0:00:02 > 0:00:03This is the BBC Television Service.
0:00:03 > 0:00:05We now present another programme
0:00:05 > 0:00:09in our series of Experimental Transmissions In Colour.
0:00:09 > 0:00:12We live in a kaleidoscopic world.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17But colours are more than mere decoration.
0:00:19 > 0:00:24Colours carry deep and significant meanings for us all.
0:00:25 > 0:00:30In this series, I want to unravel the stories of three colours.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Three colours which, in the hands of artists,
0:00:34 > 0:00:37have stirred our emotions,
0:00:37 > 0:00:39changed the way we behave
0:00:39 > 0:00:44and even altered the course of history.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47Gold.
0:00:47 > 0:00:54Its lustrous shine has made this the most intoxicating colour.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57One we've used throughout history to revere the things
0:00:57 > 0:00:59we hold most sacred.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04White,
0:01:04 > 0:01:08once the virtuous colour of ancient marbles,
0:01:08 > 0:01:12came to embody our darkest instincts.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And, in this programme, a colour that, for artists,
0:01:17 > 0:01:20has always been the most beguiling of all.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27The unique thing about blue is that
0:01:27 > 0:01:34it is all around us and yet somehow it feels for ever out of reach.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37Because we can never touch the blueness of the sea
0:01:37 > 0:01:39or blueness of the sky,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43and we can never reach the blue horizon over there, in the distance.
0:01:44 > 0:01:50And, for these reasons, blue has captured our imaginations,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53offering us the tantalising prospect
0:01:53 > 0:01:57of entirely new worlds beyond our own.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06From the moment a mysterious cargo arrived from the across the seas,
0:02:06 > 0:02:13artists have used blue to transport us to strange and exotic realms.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16From Giotto's heavenly visions...
0:02:17 > 0:02:21..to Titian's gardens of earthly delight.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26From Picasso's melancholy yearnings
0:02:26 > 0:02:29to Yves Klein's dreams of escape.
0:02:29 > 0:02:30Throughout his whole life,
0:02:30 > 0:02:35his goal was to leave this world behind him.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41We'll reveal how these artists searched for the perfect blue
0:02:41 > 0:02:44to capture the great beyond.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48And, finally, how one powerful image showed us
0:02:48 > 0:02:51that blue was not the colour of other worlds.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55It was the colour of our own.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14Our story of blue begins a thousand years ago
0:03:14 > 0:03:16on the edge of Europe.
0:03:17 > 0:03:21This is the Venetian Lagoon.
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Across these waters sailed merchants from the East.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33They were hungry for Venetian gold.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37And, in exchange, they brought a mysterious cargo.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45It was a rare, almost mythical substance
0:03:45 > 0:03:50that could only be found in one tiny mine
0:03:50 > 0:03:54on the far side of what is now Afghanistan.
0:03:55 > 0:04:03And to get here, to Venice, it had travelled some 3,500 miles,
0:04:03 > 0:04:08across mountain ranges, across deserts
0:04:08 > 0:04:12and, finally, across the Mediterranean Sea.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19What the Arab sailors had brought was a precious stone.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23And it was called lapis lazuli.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30And this stone possessed a colour so enchanting
0:04:30 > 0:04:33that it would change art in dramatic ways.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40So this is it.
0:04:43 > 0:04:44Now, I must say, I have never seen
0:04:44 > 0:04:49such a large chunk of lapis before.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51And I'm quite surprised at how complex
0:04:51 > 0:04:53and beautiful it is, actually.
0:04:53 > 0:05:00You can see how rich and deep and amazing this blue is.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02And the whole impression of this stone
0:05:02 > 0:05:04is that it looks a bit like the sky.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06It looks a bit like a fragment of the sky
0:05:06 > 0:05:10has just fallen down to Earth and I've picked it.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14So you can really understand why people loved this substance so much.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20As strange as it may seem,
0:05:20 > 0:05:24blue hardly existed in the history of Western art.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31It's nowhere to be found among the earthy colours
0:05:31 > 0:05:34of prehistoric cave paintings.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38The Greeks didn't even have a word for it.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42And the Romans had little time for blue in their wall paintings
0:05:42 > 0:05:43at Pompeii.
0:05:44 > 0:05:50Even in the Middle Ages, the blues they had were feeble and pallid.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54And so the artists of medieval Venice
0:05:54 > 0:06:00couldn't wait to get their hands on the wondrous blue of lapis lazuli.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10- OK, here we go.- So you probably need to be pretty strong, don't you?
0:06:10 > 0:06:12Yeah, this is like sculpting marble.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17I mean, this is a hard stone, I mean, it's physically hard, it's heavy.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20And you have to be very patient
0:06:20 > 0:06:26and you're talking about a process of one week to even two weeks.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28Alan Pascuzzi is an Italian artist
0:06:28 > 0:06:32who has studied the ingenious process
0:06:32 > 0:06:36that took his medieval forebears centuries to perfect.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39We're going to put it in the mortar
0:06:39 > 0:06:41and, eventually, what we have to do is
0:06:41 > 0:06:43begin to grind this up.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47And the thing is, you don't want to waste one bit of this
0:06:47 > 0:06:50because the lapis lazuli is exponentially more expensive
0:06:50 > 0:06:51than any other pigment.
