:44:53 > 0:44:55is actually looking for,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59and missing, the slipper.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02So, it's a fantastic piece of drama -
0:45:02 > 0:45:05not so much the embarrassment of being naked
0:45:05 > 0:45:07but the vulnerability of being naked.
0:45:14 > 0:45:1820 years later, he would come back to the guilt
0:45:18 > 0:45:23and pleasure of looking, this time turning voyeurism into tragedy.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33The painting tells the story from the Bible
0:45:33 > 0:45:35of King David and Bathsheba.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40Rembrandt joins together two episodes from the Scripture.
0:45:40 > 0:45:45David spying on Bathsheba, the wife of one of his generals, bathing,
0:45:45 > 0:45:48and the moment when she receives a letter
0:45:48 > 0:45:51summoning her to the royal bed.
0:45:53 > 0:45:58Bathsheba is made a vessel of pure tragedy -
0:45:58 > 0:46:01the lips on the verge of trembling,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05her gaze is both concentrated and distracted,
0:46:05 > 0:46:07the eyebrows tightly arched
0:46:07 > 0:46:11as though battling against the onset of tears.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15Rembrandt makes US the ones doing the looking.
0:46:15 > 0:46:20It's us who are accomplices, reeled into the web of desire.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23An innocent act of bathing
0:46:23 > 0:46:27has been turned into a sinister moment of grooming.
0:46:28 > 0:46:33It gets even more complicated when you know that 1654,
0:46:33 > 0:46:37when it was painted, was also the year in which the model, Hendrickje,
0:46:37 > 0:46:39visibly pregnant,
0:46:39 > 0:46:42is hauled up before the Church Court for living in sin
0:46:42 > 0:46:45with the artist, Rembrandt van Rijn.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48Needless to say, poor Hendrickje shows up
0:46:48 > 0:46:50and gets this self-righteous earful -
0:46:50 > 0:46:53Rembrandt doesn't bother.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57Out of this personal drama fought over Hendrickje's body,
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Rembrandt produces one of the most
0:46:59 > 0:47:03psychologically complex nudes ever made,
0:47:03 > 0:47:06filled with passion and heartbreak.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12But it doesn't stop here.
0:47:15 > 0:47:20Four years later, he made this extraordinary etching.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24Not a nude, but a model between takes.
0:47:24 > 0:47:30A woman feeling the cold and warming herself by a Dutch stove.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33Real life has crashed into art.
0:47:39 > 0:47:45Rembrandt spotted another of art's little hypocrisies.
0:47:45 > 0:47:49How paintings could assume the mask of outraged virtue
0:47:49 > 0:47:54while delivering the prurient thrill of sexual violence.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10Many artists had painted the rape of Lucretia and her suicide
0:48:10 > 0:48:14told by the historians of early Rome.
0:48:14 > 0:48:18Here she is, the virtuous wife of one of Rome's consuls
0:48:18 > 0:48:23in its early days, ruled by the Tarquin kings.
0:48:23 > 0:48:27The rapist is the son of the king.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30Though she could not be more innocent,
0:48:30 > 0:48:33she can't live with the shame and commits suicide.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35After the terrible deed is done,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38her family swear, not just vengeance and justice,
0:48:38 > 0:48:41but an end to the tyranny of kings.
0:48:44 > 0:48:48Some artists had painted the rape itself,
0:48:48 > 0:48:51where our eavesdropping and the full-on nudity
0:48:51 > 0:48:56repeats the violation while pretending to be horrified by it.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59Rembrandt does things differently...
0:49:04 > 0:49:07It's an honour killing or an honour suicide -
0:49:07 > 0:49:09I really don't know which is worse -
0:49:09 > 0:49:14but it's drenched in pathos and a sense of impending horror.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18This amazing masterpiece
0:49:18 > 0:49:24is about the line between being dressed in the mantle of honour -
0:49:24 > 0:49:27just look at her, you see how heavy
0:49:27 > 0:49:33that responsibility of the physical textile of the mantle of honour is.
0:49:33 > 0:49:35On that, Rembrandt has lavished
0:49:35 > 0:49:39his most immense dramatic powers of brushwork -
0:49:39 > 0:49:41the relationship between that
0:49:41 > 0:49:46and the vulnerable nakedness of flesh.
0:49:46 > 0:49:51We sense the presence of the brutalised, violated Lucretia's body
0:49:51 > 0:49:56from just the openings, the fastening at the top of the body.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59But look, actually, at that composition.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02It forms a kind of arrowhead, a "V",
0:50:02 > 0:50:04it moves down her body
0:50:04 > 0:50:07emphasised by this heavy girdle
0:50:07 > 0:50:09which is below her waist.
0:50:09 > 0:50:13Not a place actually any dress in the 17th century I know of,
0:50:13 > 0:50:17emphasises of course the site of her violation.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21What is about to happen, inflicted by Lucretia,
0:50:21 > 0:50:23who's been crying.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25Look at the pinked-up eyes,
0:50:25 > 0:50:28very rare, you almost never see that in 17th century
0:50:28 > 0:50:30or almost any other painting.
0:50:30 > 0:50:32Look at the weight,
0:50:32 > 0:50:36the torrent of emotion that's waiting to pour out.
0:50:36 > 0:50:41You don't just look at this painting - we've heard her speak,
0:50:41 > 0:50:44possibly through a choke of sobs,
0:50:44 > 0:50:48about the demand to actually to avenge this hideous crime
0:50:48 > 0:50:50by ending the corrupt kingdom of Rome
0:50:50 > 0:50:53and replacing it with a republic of liberty.
0:50:53 > 0:50:55So we've listened to her.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59This is the moment between the speech and the suicide,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01everything is in suspense.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06So the genius of the way he has actually executed
0:51:06 > 0:51:09this extraordinary moment of drama
0:51:09 > 0:51:15is to take us from this incredible crust of dark green paint
0:51:15 > 0:51:19to the single pearl drop at her throat.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24This is the sign of chastity, of honour, of purity,
0:51:24 > 0:51:30and the implication that beneath the whiteness,
0:51:30 > 0:51:32the perfect whiteness of that pearl,
0:51:32 > 0:51:37will come a traumatic effusion of blood.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47And then, a bit later, we don't know how much later,
0:51:47 > 0:51:51but perhaps 1666, three years before he dies,
0:51:51 > 0:51:56he goes at the subject again and this time, everything has changed.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05There are so many painted Lucretias.
0:52:05 > 0:52:07But never like this.
0:52:07 > 0:52:11Never with the blood POURING out of her.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15She's dying. Fast.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Her face is a terrible, sallow colour.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22The blood is on the dagger.
0:52:22 > 0:52:26And suddenly, we can feel two wounds.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29The one made by the rapist,
0:52:29 > 0:52:32and the one made in tragic desperation by the suicidal woman.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36The depth and violence of both...
0:52:38 > 0:52:41..and the blood.
0:52:41 > 0:52:44No-one has painted blood like this before.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48Taken so much care with it.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51This isn't prop blood, art blood, stage blood.
0:52:51 > 0:52:55Rembrandt, the great thickener of pigment, has thinned it out...
0:52:55 > 0:52:59and he makes it dry, clot, then leak.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01It's sticking to her shirt,
0:53:01 > 0:53:08which is stuck to her and it's leeching her life away.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10You just look,
0:53:10 > 0:53:11helpless.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15She's dying, alone.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33Rembrandt, too, at the end, is quite alone.
0:53:35 > 0:53:39There are some friends, the dwindling band of supporters,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42but, except for his daughter Cornelia....
0:53:42 > 0:53:44the family have all died -
0:53:44 > 0:53:50most heartbreakingly, one suspects, his son, Titus.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53Titus's wife, Maddalena, Hendrickje...
0:53:53 > 0:53:56It's just him now, rattling around in the little house
0:53:56 > 0:53:59in the bad part of town.