0:06:51 > 0:06:54Lapis, you know, took how many months of travel to get there,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57you don't want to lose even one piece of it.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Days would pass,
0:07:03 > 0:07:08slowly grinding the rock until it was reduced to a fine, blue dust.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20The blue dust was encased in beeswax,
0:07:20 > 0:07:25pine resin and gum arabic to purge it of impurities.
0:07:27 > 0:07:31And then placed into a mixture too caustic to touch.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37It really brings home to you how important colour is to people,
0:07:37 > 0:07:40- that they would go to this huge effort...- Exactly.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43- ..just to make a colour. It's amazing.- Exactly.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45And I think that's the power of art.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48And, by association, art is -
0:07:48 > 0:07:50you know, you want to make it as beautiful as possible.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52And finally...
0:07:54 > 0:07:56..after weeks of tortuous labour,
0:07:56 > 0:08:01every particle of the precious blue essence was released.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07The hard stone of lapis lazuli
0:08:07 > 0:08:08had been transformed.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14And this is the finished product.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17Ultramarine.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19And they call it that because that's quite literally
0:08:19 > 0:08:22from where it came, from across the seas.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27Now, today, we're surrounded by bright blue things,
0:08:27 > 0:08:33but to the people of the late Middle Ages, this colour was a revelation.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37It was brighter and purer and stronger
0:08:37 > 0:08:40than any blue they had ever seen.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48'Within just a few decades of this remarkable discovery,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52'blue began to seep into Western art.'
0:08:53 > 0:08:56It crept across the pages of illuminated manuscripts.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02It wrapped itself around their sacred words.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09And it slipped into the backgrounds of Biblical scenes.
0:09:11 > 0:09:16But blue would soon become more than a decorative flourish.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23Our story now takes us to Padua.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28Here, a pioneering artist would indulge in blue
0:09:28 > 0:09:31like never before,
0:09:31 > 0:09:35elevating this once lowly colour to divine status.
0:09:38 > 0:09:44'In 1303, Giotto, often called the father of the Italian Renaissance,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47'set to work at the Scrovegni Chapel.'
0:09:48 > 0:09:51While it looks austere from the outside,
0:09:51 > 0:09:55inside, Giotto had created a masterpiece.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02This may just be
0:10:02 > 0:10:06one of the two or three most important rooms in Western art.
0:10:06 > 0:10:12And almost every square inch of it is covered in paintings by Giotto,
0:10:12 > 0:10:18dealing with the life of Christ and the life of the Virgin Mary.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21You can see, over there, that's the Last Supper.
0:10:21 > 0:10:26Come through and you can see here, the washing of the feet.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30But my favourite image in here, and probably the most famous of them,
0:10:30 > 0:10:35is this one, Judas leaning in to kiss Christ.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39Now, what amazes me is this was painted 700 years ago
0:10:39 > 0:10:43and still the suspense is unbearable.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46And that is the brilliance of Giotto.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48He took religious art and he made it feel like
0:10:48 > 0:10:52it was just something taking place on the streets in every day life.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01'These paintings are dramatic and original.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05'But I think Giotto's most striking invention here
0:11:05 > 0:11:07'is not on the walls at all,
0:11:07 > 0:11:09'it's on the ceiling.'
0:11:13 > 0:11:16Above us, we have the most beautiful,
0:11:16 > 0:11:21the most brilliant, deep, blue vault,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25that's dusted with hundreds of golden stars.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31And you may think that's the sky, but it's not the sky.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38This blue ceiling is, actually, a depiction of Heaven.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44This is how Giotto imagined Heaven.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49For Giotto, Heaven is blue.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53And, if you don't believe it, have a look up
0:11:53 > 0:11:56and you'll see the Virgin Mary and Jesus
0:11:56 > 0:12:01and various other prophets, peeking out of the blue Heaven
0:12:01 > 0:12:02and looking down on us.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07And, for me, this is just the most amazing thing
0:12:07 > 0:12:11because, only a few years before this chapel was painted,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14blue was a really minor colour in the history of Western art,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18it really was, I mean, it didn't have much of a big role to play.
0:12:18 > 0:12:23But here, only a few years after that recipe for ultramarine
0:12:23 > 0:12:24had been mastered,
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Giotto takes the colour blue
0:12:27 > 0:12:30and he turns it into the colour that is the most beautiful,
0:12:30 > 0:12:34the most powerful, the most sacred of them all.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37The colour of paradise itself.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48In the eyes of the Church,
0:12:48 > 0:12:51blue was now the most sacrosanct of colours.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58TRANSLATION FROM ITALIAN:
0:13:20 > 0:13:24But blue was now so divine
0:13:24 > 0:13:27that the Church greedily sought to control it.
0:13:29 > 0:13:34They restricted its supply and inflated its price.
0:13:37 > 0:13:43Before long, blue became even expensive than gold.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47In the 1300s, laws were passed
0:13:47 > 0:13:50that banned citizens from wearing the colour.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57Only one person, it seemed, could always be robed in blue.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02The Mother of God herself.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09In this Madonna And Child, Italy, 1420.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15The Visitation, Flemish,
0:14:15 > 0:14:161445.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21And here,
0:14:21 > 0:14:24German, 1490.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40But it was in Venice, the spiritual home of blue,
0:14:40 > 0:14:42that the colour would be liberated
0:14:42 > 0:14:44from the suffocating grip of the Church.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52And one painter who dared to do this was Titian.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59Titian was born among the foothills of the Alps around 1490,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03but, as a young man, he was soon drawn to Venice.
0:15:05 > 0:15:10When Titian arrived here, Venice was the undisputed world leader
0:15:10 > 0:15:11in colour.
0:15:11 > 0:15:14It had the raw materials, it had the clientele
0:15:14 > 0:15:16and it had the know-how.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19So virtually every pigment known to man
0:15:19 > 0:15:21was available along this canal.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33Titian was a colour addict.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37And when it came to blue, he wore his heart on his sleeve.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44'For him, the Church's control of the colour
0:15:44 > 0:15:47'must have been deeply frustrating.'
0:15:48 > 0:15:51And in one of his first great commissions,
0:15:51 > 0:15:55he made his feelings known in a most explicit way.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02So this is the Pesaro Altarpiece
0:16:02 > 0:16:07and Titian started it in 1519, when he was still a young man.
0:16:07 > 0:16:09He's put virtually every colour,
0:16:09 > 0:16:11virtually every single pigment he can find here in Venice,
0:16:11 > 0:16:13on that painting.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19There's something he's done here that no artist has done before.
0:16:21 > 0:16:26He's put the Virgin Mary to the side of the painting.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30Now, throughout history, the Virgin Mary had always been in the centre.
0:16:31 > 0:16:34To move her up the steps and on the side
0:16:34 > 0:16:37was tantamount to heresy, really.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43And taking her place, at the heart of the picture,
0:16:43 > 0:16:48is a rich swathe of ultramarine blue
0:16:48 > 0:16:52with a very lucky Saint Peter underneath it.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04But Titian's obsession with blue would only be fully understood
0:17:04 > 0:17:08when one of his greatest paintings began to fall apart.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21I've been looking at this picture now for over 20 years,
0:17:21 > 0:17:23watching it deteriorate slowly.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28Here I'm looking for minute blisters which are very difficult to see.
0:17:28 > 0:17:320.09, experiment begins.
0:17:32 > 0:17:38In 1967, 450 years after it was painted,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42Titian's Bacchus And Ariadne was in intensive care.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48After I do this, of course, I have the whole picture X-rayed.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51At London's National Gallery,
0:17:51 > 0:17:56Mr Arthur Lucas was undertaking a daring experiment
0:17:56 > 0:17:57in art restoration.
0:17:57 > 0:18:010.59, focus cleared.
0:18:01 > 0:18:06With a surgical hand, he began to remove a thick skin of varnish
0:18:06 > 0:18:08and dirt.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11And as he did so, he made an astonishing discovery.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16Patches of the most brilliant blues.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20Blues applied by Titian's hand centuries before.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23And when it's all finished,
0:18:23 > 0:18:25do you think that this picture is going to look
0:18:25 > 0:18:28like the picture Titian intended?
0:18:28 > 0:18:30Well, it'll look very near, I think.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34The picture will look very beautiful when it's finished.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43And here it is, Bacchus And Ariadne,
0:18:43 > 0:18:45a famous scene from Roman mythology.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Arthur Lucas's restoration of Bacchus And Ariadne
0:18:52 > 0:18:56shocked all who saw it because no-one knew
0:18:56 > 0:19:00just how colourful Titian's paintings could be.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05But, for me, the most dramatic thing about this painting
0:19:05 > 0:19:08is, of course, the blue.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12Because this is an utter barnstormer.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16And you know when you look at this painting, almost half of it,
0:19:16 > 0:19:18if you look diagonally that way,
0:19:18 > 0:19:20almost half of it is blue.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25And it must have cost Titian an utter fortune.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30But, my word, it was worth the money because it's so delicious
0:19:30 > 0:19:32and he has used it all the way through the painting.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35He's used it in Ariadne's cloak,
0:19:35 > 0:19:37he's used it in this reveller's dress,
0:19:37 > 0:19:41he's used it in the amazing mountains on the horizon
0:19:41 > 0:19:46and, of course, he's used it in this sky,
0:19:46 > 0:19:48this unforgettable sky.
0:19:50 > 0:19:55As we've already seen, blue was incredibly powerfully controlled
0:19:55 > 0:19:58by the Church, controlled by religious conventions,
0:19:58 > 0:20:01how much you could use and where you could use it.
0:20:01 > 0:20:05And in this painting, Titian has just blown that away
0:20:05 > 0:20:10and said, "I'm going to use blue wherever I like."
0:20:10 > 0:20:12And, you know, there's something,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15there's something heretical about that as well.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20Cos, as we have seen, blue was usually reserved for the cloak
0:20:20 > 0:20:21of the Virgin Mary.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24And, look, the purest ultramarine in this painting
0:20:24 > 0:20:27is the cloak of this reveller here.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30And she couldn't be further away from the Virgin Mary,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34she hasn't even bothered to put her breast away.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41And, for me, this is the moment when blue gets stripped of conventions,
0:20:41 > 0:20:44stripped of received wisdom,
0:20:44 > 0:20:46stripped of hierarchical meanings,
0:20:46 > 0:20:49and it just gets used for fun.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54After centuries under the strict control of the Church,
0:20:54 > 0:21:00Titian seemed to liberate blue from the shackles of religion.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18'But let's now travel to another time and place.