0:53:59 > 0:54:00So, towards the very end,
0:54:00 > 0:54:04he turns away from all those scenes of voyeurism,
0:54:04 > 0:54:06the estrangement of men and women,
0:54:06 > 0:54:10the sacrifice of torn bodies,
0:54:10 > 0:54:13to something like its antidote -
0:54:13 > 0:54:15the warm connection of family love.
0:54:24 > 0:54:29In October 1885, 220 years later,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31an aspiring young artist,
0:54:31 > 0:54:34one who spent much of HIS desperately lonely life
0:54:34 > 0:54:39searching for affection, would walk into the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam,
0:54:39 > 0:54:44make a beeline for a particular painting and stand there,
0:54:44 > 0:54:46eyes wide, heart pumping,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49sweaty with the fever of adoration.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57"I would gladly give ten years of my life
0:54:57 > 0:55:01"to stand before this painting for ten days,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04"with only a dry crust of bread to eat."
0:55:06 > 0:55:10What was it about The Jewish Bride that made Vincent van Gogh
0:55:10 > 0:55:15believe that the old Rembrandt had painted it, as he wrote,
0:55:15 > 0:55:17"with a hand of fire"?
0:55:21 > 0:55:25I think I know why Van Gogh was so overwhelmed by this painting.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28It does what every great masterpiece does,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31it attacks us viscerally
0:55:31 > 0:55:35and he was a very physical painter, and this, above all,
0:55:35 > 0:55:38is a painting about the physical embodiment of love.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41It's a painting about what it means to be touched.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47At the heart of it is a play of hands,
0:55:47 > 0:55:51a hand on a heart which is also a hand on a breast,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54a hand touching that hand, a hand round the shoulder.
0:55:54 > 0:55:59It is, above all, a play of hands testifying to trust,
0:55:59 > 0:56:04to confidence, to simplicity within the shelter of love.
0:56:07 > 0:56:13What this painting does is actually deliver more than it describes.
0:56:13 > 0:56:15Let me give you an example.
0:56:15 > 0:56:19The clothes, the outfit - Rembrandt had a huge wardrobe of costumes,
0:56:19 > 0:56:22he loved dressing himself up, dressing everybody else up.
0:56:22 > 0:56:26The paint is absolutely trowelled on
0:56:26 > 0:56:28and inside that paint, there is the entire world.
0:56:28 > 0:56:34Bits of egg have been found in it, sand, silica, grit, earth.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37He's kind of attacked the paint like a feverish modernist,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40like the great-great-granddaddy Jackson Pollock or someone.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44What you've got is this immense, clotted,
0:56:44 > 0:56:48coagulated crust of coloured paint
0:56:48 > 0:56:52that is the most physical thing you could possibly, possibly think of!
0:56:52 > 0:56:57Now, it's probably painted, we don't know the exact date, around 1665.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01Hendrickje has died in 1663.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05This is not Hendrickje, this is not a memory of Hendrickje,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08but even though we're not allowed ever to be sentimental
0:57:08 > 0:57:11about Rembrandt - he would not have liked that -
0:57:11 > 0:57:13is it not possible, everybody,
0:57:13 > 0:57:18that if you want to retain the memory of what connects
0:57:18 > 0:57:22being physically touched with emotionally touched,
0:57:22 > 0:57:26you do it with massive, massive substance?
0:57:26 > 0:57:30Underneath the mantling of all this paint
0:57:30 > 0:57:31is incredible tenderness.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35Rembrandt is aware of mortality,
0:57:35 > 0:57:37of the perishability of life.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42All great painting is about an attempt to stop time,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45to make memory physical,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48brilliantly coloured.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50What he wants to do with this particular vision of love
0:57:50 > 0:57:52is make it imperishable.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56So, if all of you out there worry about forgetting
0:57:56 > 0:58:00what it is like to be deliriously, confidently,
0:58:00 > 0:58:02trustingly in love,
0:58:02 > 0:58:05stand in front of this.
0:58:05 > 0:58:08This is THE painting of love.