0:21:18 > 0:21:22'A place where blue would be transformed once again,
0:21:22 > 0:21:26'turned into the colour of our deepest emotions.'
0:21:27 > 0:21:29We're no longer in Renaissance Italy,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32but Germany, at the end of the 18th century.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47It was the Romantic Age.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54These were the days of delicate sensibilities
0:21:54 > 0:21:56and wild imaginings,
0:21:56 > 0:22:00of brooding heroes and wandering poets.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10In 1799, a German Romantic writer by the name of Novalis
0:22:10 > 0:22:13began work on an epic novel.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18Its eponymous hero was a boy,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Heinrich von Ofterdingen,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24whose lucid visions keep him from sleep.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28"The young man lay uneasily on his couch.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34"'It's like a dream, as if I had dozed off into another world',
0:22:34 > 0:22:36"he said to himself."
0:22:40 > 0:22:43His wild fantasies led him on a journey
0:22:43 > 0:22:46across the landscape of his own imagination.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54Heinrich was restless
0:22:54 > 0:22:58because there was something he couldn't get out of his head.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02It was the most powerful longing he'd ever experienced.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05And it wasn't for money, it wasn't for power,
0:23:05 > 0:23:07it wasn't even for a woman.
0:23:07 > 0:23:13What Heinrich was yearning for was a small, blue flower.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19"It's not material treasures
0:23:19 > 0:23:22"which have awakened such a powerful longing in me,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25"but I long to look on the blue flower.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27"It feels my senses ceaselessly
0:23:27 > 0:23:30"and I can think and breathe nothing else.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34"All emotions rose within him to an unprecedented peak."
0:23:40 > 0:23:43The novel proved to be a sensation.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47Throughout Europe,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51it captivated the hearts and minds of those who read it.
0:24:01 > 0:24:07The Blue Flower quickly lodged itself in the Romantic imagination
0:24:07 > 0:24:12and it profoundly transformed the meaning of the colour blue.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Because it was that story, more than perhaps anything else,
0:24:15 > 0:24:20that made blue the great colour of our deepest feelings.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29'Today, Novalis's book has been mostly forgotten,
0:24:29 > 0:24:33'but its legacy permeated through the 1800s.'
0:24:34 > 0:24:38So, when artists tapped into their deepest feelings,
0:24:38 > 0:24:41they repeatedly called on blue.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48It dances in the dreams of Gauguin's sleeping son.
0:24:52 > 0:24:58It haunts the Starry Night of Van Gogh's troubled soul.
0:25:03 > 0:25:08And it embraces the private passions of Edvard Munch's lovers.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14But, as the 19th century drew to a close,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18one artist would harness the emotional power of blue
0:25:18 > 0:25:20like no other.
0:25:32 > 0:25:37Today we remember Picasso as a macho playboy
0:25:37 > 0:25:39and brave abstractionist.
0:25:41 > 0:25:42But as a young man,
0:25:42 > 0:25:46he made his debut with an astonishingly accomplished
0:25:46 > 0:25:48series of paintings.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55The works of Picasso's Blue Period are known across the world.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00But few know the real story behind them.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05A story of suicide, of despair
0:26:05 > 0:26:07and the search for redemption.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13Picasso was born in Spain in 1881.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19'And, like many a young man, he felt the urge to leave home.'
0:26:24 > 0:26:29In October 1900, when he was just 19 years old,
0:26:29 > 0:26:33Picasso decided to leave Spain.
0:26:33 > 0:26:35But he wouldn't make the journey alone.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38Sitting next to him, the whole way,
0:26:38 > 0:26:42was his best friend Carlos Casagemas.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45And, together, they planned to make their names
0:26:45 > 0:26:47on the international stage.
0:26:47 > 0:26:51And as far as they were concerned, there was only one place to go.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59Paris.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04When Picasso and Casagemas arrived here,
0:27:04 > 0:27:09they stepped off the train and into the very centre of the world.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18All nations had converged at the Universal Exhibition
0:27:18 > 0:27:23to showcase their new ideas, new architecture and new inventions.
0:27:26 > 0:27:30Thomas Edison was there to capture the extravaganza
0:27:30 > 0:27:32on his pioneering movie camera.
0:27:33 > 0:27:38And I always wonder if, somewhere, lost in the crowd,
0:27:38 > 0:27:43is a wide-eyed Picasso with his friend Casagemas.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51But while they marvelled at the wonders of the exhibition by day,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56when night fell, they indulged in more salacious pleasures.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03Now, Picasso and Casagemas were all but penniless,
0:28:03 > 0:28:07yet they took advantage of almost everything that Paris had to offer.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10They went sightseeing, they networked,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12they tried almost every drug going
0:28:12 > 0:28:16and they seduced as many women as possible.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20But their fun would not last for ever.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30Paris was oblivious to two young artists trying to make their way.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37And while Picasso kept the faith,
0:28:37 > 0:28:41Casagemas was consumed with frustration.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45He began to lose his grip on sanity
0:28:45 > 0:28:47with disastrous consequences.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52On the evening of 17 February 1901,
0:28:52 > 0:28:57Carlos Casagemas washed up in a bar with his girlfriend.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02But as the wine flowed,
0:29:02 > 0:29:04an embarrassing scene developed.
0:29:07 > 0:29:09People didn't know where to look.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12And then things got ugly.
0:29:14 > 0:29:16GUNSHOT, WOMAN SCREAMS
0:29:16 > 0:29:19'Casagemas had pulled a gun on his lover.'
0:29:20 > 0:29:24Fortunately, Casagemas missed his girlfriend.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27She dived under the table the moment he fired the gun
0:29:27 > 0:29:31and she escaped virtually unscathed.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33But he thought she was dead,
0:29:33 > 0:29:36so he turned the gun on himself.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39He brought the revolver up to his right temple,
0:29:39 > 0:29:42he pulled the trigger and he shot himself dead.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50'Picasso was horrified when he heard the news
0:29:50 > 0:29:53'of best friend's suicide.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56'And he struggled to come to terms with the death.'
0:29:59 > 0:30:06Picasso was so bereft that he started to behave rather strangely.
0:30:06 > 0:30:13In fact, he set about taking over his best friend's identity.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16He started sleeping with Casagemas's girlfriend,
0:30:16 > 0:30:20he moved into Casagemas's apartment
0:30:20 > 0:30:24and he started producing paintings
0:30:24 > 0:30:28that compulsively - and, I think, self-destructively -
0:30:28 > 0:30:31revisited the tragedy.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39He repeatedly painted Casagemas, blue in his coffin,
0:30:39 > 0:30:42the bullet wound still raw.
0:30:45 > 0:30:50A mythical re-enactment of the funeral soon followed.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54Where prostitutes and faceless mourners are engulfed
0:30:54 > 0:30:56in a blue haze.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04Such bizarre paintings couldn't escape the eyes of a man
0:31:04 > 0:31:08who made it his business to probe the most intimate parts
0:31:08 > 0:31:10of the human mind.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17Carl Jung was one of the most celebrated psychoanalysts
0:31:17 > 0:31:18of his day.
0:31:24 > 0:31:26TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Dr Christian Gaillard is a disciple of Jung.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46And shares his master's interest in Picasso.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30The infernal path that Picasso walked
0:32:30 > 0:32:34was littered with harrowing figures veiled in blue.
0:32:38 > 0:32:43A skeletal musician is hunched over his guitar.
0:32:45 > 0:32:48A woman is lost in melancholy.
0:32:51 > 0:32:55A blind actress stares blankly out from the canvas.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46For Jung, the blue in Picasso's work signalled his descent
0:33:46 > 0:33:47into schizophrenia.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54But I think blue did even more than that.
0:34:05 > 0:34:10What we see here is this wonderfully beautiful, porcelain-like girl
0:34:10 > 0:34:12in this white chemise,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15surrounded by this huge, blue background,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19almost as though she's drowning in a dirty ocean.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23And yet she's got this wonderful evocative and mysterious,
0:34:23 > 0:34:27wry smile on her face as she stares out into the distance.
0:34:27 > 0:34:31Now, Picasso painted this picture in 1904, 1905,
0:34:31 > 0:34:35so right at the very end of his Blue Period.
0:34:35 > 0:34:42And it is still smothered in that dark, haunting colour.
0:34:42 > 0:34:44And look at this passage on the right,
0:34:44 > 0:34:47this is not the lush, rich blue of ultramarine,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51these are the rancid tones of the new, synthetic blues
0:34:51 > 0:34:54that had just been invented.
0:34:54 > 0:35:00And they give this whole painting a really cheap, seedy,
0:35:00 > 0:35:01cadaverous quality
0:35:01 > 0:35:04and I don't think it would have that quality in any other colour.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09I mean, imagine this painting in orange or in purple
0:35:09 > 0:35:10or in red or in yellow,
0:35:10 > 0:35:15it wouldn't be anywhere near as unsettling as it is now.
0:35:17 > 0:35:20But look closer at this painting and you can see new colours,
0:35:20 > 0:35:23new colours coming out of the blue smoke.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26The colours of life, the flesh tones,
0:35:26 > 0:35:28the incredibly fresh, white linens
0:35:28 > 0:35:32and that absolutely stunning, luscious pink
0:35:32 > 0:35:34that he's put on the girl's lips.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37And that, I think, is a sign that, finally,
0:35:37 > 0:35:40after three really difficult years,
0:35:40 > 0:35:44Picasso is painting his way out of that ordeal.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47And it's almost as though the very act of applying that blue paint
0:35:47 > 0:35:50to the canvas is an act of catharsis,
0:35:50 > 0:35:53getting it out of his system so, finally, he can move on.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02Picasso finally left his trauma behind
0:36:02 > 0:36:05and set off on the path to becoming the macho modernist
0:36:05 > 0:36:07that we know today.
0:36:07 > 0:36:12And the moment he did so, his Blue Period came to an end.
0:36:14 > 0:36:15Tres bien, c'est fini.
0:36:19 > 0:36:23But in just a few decades, a painter would emerge
0:36:23 > 0:36:25who would never give up on blue.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31He was a Frenchman called Yves Klein.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34And in the years before his tragic, early death,
0:36:34 > 0:36:36he would devote himself to making paintings
0:36:36 > 0:36:38that were not only in blue...
0:36:39 > 0:36:41..they were about blue.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48Klein would even invent his very own blue.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51And he believed it could change the world.
0:36:57 > 0:37:04Fittingly, his story begins amid the dazzling blues of the Cote d'Azur.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17'This was a place where affluent sun-seekers
0:37:17 > 0:37:21'mixed with the glamorous celebrity set.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24'But set apart from this superficial razzmatazz,
0:37:24 > 0:37:29'there walked three young dreamers.
0:37:30 > 0:37:34'One summer, they were strolling along the beach
0:37:34 > 0:37:35'admiring the scenery.
0:37:41 > 0:37:46'They lay down and, in a moment of youthful idealism,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50'decided to divide the whole world between them.'
0:37:54 > 0:37:57The first friend chose the Earth.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59The second friend chose language,
0:37:59 > 0:38:02but the third friend chose the sky.
0:38:02 > 0:38:07On doing so, he reached up to the celestial dome above him
0:38:07 > 0:38:10and signed his name across it, and the name he signed
0:38:10 > 0:38:13was Yves Klein.
0:38:24 > 0:38:28Yves Klein was born in Nice in 1928.
0:38:28 > 0:38:33He was the son of two bohemian artists
0:38:33 > 0:38:37and grew up indifferent to the gaudy glamour that surrounded him.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40He tried almost everything to escape.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43He became a jockey,
0:38:43 > 0:38:46he danced the night away,
0:38:46 > 0:38:51and even started on a path to becoming a judo master.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58But Yves had another plan up his sleeve.
0:38:58 > 0:39:00He decided to become an artist.
0:39:02 > 0:39:08He lost himself making paintings, each just a single block of colour.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10Red.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Slightly less red.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16And yellow.
0:39:16 > 0:39:20But the colour that captivated him most was the colour of the sky.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26Now, Yves Klein never forgot
0:39:26 > 0:39:30that blue sky of his childhood here in Nice
0:39:30 > 0:39:35and I think for him, it was a great symbol of escape.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38Escape from all the worldly concerns,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42the consumerism, the materialism of the world around him,
0:39:42 > 0:39:47and it was in his late 20s that he decided the best way to escape
0:39:47 > 0:39:51from those concerns was to create a new colour.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55A new blue that was as deep and rich and open
0:39:55 > 0:39:59and liberating as the sky itself.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07So, off to Paris he went.
0:40:07 > 0:40:12He knew that here there lived a legendary colour maker.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16A man so steeped in the mysteries and magic of colour
0:40:16 > 0:40:19that Picasso, Bacon and countless others
0:40:19 > 0:40:24had entrusted him with preparing their precious paints.
0:40:32 > 0:40:38Now, Yves too made his pilgrimage to the atelier of Edouard Adam.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:
0:41:03 > 0:41:07Here at the studio, Yves explained the problem -
0:41:07 > 0:41:11the traditional oil used to turn blue pigment into paint
0:41:11 > 0:41:15always adulterated the colour.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18So to achieve the pure luminous blue of the sky,
0:41:18 > 0:41:24Edouard invented a secret ingredient and he called it, cryptically,
0:41:24 > 0:41:26the medium.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48And there, right before his eyes,
0:41:48 > 0:41:53Yves's dream of a new blue was turning into reality.
0:42:27 > 0:42:34Yves christened his new paint International Klein Blue.
0:42:34 > 0:42:38He was so proud that he wanted to cast its spell
0:42:38 > 0:42:41across the whole world.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49He inaugurated a blue revolution
0:42:49 > 0:42:53so that everyone could share in the joy of his new colour.
0:42:55 > 0:43:01He released 1,001 blue balloons into the sky above Paris.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09He planned to turn Cleopatra's Needle blue.
0:43:11 > 0:43:14In this revolution, anything that took his fancy
0:43:14 > 0:43:16was treated to his new blue.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23And he even wrote a letter to President Eisenhower
0:43:23 > 0:43:25asking him to join in.
0:43:27 > 0:43:28Dwight thought about it,
0:43:28 > 0:43:32and decided it would be better not to respond.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42Undeterred, Yves continued to fill the world with his blue art.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48But my favourite part of Yves's blue revolution
0:43:48 > 0:43:52was a series of paintings, all identical,
0:43:52 > 0:43:59and each a devotion to nothing but International Klein Blue.
0:44:01 > 0:44:06This is one of Yves Klein's blue monochromes
0:44:06 > 0:44:12and, believe it or not, a huge amount of time and effort
0:44:12 > 0:44:16went into making this look exactly the way it looks.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18First of all,
0:44:18 > 0:44:22Yves Klein was meticulous about his choice of canvas,
0:44:22 > 0:44:27so here, he has selected a very thin-weaved cotton scrim.
0:44:27 > 0:44:32Then, he has coated that cotton scrim with a kind of milk
0:44:32 > 0:44:36and then he painstakingly rolled the paint as evenly as possible
0:44:36 > 0:44:39onto this picture so it could be as uniform as possible.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42It's amazing - when you look closely,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45the textures are just fantastic on this painting.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48What it actually looks like
0:44:48 > 0:44:51is looking down at a very blue sea from a plane
0:44:51 > 0:44:53and you can see just those little waves
0:44:53 > 0:44:56and the ripples in the light.
0:44:59 > 0:45:04I must say, this is pretty much the best blue I have ever seen.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Even better than Titian's, because it's just perfect.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11It's not too dark, it's not too light
0:45:11 > 0:45:14and it does this amazing thing. It almost seems to be moving.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17One second it recedes into the distance like the sky
0:45:17 > 0:45:22and the next second it comes towards you and drowns you like the ocean.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26But what does it mean?
0:45:29 > 0:45:34I don't think Yves wants us to try to work out what it means.
0:45:34 > 0:45:39I think he simply wants us to stand in front of it,
0:45:39 > 0:45:44to experience it and to enjoy it.
0:45:44 > 0:45:49He called these pictures "open windows to freedom."
0:45:49 > 0:45:52I think that's all he's asking of us.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55Just to set aside our everyday lives for a few minutes,
0:45:55 > 0:45:57to open our eyes, to open our minds
0:45:57 > 0:46:04and to follow him just briefly into the great blue beyond.
0:46:10 > 0:46:12But Yves would go one step further
0:46:12 > 0:46:15in escaping into the great blue beyond.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25'In 1960, he travelled out to the most mundane suburb
0:46:25 > 0:46:28'of Paris he could find.
0:46:30 > 0:46:35'And it was there that he would perform his most audacious feat
0:46:35 > 0:46:37'of escapology.'
0:46:41 > 0:46:46'On one quiet Sunday morning, here on the Rue Gentil Bernard,
0:46:46 > 0:46:52'he slipped into an apartment building and made his way upstairs.'
0:46:54 > 0:47:00When he reached a first-floor room at almost exactly this point,
0:47:00 > 0:47:05Yves Klein opened the windows and leapt out.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18In the distance, a train rushes through the station
0:47:18 > 0:47:23while a cyclist is oblivious to the drama unfolding behind him.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32Yves's artwork became known as the Leap Into The Void.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40And I think the black and white photograph he took that day
0:47:40 > 0:47:43reveals more about Yves Klein's ambitions
0:47:43 > 0:47:45than any of his other works.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50Throughout his whole life,
0:47:50 > 0:47:55his goal was to leave this world behind him
0:47:55 > 0:48:00and to voyage into this utopian world above.
0:48:00 > 0:48:05You can see here, his eyes are locked onto the blue sky above him.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09I also think it's a rather desperate image, too,
0:48:09 > 0:48:15because Yves never really leapt into the void.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18In fact, he fell down to Earth
0:48:18 > 0:48:21and fortunately had a group of judo friends there to catch him
0:48:21 > 0:48:25on the pavement. They've been erased by the photo-montage
0:48:25 > 0:48:27so we can't see them any longer.
0:48:29 > 0:48:33I think this proves in some ways that the laws of physics
0:48:33 > 0:48:36finally defeated the laws of Yves's imagination.
0:48:41 > 0:48:44'By the early 1960s, Yves was on the verge
0:48:44 > 0:48:47'of becoming the most exciting artist of his generation.
0:48:47 > 0:48:52'But then disaster struck.'
0:48:53 > 0:48:57In 1962, he returned home to the South of France
0:48:57 > 0:49:00to attend the Cannes Film Festival.
0:49:02 > 0:49:06During the premiere of a film in which he starred,
0:49:06 > 0:49:09Yves suffered multiple heart attacks.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12He was dead at the age of 34.
0:49:22 > 0:49:24Yves Klein's blue revolution
0:49:24 > 0:49:27was one of the most beautiful moments in modern art,
0:49:27 > 0:49:31but it was really fragile, too, and when he died,
0:49:31 > 0:49:35it seemed that his great dream of this fantastic blue adventure
0:49:35 > 0:49:39that could liberate humanity from all its earthly concerns
0:49:39 > 0:49:41would only die with him.
0:49:41 > 0:49:45But here in America, of all places,
0:49:45 > 0:49:47a new adventure was just beginning
0:49:47 > 0:49:51and I think it would transform our relationship to blue
0:49:51 > 0:49:54in one astounding way.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04For centuries, blue had been used by artists to capture
0:50:04 > 0:50:08the great beyond, the forever unattainable.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15But, as the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union
0:50:15 > 0:50:16reached its zenith,
0:50:16 > 0:50:19'one man created a single powerful image
0:50:19 > 0:50:22'that brings our story to a close.'
0:50:26 > 0:50:29His image would change the way that artists, and all of us,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33think about blue for good.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38But he wasn't an artist, he was an astronaut.
0:50:41 > 0:50:43It was 1967 when America was launching
0:50:43 > 0:50:47its most daring space flight yet.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52In five days' time, these three men will fly to the Moon.
0:50:52 > 0:50:58The Apollo 8 mission aimed to send three men out of the Earth's orbit
0:50:58 > 0:51:02and to circle the Moon for the very first time.
0:51:02 > 0:51:06As we depart the Earth and head on out towards the Moon
0:51:06 > 0:51:08and the Earth becomes smaller and smaller,
0:51:08 > 0:51:11not only will the continents blend together,
0:51:11 > 0:51:14but I think man's problems will hopefully blend together,
0:51:14 > 0:51:17and maybe we can start things off generating a spirit of co-operation
0:51:17 > 0:51:19and good will towards men with this flight.
0:51:19 > 0:51:26All the talk was of world peace, but that fooled no-one.
0:51:26 > 0:51:30This was the era of the Cold War, and I was a Cold Warrior.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35We were really intent on beating those dirty Commies.
0:51:35 > 0:51:41Bill Anders was one of the chosen men on the Apollo 8 space rocket.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48It was Christmas Eve, 1968, when he and his two fellow astronauts
0:51:48 > 0:51:51boarded the aircraft.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53We've now passed the 10-minute mark on our countdown.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56Nine minutes, 51 seconds and counting.
0:51:56 > 0:52:01All aspects of the mission go at this time...
0:52:01 > 0:52:05You're on Saturn V, you were strapped in on Saturn V,
0:52:05 > 0:52:07how did you feel?
0:52:07 > 0:52:09Sitting on top of the Saturn V,
0:52:09 > 0:52:13which was a mini nuclear bomb itself, caught your attention,
0:52:13 > 0:52:16but eventually I fell asleep briefly, while we sat there.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20But again, this was the Cold War.
0:52:20 > 0:52:24We were going to show those dirty Commies that we were better.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28So the danger of that I had erased out of my mind.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35Now, when the rockets lit off, that was a different matter.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42We have lift-off.
0:52:44 > 0:52:49It was violent. There was nobody on it beforehand to tell us.
0:52:49 > 0:52:53It was like being shaken sideways as these giant engines
0:52:53 > 0:52:58were steering to keep this broomstick straight up.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10And so it was a violent and surprising event.
0:53:10 > 0:53:12Thrust is OK.
0:53:17 > 0:53:21Apollo 8 pierced through every hue of the big blue sky
0:53:21 > 0:53:25and the whole world watched on.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33Those watching most intently were, of course, the NASA technicians
0:53:33 > 0:53:36here at Mission Control in Houston.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39'We have you go for orbit, go for orbit.
0:53:39 > 0:53:43'Welcome to the Moon, Houston.'
0:53:45 > 0:53:48The mission was going better than anyone could have expected. In fact,
0:53:48 > 0:53:50almost without a single glitch.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53For three whole orbits, Anders and his team
0:53:53 > 0:53:56gazed down on the surface of the Moon
0:53:56 > 0:53:59and photographed the terrain beneath them.
0:53:59 > 0:54:01It was exactly what they'd been asked to do.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05On the fourth orbit, as they came out from the dark side of the Moon,
0:54:05 > 0:54:10the team saw something truly breathtaking.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17I was shooting pictures out the side of the spacecraft
0:54:17 > 0:54:21when, I don't know who said it, maybe all of us at once,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25"My God, look at that." Up came the Earth
0:54:25 > 0:54:29and that caught me by surprise. We hadn't expected it.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32I had the long lens Hasselblad camera.
0:54:32 > 0:54:38No light meter, no instructions, but as an engineer, I thought,
0:54:38 > 0:54:41well, if I take enough pictures,
0:54:41 > 0:54:43maybe one of them will come out,
0:54:44 > 0:54:48so I used what I refer to as the machine-gun approach,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51and I just clicked away and just kept turning.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54Took at least a dozen, maybe 50, pictures,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58one of which was selected by others to be Earthrise.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01'This is phenomenal.'
0:55:01 > 0:55:07This is the shot that Anders took.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10Speaking as an art historian,
0:55:10 > 0:55:12I think that this image almost on its own
0:55:12 > 0:55:15made the Apollo missions worthwhile.
0:55:15 > 0:55:19I also think that it's the one image perhaps of the 20th century
0:55:19 > 0:55:24that humans will keep coming back to again and again and again.
0:55:24 > 0:55:28Even though we were hard-bitten test and fighter pilots,
0:55:28 > 0:55:30this thing was beautiful.
0:55:30 > 0:55:35We'd been staring at this relatively ugly Moon
0:55:35 > 0:55:39and suddenly, out of the lunar horizon,
0:55:39 > 0:55:43came this beautiful blue.
0:55:44 > 0:55:48I must say, the hair went up on the back of my neck a little bit.
0:55:52 > 0:55:58Earthrise showed our planet as a beautiful, colourful jewel
0:55:58 > 0:56:01suspended in the blackness of space.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03Published around the globe,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06it caught the imagination of everyone.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12It was the first time we had seen the Earth from another world,
0:56:12 > 0:56:16and it dawned on us that ours was, more than anything,
0:56:16 > 0:56:19a blue planet.
0:56:23 > 0:56:29Seeing this image really brings home a great irony to me.
0:56:29 > 0:56:33For most of history, blue was this great colour of the beyond.
0:56:33 > 0:56:35It was the colour of the horizon,
0:56:35 > 0:56:38the colour of the thing that so many of us were aspiring to
0:56:38 > 0:56:40and hoping to escape to.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43But when in 1968 that dream finally came true,
0:56:43 > 0:56:47when in 1968 we finally went beyond the horizon,
0:56:47 > 0:56:51we discovered that blue was actually the colour of home.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09'I don't know if you're reading, but we're right over Houston!'
0:57:17 > 0:57:21In the next episode, the most virtuous colour of all
0:57:21 > 0:57:25becomes tainted.
0:57:25 > 0:57:31From the grandeur of ancient marbles and Wedgwood's pristine porcelain,
0:57:31 > 0:57:36to the wiles of Whistler's women, Le Corbusier's sterile walls,
0:57:36 > 0:57:40and Mussolini's towers of tyranny.
0:57:41 > 0:57:46It's a colour that reveals our darkest instincts.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51It's the story of white.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd