0:00:02 > 0:00:03'This is the BBC Television Service.
0:00:03 > 0:00:08'We now present another programme in our series of experimental transmissions in colour.'
0:00:08 > 0:00:15We live in a kaleidoscopic world but colours are more
0:00:15 > 0:00:18than mere decoration.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21Colours carry deep and significant meanings for us all.
0:00:22 > 0:00:28And in this series I want to unravel the stories of three colours.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32Three colours which, in the hands of artists,
0:00:32 > 0:00:37have stirred our emotions, changed the way we behave
0:00:37 > 0:00:40and even altered the course of history.
0:00:44 > 0:00:45Gold.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50Its lustrous shine has made this the most intoxicating colour,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54one we've used throughout history to revere the things
0:00:54 > 0:00:56we hold most sacred.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04Blue. The arrival of lapis lazuli from the East made blue
0:01:04 > 0:01:06the colour of our dreams,
0:01:06 > 0:01:11a colour that's transported us to worlds beyond our horizons.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21And this is the story of white.
0:01:24 > 0:01:30Today we see white as the colour of virtue, a colour
0:01:30 > 0:01:36of cleanliness, of innocence, a colour as pure as the driven snow.
0:01:44 > 0:01:49'But in the history of art, white isn't quite as pure as we think.'
0:01:51 > 0:01:54Over the course of history, it's been loaded with ideologies
0:01:54 > 0:01:58that have been both divisive and at times even dangerous.
0:01:58 > 0:02:06So dangerous in fact that white may just be the darkest colour of them all.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08This is the story of how
0:02:08 > 0:02:11the purest colour became corrupted.
0:02:13 > 0:02:19From the refined elegance of the Elgin Marbles to the pristine pots
0:02:19 > 0:02:22of Josiah Wedgewood,
0:02:22 > 0:02:26we'll reveal how white came to symbolise an enlightened world.
0:02:28 > 0:02:33But we'll see how, in the modern age, this once virtuous colour
0:02:33 > 0:02:39was used by artists, architects and sculptors to divide,
0:02:39 > 0:02:44to control and finally to conquer.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05It was Sunday 25th of September 1938.
0:03:05 > 0:03:10The Director of the British Museum was on his evening rounds.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20Everything seemed to be in order, but, unknown to him, a disturbing incident
0:03:20 > 0:03:23had been taking place right beneath his feet.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31In the basement, some of the museum's sculptures
0:03:31 > 0:03:34were in the process of being cleaned.
0:03:34 > 0:03:40But they were being cleaned with copper chisels and carborundum.
0:03:42 > 0:03:49To make matters worse, the objects in question were some of the museum's most prize possessions -
0:03:49 > 0:03:52the Elgin Marbles.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59The Elgin Marbles were a set of ancient Greek sculptures
0:03:59 > 0:04:03that had once adorned the Parthenon in Athens.
0:04:03 > 0:04:08They were widely seen as the bedrock of Western art.
0:04:12 > 0:04:17Like many ancient sculptures, the Elgin Marbles were once painted in rich colours
0:04:17 > 0:04:20which, over the millennia, had washed away.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Yet, at one point, we became convinced
0:04:27 > 0:04:31that these sculptures had always been white.
0:04:31 > 0:04:36And now, they were being made whiter than they had ever been before.
0:04:40 > 0:04:47The museum's director immediately put a stop to the cleaning and instituted an inquiry.
0:04:50 > 0:04:55The culprit was one Joseph Duveen, a rich and powerful art dealer
0:04:55 > 0:05:00who had donated money for a new gallery to house the marbles,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03but had asked for something in return.
0:05:05 > 0:05:11Joseph Duveen thought the Elgin Marbles were, quite frankly, the wrong colour.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16They were too brown and, like the rest of antiquity, they were supposed to be white.
0:05:19 > 0:05:24Duveen persuaded the museum staff to whiten the Elgin Marbles
0:05:24 > 0:05:27and evidence of their handiwork can still be seen today.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36This is Helios the Sun Chariot and it's one of the objects
0:05:36 > 0:05:40the director saw being cleaned that night in 1938.
0:05:40 > 0:05:44You can see very clearly the effect of that cleaning.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49On the right, this is before the cleaning. It's dark, it's brown, it's sooty, it's shiny.
0:05:49 > 0:05:55Here on the left, this is after the cleaning. It's matt in texture, it's colourless and it's white.
0:05:58 > 0:06:05Back in the 1930s, Joseph Duveen's cleaning job caused a scandal.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13It has been said that the British Museum trustees of the day
0:06:13 > 0:06:15lost control of their museum.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18In a sense, that's true.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21The museum was unduly influenced
0:06:21 > 0:06:26by the strength of personality of Duveen
0:06:26 > 0:06:32and the practice of scraping the surface of the sculptures was not approved.
0:06:32 > 0:06:34That's the important thing
0:06:34 > 0:06:37to get across. It was not an approved action.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41We must get this into proportion.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45The surface removal, we're talking of a fraction of a millimetre
0:06:45 > 0:06:51and of course it wasn't every sculpture that was cleaned.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56It doesn't much affect the moral question
0:06:56 > 0:07:00if we try to mitigate what was done.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03I don't want to defend it. What would be the point?
0:07:03 > 0:07:05It was 70 years ago.
0:07:05 > 0:07:09I wasn't alive and everybody who was involved is dead.
0:07:09 > 0:07:15But there was already a history to the surface of the sculptures
0:07:15 > 0:07:20and it is part of that history that we add another chapter.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24The debate over the cleaning will, no doubt, go on,
0:07:24 > 0:07:30but in our story of white, there's a more intriguing issue at stake.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35The big questions for me are these -
0:07:35 > 0:07:40why was Duveen so desperate for these sculptures to be white?
0:07:40 > 0:07:46To even go to the lengths to damage the sculptures to make them whiter
0:07:46 > 0:07:49and why, when all the evidence points the other way, when we know
0:07:49 > 0:07:52that the ancient Greeks covered their sculptures in colour,
0:07:52 > 0:07:57do most of us still think, secretly, that they should be white?
0:08:01 > 0:08:04In my mind, one man is above all responsible
0:08:04 > 0:08:09for the whitewashing of antiquity and, in doing so,
0:08:09 > 0:08:15he planted white at the centre of European culture for centuries to come.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20And his name was Johann Joachim Winckelmann.
0:08:28 > 0:08:35JJ Winckelmann was born in 1717 in a rural town
0:08:35 > 0:08:37in what is now Eastern Germany.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41His parents wanted him to follow the family profession
0:08:41 > 0:08:45and embrace the noble trade of the cobbler.
0:08:46 > 0:08:50But they should have known that young JJ
0:08:50 > 0:08:53was not well suited to such a fate.
0:08:55 > 0:09:01Winckelmann was not the typical 18th century cobbler's son.
0:09:01 > 0:09:06He was gay, his dress sense was extravagant to say the least.
0:09:06 > 0:09:10He had a penchant for skin-tight leather trousers
0:09:10 > 0:09:14and he was a fiercely ambitious intellectual.
0:09:14 > 0:09:21Naturally, he longed to set foot in more cosmopolitan surroundings.
0:09:27 > 0:09:32In 1748, Winckelmann fetched up in Dresden.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35It wasn't long before he made a discovery
0:09:35 > 0:09:37that would change his life.
0:09:49 > 0:09:54Winckelmann had stumbled on a vast storeroom
0:09:54 > 0:09:57filled with ancient white statues.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02And they came in all shapes and sizes.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15There was plenty to, shall we say, feast his eyes on.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19There were buttocks aplenty, there were ripped muscular torsos
0:10:19 > 0:10:22and there was even the odd genital.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29These white sculptures were the most wonderful objects
0:10:29 > 0:10:33that Winckelmann had ever seen and he decided there and then
0:10:33 > 0:10:39to dedicate his life to persuading the world of their beauty.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43He knew that he had to begin in Rome.
0:10:55 > 0:11:00Winckelmann arrived here in 1755.
0:11:00 > 0:11:06He found it littered with white columns and marbles from antiquity.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11He immediately set to work on a tome in which he celebrated
0:11:11 > 0:11:15all the wonderful white marble that he found.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26Words spill from his pen as he swooned over the Belvedere Torso.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32And the writhing limbs of the Laocoon.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Winckelmann's scribbling eventually attracted the attention
0:11:45 > 0:11:50of the Vatican who appointed him keeper of their antiquities,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54a distinguished post once held by Raphael.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57And it was in the Vatican that Winckelmann set eyes
0:11:57 > 0:12:01on a sculpture that would inspire him like no other.
0:12:04 > 0:12:09The Apollo Belvedere was thought to be a Roman copy of a Greek original
0:12:10 > 0:12:12made around 300 BC.
0:12:16 > 0:12:20Rosy beauty wantons all down the god-like figure.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25Such organs human nature knows not.
0:12:27 > 0:12:32The liquid hair, like tendrils kissed by zephyrs.
0:12:34 > 0:12:41Winckelmann thought this was the most beautiful man he'd ever seen.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45In fact, just the mere sight of him got Winckelmann hyperventilating
0:12:45 > 0:12:48because Apollo seemed to have everything -
0:12:48 > 0:12:52the hair, the attitude, the body.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57But the thing that Winckelmann admired most about the sculpture
0:12:57 > 0:12:59was its whiteness..
0:12:59 > 0:13:00Look at it.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03There are no garish colours, there are no vulgar patterns.
0:13:03 > 0:13:08It's stripped back, it's restrained, it's intellectual.
0:13:08 > 0:13:10This is art that's not there to flatter the eyes,
0:13:10 > 0:13:13it's there to stimulate the brain, and this proved to Winckelmann
0:13:13 > 0:13:17how sophisticated the Ancient Greeks really were.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26I think for Winckelmann, whiteness symbolised all the great qualities
0:13:26 > 0:13:29of Ancient Greek civilisation.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35It symbolised beauty and health and simplicity
0:13:35 > 0:13:36and restraint and reason.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40These were the values that he wanted his age to take up
0:13:40 > 0:13:44so his contemporaries could become as great as the Greeks
0:13:44 > 0:13:46and as beautiful as Apollo.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56Winckelmann's celebration of the whiteness of ancient art
0:13:56 > 0:14:02may have been idiosyncratic, but it was hugely influential.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06Winckelmann's legacy lives with us today.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09It is one of the great things that accounts for the way in which
0:14:09 > 0:14:11we venerate the ancient world.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15The veneration for buildings like the Parthenon,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18our admiration of antiquity, in its civilisation,
0:14:18 > 0:14:21its architecture, its law, its government.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Everything must be indebted to Winckelmann.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30Winckelmann had pointed the way to a new, white Utopia
0:14:30 > 0:14:34based on antiquity, and in the years after his death,
0:14:34 > 0:14:41classically inspired temples and sculptures came to adorn cities around the world.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45And more than anything else, they were white.
0:14:49 > 0:14:51There's a great deal of moralising
0:14:51 > 0:14:56that lies behind the notion of whiteness and purity.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Winckelmann said that we should return to the purer style of the past
0:15:01 > 0:15:04and that this would make ourselves pure.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07Didn't perhaps work very much in his case.
0:15:08 > 0:15:12But Winckelmann's dream of filling the world with the pure white
0:15:12 > 0:15:16of antiquity would be realised not in Italy,
0:15:16 > 0:15:18but in the north of England.
0:15:25 > 0:15:31This elegant building and its grounds is known as Etruria,
0:15:31 > 0:15:32and in the 18th century,
0:15:32 > 0:15:39it was the home of Britain's most famous potter, Josiah Wedgwood.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46Josiah Wedgwood was a giant of the Enlightenment,
0:15:46 > 0:15:50the kind of citizen that Winckelmann dreamed of producing.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54He was a philanthropist, an educator, an antiquarian.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57He was a scientist and an inventor.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00He supported the French Revolution, he supported American independence.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03He campaigned for the abolition of slavery,
0:16:03 > 0:16:07and happened to be the grandfather of a certain Charles Darwin.
0:16:07 > 0:16:12It would be fair to say that Josiah Wedgwood was a pretty special man.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Wedgwood was also a disciple of Winckelmann,
0:16:18 > 0:16:21and they shared a love of white antiquity.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25From his factory near Stoke-on-Trent,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29Wedgwood produced a series of white portrait medallions,
0:16:29 > 0:16:35which conferred classical nobility on the heroes of the Enlightenment.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38The philosopher Voltaire...
0:16:40 > 0:16:42..the botanist Joseph Banks...
0:16:43 > 0:16:46..and the explorer, Captain Cook.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50But Wedgwood's true genius was pottery.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58Wedgwood was determined to bring the white of antiquity
0:16:58 > 0:16:59into homes across the land.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05But there was a problem.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14British pottery had traditionally been turned out
0:17:14 > 0:17:16in the earthy colours of the native landscape.
0:17:16 > 0:17:22The secret to perfect white pottery remained a mystery,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25eluding almost everyone but the Chinese.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30Yet Josiah Wedgwood was undeterred.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34Here at Stoke-on-Trent, the greatest traditions of the pottery industry
0:17:34 > 0:17:39are being maintained by craftsmen using, in many cases,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42methods and knowledge passed down over generations.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44Let's look now at a cross-section of the processes
0:17:44 > 0:17:46that go into this lovely china.
0:17:48 > 0:17:53Wedgwood slaved for years and conducted over 5,000 experiments
0:17:53 > 0:17:58in his search for the perfect white glaze.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02And all of them are recorded in an experiment book
0:18:02 > 0:18:04written in his own hand.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09So this is Josiah Wedgwood's private experiment book.
0:18:10 > 0:18:15And it's filled with hundreds and hundreds of experiments,
0:18:15 > 0:18:18as he tried to create a perfect white glaze.
0:18:19 > 0:18:26And it therefore tells the kind of secret story behind that process.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30And what he has got here in the book are numbers of all
0:18:30 > 0:18:32the different experiments he's made.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38406, for instance, when he says it has got a rather good colour
0:18:38 > 0:18:40but is still a little greenish.
0:18:40 > 0:18:48407, 408, 409 is rather better. 410, rather worse.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51So you can see what a difficult job it was to really perfect
0:18:51 > 0:18:56a very simple, clear, pure and smooth white glaze.
0:18:59 > 0:19:05But then, in 1761, Wedgwood made his breakthrough.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13Experiment 411, he cracks it, and he writes here,
0:19:13 > 0:19:15"The best of all these trials.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19"Uniform, transparent and nearly colourless"
0:19:19 > 0:19:23And best of all, above it, he writes in really big text
0:19:23 > 0:19:27with an exclamation mark at the end, "A good white glaze!"
0:19:27 > 0:19:32That was written about 250 years ago, yet the excitement,
0:19:32 > 0:19:36Wedgwood's excitement, is palpable still.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40And I'm not surprised he was excited because what he had stumbled upon
0:19:40 > 0:19:45was the first great white glaze in the history of European pottery.
0:19:47 > 0:19:54And before long, Wedgwood was turning out a series of beautiful white pots.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58He called his sparkling new range Queen's Ware.
0:20:01 > 0:20:06So this is the fruit of Josiah Wedgwood's tireless labour,
0:20:06 > 0:20:10an absolutely exquisite group of 18th century Queen's Ware objects.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12And there is a huge variety.
0:20:12 > 0:20:17We can go from these really rather wonderful grand vases,
0:20:17 > 0:20:20to these terrific pot pourri pots.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26There are salt dishes, there is a honey pot, wonderfully fluted
0:20:26 > 0:20:29all the way around, but I think my favourite of them all
0:20:29 > 0:20:34is this absolutely delightful covered egg-cup.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39And, of course, they are all in some way neo-classical in design.
0:20:40 > 0:20:42They have the fluting, the columns,
0:20:42 > 0:20:47so there is this sense of reviving antiquity through tableware.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51But for me perhaps the most important thing of all
0:20:51 > 0:20:54when it comes to these objects is their colour,
0:20:54 > 0:20:59their absolutely flawless, immaculate whiteness.
0:21:00 > 0:21:05Wedgwood took this great Winckelmannian idea of simplicity,
0:21:05 > 0:21:10taste, beauty and whiteness and he gave it to everyone.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23Thanks to Wedgwood and Winckelmann before him,
0:21:23 > 0:21:25white had conquered Europe.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29By the end of the 18th century, it had become a symbol of good manners
0:21:29 > 0:21:34and good taste that promised to unite the citizens of the Enlightenment.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39But in the mid-19th century,
0:21:39 > 0:21:44one man took it upon himself to transform the way we see white,
0:21:44 > 0:21:48to make it not the colour of unity and equality,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51but exclusivity and elitism.
0:22:03 > 0:22:08In 1859, a young man arrived in London
0:22:08 > 0:22:10hoping to make it as an artist.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16He was an American by the name of James McNeill Whistler.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21And Whistler was a snob.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26From a wealthy Massachusetts family, he had been booted out
0:22:26 > 0:22:29of the exclusive West Point military academy
0:22:29 > 0:22:34and, like many a rich kid with more money than motivation,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37he decided on a career in art.
0:22:41 > 0:22:46Whistler would later be celebrated for the paintings he made from the Thames Embankment.
0:22:49 > 0:22:50But when he first moved here,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53Whistler was horrified by what he found.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02He thought the people here wore ghastly clothes, ate ghastly food,
0:23:02 > 0:23:07but, most unforgivable of all, they had a ghastly taste in art.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14The Victorian public were hooked on paintings
0:23:14 > 0:23:17that showed scenes from well-known stories.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25Myths and legends of Britain's past.
0:23:29 > 0:23:30Tales of courtly love.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34And damsels in distress.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40And Whistler was determined to set himself apart
0:23:40 > 0:23:44from this repulsive art and the public who loved it so much.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53His inspiration came from a novel published the very year
0:23:53 > 0:23:55he arrived in London.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59In sitting rooms up and down the land,
0:23:59 > 0:24:03Victorians revelled in a melodrama written by Wilkie Collins...
0:24:05 > 0:24:07..The Woman In White.
0:24:10 > 0:24:16"I wound my way down slowly over the heath when, in one moment,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19"every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop
0:24:19 > 0:24:27"by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34"There as if it had at that moment sprung out of the Earth
0:24:34 > 0:24:38"or dropped from the heaven stood the figure of a solitary woman,
0:24:38 > 0:24:42"dressed from head to foot in white."
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Did you hear someone calling after us?
0:24:45 > 0:24:46No, no, no.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53The Woman In White was a sensation in every way.
0:24:53 > 0:24:58It gripped the Victorian public like a modern-day soap opera, and it
0:24:58 > 0:25:03became a hugely successful franchise as well, spawning spin-off musicals,
0:25:03 > 0:25:09plays, fashion ranges and even two Woman In White-themed perfumes.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18The success of The Woman In White gave Whistler a crafty idea.
0:25:18 > 0:25:24He would use white to mock crass Victorian taste.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30He set to work on a strange series of paintings all of women in white.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35The Victorian public turned up to see them,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38expecting to find their favourite story told in paint.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43But Whistler had them completely baffled.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Who is this woman? Is she the woman in white?
0:25:51 > 0:25:53Why is she standing on a bear?
0:25:56 > 0:25:58What on earth is this girl thinking?
0:26:00 > 0:26:03Is she happily married or soon to be alone?
0:26:05 > 0:26:09But the most baffling painting of all was Whistler's third.
0:26:10 > 0:26:14And here it is, and it depicts two beautiful young women.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16The one on the left, the redhead,
0:26:16 > 0:26:18she was the woman who was depicted
0:26:18 > 0:26:21in Whistler's two previous white paintings
0:26:21 > 0:26:24and she's even wearing the same white dress.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29And she is reclining, ever so elegantly on a sofa,
0:26:29 > 0:26:32which is, of course, also white.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36Now some thought it must be about a wedding.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Was this woman about to get married? Had she just got married?
0:26:39 > 0:26:42If she had just got married, where was her husband?
0:26:42 > 0:26:44Or was there no wedding at all?
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Was the white dress and the little white flower underneath it
0:26:47 > 0:26:50simply a symbol that she was a kind of a Virgin Mary?
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Or were the two girls ancient Greek goddesses
0:26:54 > 0:26:56in their beautiful pale drapery?
0:26:57 > 0:27:02Or were they simply two prostitutes in their nightdresses?
0:27:02 > 0:27:07Well, the public was desperate to know the answer,
0:27:07 > 0:27:09but Whistler wouldn't give it them.
0:27:09 > 0:27:13All he gave them was this infuriatingly vague title,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16Symphony In White, Number Three.
0:27:24 > 0:27:30So what was the subject of this painting?
0:27:30 > 0:27:35Well, it wasn't about a bride, it wasn't about a virgin,
0:27:35 > 0:27:40it wasn't about a whore, it wasn't even about a Wilkie Collins novel.
0:27:40 > 0:27:46The subject of this painting was white itself, nothing more.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52This picture was simply about different kinds of whiteness
0:27:52 > 0:27:56being put together and mixed together on a canvas.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01It was a symphony in white.
0:28:06 > 0:28:11For that reason it's a really elitist painting,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14because what this painting sets out to do
0:28:14 > 0:28:16is to divide the Victorian public,
0:28:16 > 0:28:20to divide them between those who don't understand the painting
0:28:20 > 0:28:23and those who do, and those who didn't understand
0:28:23 > 0:28:27the painting were pretty much everyone, the working classes,
0:28:27 > 0:28:29the middle classes, the Establishment,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32and those who did understand the painting were Whistler
0:28:32 > 0:28:36and his tiny intellectual elite based in Chelsea.
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Whistler basked in the controversy.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47In fact he enjoyed it so much
0:28:47 > 0:28:51that white became something of a signature.
0:28:51 > 0:28:58Whistler wore white trousers, white waistcoats and white jackets.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02He cultivated a big curly lock of white hair
0:29:02 > 0:29:03right here at the front of his head.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08He took to walking white Pomeranian dogs through the streets,
0:29:08 > 0:29:14and when he finally built his own home, he called it, unsurprisingly,
0:29:14 > 0:29:15the White House.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26But Whistler wasn't finished.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29He despised the public's taste so much
0:29:29 > 0:29:32that confusing them was not enough.
0:29:36 > 0:29:40He wanted to banish them from the art world altogether.
0:29:58 > 0:30:03In 1883, Whistler opened an exhibition of new pictures
0:30:03 > 0:30:05he'd made on a trip to Venice.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11But it wasn't the paintings that caused the sensation this time.
0:30:11 > 0:30:12It was the way he displayed them.
0:30:16 > 0:30:18The walls were white,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22the picture frames, which Whistler himself designed, were white.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25The art works themselves were monochrome, and he hung them
0:30:25 > 0:30:28so far apart that the gallery felt almost empty.
0:30:28 > 0:30:30But it didn't stop there.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33Whistler was so determined to control the look of his exhibition
0:30:33 > 0:30:38that he even kitted out his gallery attendant in the same colour scheme,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42and the unfortunate individual became known as the poached egg man.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46For those people who came to Whistler's exhibition
0:30:46 > 0:30:50it must have been a really strange, alien and discomforting experience.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54But I think that's precisely what Whistler wanted.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01Why do arty people make me feel inferior?
0:31:01 > 0:31:03Bloody great club, and I can't get into it!
0:31:04 > 0:31:08Whistler called his exhibition a masterpiece of mischief.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12And it proved to be his lasting legacy,
0:31:12 > 0:31:15a defining moment in the story of modern art.
0:31:17 > 0:31:21Try and be more careful, sir, and not allow your clothing to drip upon the floor.
0:31:26 > 0:31:32Whistler's exhibition was hugely influential.
0:31:32 > 0:31:37Because what it did was basically pioneer the white gallery space,
0:31:37 > 0:31:41the white cube that now seems all-but compulsory
0:31:41 > 0:31:43in today's art world.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47No whistling, no babies in prams or in arms.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51It was a powerful legacy.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55It was also a divisive legacy,
0:31:55 > 0:32:00because white gallery spaces like this may be beautiful and elegant
0:32:00 > 0:32:08but the whiteness here is also cold and sterile.
0:32:08 > 0:32:10And austere.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13Do not touch the exhibits. The gallery will close promptly.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16Do not wear your hat in the gallery.
0:32:16 > 0:32:18The gallery cannot be held...
0:32:18 > 0:32:21And, quite frankly, completely unwelcoming.
0:32:22 > 0:32:26Do not come here again! The gallery does not welcome visitors.
0:32:26 > 0:32:29In Whistler's hands, white had become
0:32:29 > 0:32:33the cold and exclusive colour of the artistic elite.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38Keep out! Go away! Do not come back!
0:32:42 > 0:32:47And the modern artists of the early 20th century continued the trend.
0:32:50 > 0:32:56# Blank Frank is the messenger of your doom and your destruction... #
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Making impenetrable white works of art
0:32:59 > 0:33:01that few but themselves could understand.
0:33:01 > 0:33:06# ..And he is the one who will set you up as nothing... #
0:33:06 > 0:33:10And of these modern artists, no-one was more perplexing
0:33:10 > 0:33:11than Marcel Duchamp.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18A man determined to confuse the punters at every turn.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21# ..And he is the one who will look at you sideways. #
0:33:21 > 0:33:24Duchamp calls these objects readymades.
0:33:24 > 0:33:26Were they a comment on the ridiculous price
0:33:26 > 0:33:27paid for a painter's signature?
0:33:27 > 0:33:30Were they drawing attention to objects which are just as much
0:33:30 > 0:33:32works of art as accepted works of art?
0:33:32 > 0:33:33Or were they a joke?
0:33:37 > 0:33:39But one of Duchamp's readymades
0:33:39 > 0:33:42is more notorious than all the rest.
0:33:46 > 0:33:53So this is Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal,
0:33:53 > 0:33:57which he called, somewhat euphemistically, Fountain.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02Now, when he first exhibited this work in 1917,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04it was hugely scandalous.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08And it remains the subject of intense debate today.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10But there's one thing that people don't talk about
0:34:10 > 0:34:15when they discuss this work and that's its colour, its whiteness.
0:34:15 > 0:34:20And I think its whiteness is absolutely central to its meaning,
0:34:20 > 0:34:22because I think it is supposed to remind us
0:34:22 > 0:34:26of all of those elegant white artworks of the past.
0:34:26 > 0:34:31So it reminds me of the great marble sculptures of the past,
0:34:31 > 0:34:33the idea of a great white almost-nude
0:34:33 > 0:34:35on top of a plinth in a museum.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38It reminds me of the great neo-classical busts
0:34:38 > 0:34:40and you almost have that head and shoulder shape.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44And it reminds me, in its elegant surfaces,
0:34:44 > 0:34:45of the great Wedgwood porcelains.
0:34:47 > 0:34:52But it reminds us of those things precisely in order to ridicule them.
0:34:53 > 0:34:55Because what this object is doing
0:34:55 > 0:34:59is mocking the great white history of art.
0:35:00 > 0:35:05And you know, it's almost as though Marcel Duchamp is urinating
0:35:05 > 0:35:07over the corpse of JJ Winckelmann.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14But in the hands of one of Duchamp's contemporaries,
0:35:14 > 0:35:17white would be tainted further.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19And it would become central to a dark plot
0:35:19 > 0:35:22to cleanse and control the citizens of the world.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32This dream that originated in the mind of a painter-turned-architect.
0:35:35 > 0:35:39His name was Charles-Edouard Jeanneret
0:35:39 > 0:35:43but he had an alias, Le Corbusier.
0:35:48 > 0:35:54Le Corbusier grew up in the clean Alpine air of rural Switzerland.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58His father was a watchmaker
0:35:58 > 0:36:03and Le Corbusier ran his own life like clockwork.
0:36:08 > 0:36:12Every day he woke to a regime of rigorous exercise,
0:36:12 > 0:36:16striving to cleanse both body and soul.
0:36:18 > 0:36:23But, for him, exercise was not enough.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29In 1925, Le Corbusier wrote a manifesto
0:36:29 > 0:36:34that sought to show how architecture could cleanse the world.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39And in that manifesto was a secret weapon.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46A white emulsion paint called Ripolin.
0:36:52 > 0:36:57Every citizen is required to replace his hangings, his damasks,
0:36:57 > 0:37:01his wallpapers with a plain coat of white Ripolin.
0:37:06 > 0:37:10"When you put Ripolin on your walls then comes inner cleanness.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15"Without the law of Ripolin we lie to ourselves every day,
0:37:15 > 0:37:18"we lie to others."
0:37:22 > 0:37:26The law of Ripolin would bring the joy of life -
0:37:26 > 0:37:30the joy of action give us the law of Ripolin.
0:37:32 > 0:37:35IN FRENCH:
0:38:26 > 0:38:29In 1928, Le Corbusier was given a chance to
0:38:29 > 0:38:33put his Law of Ripolin into action.
0:38:40 > 0:38:44He was commissioned by the wealthy Savoye family to build them
0:38:44 > 0:38:47a summer house on the outskirts of Paris.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52And they gave Le Corbusier carte blanche.
0:38:54 > 0:38:56After three years in the making
0:38:56 > 0:39:01Le Corbusier believed he'd created a masterpiece.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11"As you enter on the ground floor you are involved in a magnificent
0:39:11 > 0:39:13"symphony of pure forms and shapes."
0:39:13 > 0:39:16This is the entrance hall to the Villa Savoye
0:39:16 > 0:39:19and it's a beautiful white, modernist space.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23But there's one thing that's very peculiar about it.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26This - a wash basin.
0:39:26 > 0:39:31Now what in heaven's name is this doing here right in the centre of the entrance hall?
0:39:31 > 0:39:35Almost the first thing you see when you come inside.
0:39:35 > 0:39:40I think it's Le Corbusier telling us that this house is about
0:39:40 > 0:39:42the act of cleansing, the act of purification,
0:39:42 > 0:39:45the act of becoming cleaner, better people.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01Running through the heart of this house like a great zigzagging spine
0:40:01 > 0:40:06is this ramp, which must have been a very strange thing to see
0:40:06 > 0:40:08in a house of the 1930s
0:40:08 > 0:40:12and I must say it is surprisingly steep.
0:40:12 > 0:40:17That reveals a lot I think. It reveals that Corbusier
0:40:17 > 0:40:22designed this building for the healthy body and this house
0:40:22 > 0:40:27is not only about relaxation, it was also about exercise.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38"Demand bare walls in your bedroom, your living room,
0:40:38 > 0:40:39"and your dining room."
0:41:00 > 0:41:05The culmination of this entire building, I think, is up here.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09It's where all these ramps have been leading us
0:41:09 > 0:41:12like we're on some kind of spiritual pilgrimage,
0:41:12 > 0:41:15and the destination is the solarium.
0:41:20 > 0:41:24It captures the sun as it moves throughout the day.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26And these white concrete walls,
0:41:26 > 0:41:30these only serve to bounce the sunlight back in again.
0:41:35 > 0:41:40Le Corbusier thought the Villa Savoye was a work of genius.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44But his client, Madame Savoye, wasn't so sure.
0:41:50 > 0:41:54The white wall may be fantastic on the drawing board,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58because it's pure and it's precise and it's simple and it's clear.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01But white walls are also cold and somehow sterile
0:42:01 > 0:42:05and I don't think they make much room for the individual.
0:42:16 > 0:42:21But Le Corbusier had lost interest in individuals.
0:42:21 > 0:42:27He wanted to impose his white walls on something much bigger.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30"The design of cities", Le Corbusier wrote,
0:42:30 > 0:42:33"is too important to be left to the citizens".
0:42:33 > 0:42:38In fact, he believed that only one person
0:42:38 > 0:42:42was important enough to design cities - Le Corbusier himself.
0:42:42 > 0:42:45And he felt that by doing so, he could reform
0:42:45 > 0:42:50not just the lives of a few, but the lives of millions.
0:43:00 > 0:43:05Le Corbusier reeled off designs for city after city.
0:43:05 > 0:43:12Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, even Algiers.
0:43:16 > 0:43:20In virtually all of them, his monolithic white walls overwhelm
0:43:20 > 0:43:24and often destroy the historic cities beneath them.
0:43:28 > 0:43:32Thankfully most of his plans were dismissed.
0:43:36 > 0:43:41"Some men have original ideas", he said, "and are kicked in the arse for their pains".
0:43:41 > 0:43:44But as the 1930s progressed,
0:43:44 > 0:43:49Le Corbusier's dream of whitewashing the world was not yet over.
0:43:49 > 0:43:54Across Europe, new political leaders wanted to cleanse their own countries.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58MUSIC: "Kicker Conspiracy" by The Fall
0:44:00 > 0:44:02There was Hitler in Germany.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06Franco in Spain.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10And in Italy, Benito Mussolini.
0:44:18 > 0:44:23Mussolini and his Blackshirts had marched on Rome in 1922
0:44:23 > 0:44:28and then set about transforming Italy into a fascist state.
0:44:32 > 0:44:39In 1934, Mussolini invited Le Corbusier to Rome to discuss architecture.
0:44:41 > 0:44:46Le Corbusier was deeply impressed by Mussolini's Italy.
0:44:46 > 0:44:48"The present spectacle," he wrote,
0:44:48 > 0:44:51"announces the dawn of the modern spirit.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55"Her purity and form illuminate the paths which have been
0:44:55 > 0:44:56"obscured by the cowardly".
0:44:56 > 0:45:00But for all Le Corbusier's hopes,
0:45:00 > 0:45:04for all his sycophantic rhetoric, Mussolini never employed him,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07because Mussolini had other plans.
0:45:15 > 0:45:22Benito Mussolini was born in 1883 near Ravenna.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27He started out as a stonemason, then a schoolteacher,
0:45:27 > 0:45:31before transforming himself into a thug philosopher
0:45:31 > 0:45:34advocating the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40But, on taking control of Italy, he cultivated a new image.
0:45:46 > 0:45:48"Stop thinking and believe in me, Mussolini,
0:45:48 > 0:45:51"and I will restore the glory that was Rome."
0:45:53 > 0:45:57Mussolini saw himself as a modern day Roman emperor.
0:45:57 > 0:46:04And his goal was to make modern Italy as imperious as it had been in the past.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10I think it was when he looked out over the great Roman ruins
0:46:10 > 0:46:14that surrounded him that he realised that one of the best ways to do this
0:46:14 > 0:46:17was to do what the Romans had done before him
0:46:17 > 0:46:20and that was to transform the city of Rome itself.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28Over the course of his dictatorship, Mussolini embarked
0:46:28 > 0:46:32on a series of grand projects, each one bigger than the last.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34All of them in white.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41And white would come to symbolise Mussolini's
0:46:41 > 0:46:43maniacal plans for a new Italy.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54And there was only one place that offered the whiteness
0:46:54 > 0:46:56that Mussolini craved.
0:46:56 > 0:47:01It lay high up in the mountains, 250 miles north of Rome.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08I'm driving along these winding roads to Carrara.
0:47:08 > 0:47:13In the mountains above me are perhaps the most famous
0:47:13 > 0:47:16marble quarries in the world.
0:47:50 > 0:47:54IN ITALIAN:
0:48:42 > 0:48:47For centuries the pure natural whiteness of Carraran marble
0:48:47 > 0:48:50had drawn artists and architects from around the globe.
0:48:50 > 0:48:55Now Mussolini too had been seduced.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01And when his agents came here they were looking for
0:49:01 > 0:49:04one piece of marble in particular.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11Mussolini was planning an obelisk.
0:49:11 > 0:49:16The ancient Roman emperors had had them so he felt he needed one too.
0:49:16 > 0:49:21It was going to be his signature piece, his towering statement
0:49:21 > 0:49:25to the world that he was bringing Rome back to its former glory.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30Mussolini ordered the largest single block of marble
0:49:30 > 0:49:33ever to be quarried here.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39Getting the marble to Rome was like a biblical epic
0:49:39 > 0:49:43and Mussolini had it captured on film for posterity.
0:49:44 > 0:49:4630 pairs of oxen worked day and night
0:49:46 > 0:49:50to pull the stone down from the quarry.
0:49:50 > 0:49:5570,000 litres of liquid soap lubricated its movement,
0:49:55 > 0:50:01and a ceremonial flotilla greeted the monolith when it arrived in Rome.
0:50:13 > 0:50:15MARCHING FOOTSTEPS
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Finally, in 1932,
0:50:23 > 0:50:28Mussolini's towering white obelisk was raised to the sky.
0:50:34 > 0:50:39So this is Mussolini's obelisk and it is huge
0:50:39 > 0:50:41and on it there's his name
0:50:41 > 0:50:44in huge Latin letters,
0:50:44 > 0:50:45"Mussolini Dux",
0:50:45 > 0:50:48it means "Mussolini Leader".
0:50:48 > 0:50:51So this is his big phallic attempt
0:50:51 > 0:50:54to make his mark as a modern Roman emperor.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58The thing that really surprises me about this is the fact that
0:50:58 > 0:51:00it's still here.
0:51:00 > 0:51:04We're decades on, Mussolini's been completely discredited,
0:51:04 > 0:51:07and his monument is still here.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09They haven't even chipped his name off it.
0:51:12 > 0:51:14With his obelisk, Mussolini had carved his name
0:51:14 > 0:51:19into the history of white in the most monumental and enduring way.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25But this was just the beginning.
0:51:30 > 0:51:35Mussolini would go on to build an even larger white monument
0:51:35 > 0:51:38to his fascist regime.
0:51:40 > 0:51:45This sports ground was built for the youth of Mussolini's new Rome
0:51:45 > 0:51:47and is known as the Stadium of the Marbles.
0:51:53 > 0:51:58The base was built out of white travertine,
0:51:58 > 0:52:02but on top of the base there are 60 monumental statues
0:52:02 > 0:52:06that were carved out of pure white Carraran marble.
0:52:06 > 0:52:12Each of those statues came from and represented
0:52:12 > 0:52:15a different city in Italy.
0:52:15 > 0:52:18It's therefore a deeply symbolic space.
0:52:18 > 0:52:23This space symbolises a strong, healthy Italy being united
0:52:23 > 0:52:24under the fascist state
0:52:24 > 0:52:26and under Mussolini.
0:52:33 > 0:52:37These statues remind me of the ancient Greek figures
0:52:37 > 0:52:40that Winckelmann had admired centuries before.
0:52:40 > 0:52:47But here their white forms are tainted with much darker connotations.
0:52:49 > 0:52:54This statue represents a runner from the town of Novara.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59He's a huge, monumental, muscular figure who is striding
0:52:59 > 0:53:03quite forcefully, almost into the stadium itself.
0:53:03 > 0:53:10I must say I think this is utterly, utterly ghastly,
0:53:10 > 0:53:14because this is Mussolini's poisonous fantasy
0:53:14 > 0:53:17of an ideal Italian citizen...
0:53:20 > 0:53:24..because in the 1930s, Mussolini, very much inspired by Hitler,
0:53:24 > 0:53:28decided that the Italians were Aryans in origin.
0:53:28 > 0:53:31They were white people.
0:53:31 > 0:53:38And what better to represent white Italian people than white Italian marble?
0:53:41 > 0:53:46In the white of these sculptures I can no longer see grace
0:53:46 > 0:53:48or purity or reason.
0:53:48 > 0:53:54This is a white of fear, of racism
0:53:54 > 0:53:56and of tyranny.
0:53:58 > 0:54:04And, in his most ambitious project, Mussolini planned to impose
0:54:04 > 0:54:07that tyrannical colour on yet more of his people.
0:54:10 > 0:54:14Though the Second World War was still raging,
0:54:14 > 0:54:16Mussolini continued to remake Rome.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21He dreamed of a vast white metropolis,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25the nerve centre of his fascist regime.
0:54:30 > 0:54:35Mussolini chose a malarial swamp on the outskirts of Rome
0:54:35 > 0:54:39as the site for his new city.
0:54:47 > 0:54:53Spread over 1,000 acres, it became known as EUR
0:54:53 > 0:54:56and it still stands today.
0:55:01 > 0:55:07All around are the white marble monuments of Mussolini's urban fantasy.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14But the focal point is this building -
0:55:14 > 0:55:17the Palazzo della Civilta Italiana.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31We are right smack bang in the centre of EUR
0:55:31 > 0:55:33and this really does embody
0:55:33 > 0:55:36Mussolini's grand ideas of rebuilding
0:55:36 > 0:55:39a new, brilliant, purer, whiter Italy.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44Le Corbusier would have loved to have done this -
0:55:44 > 0:55:49to remake the world and to remake it as white as possible.
0:55:52 > 0:55:56The Palazzo was conceived as a giant white display case
0:55:56 > 0:56:00celebrating all the ideals of Mussolini's fascist regime.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08It's flanked by two marble statues of mythological heroes
0:56:08 > 0:56:11and around the base are 30 more sculptures.
0:56:11 > 0:56:16Each one represents a different industry, art or science.
0:56:22 > 0:56:25But what's most striking
0:56:25 > 0:56:29is its unwavering oppressive whiteness.
0:56:40 > 0:56:45What you see here is whiteness as a totalitarian colour.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48A colour that brooks no disagreement,
0:56:48 > 0:56:52brooks no dissent and brooks no disorder.
0:56:54 > 0:57:00It is the enemy of individuality and it is the enemy of anyone
0:57:00 > 0:57:03or anything that threatens to corrupt its purity.
0:57:03 > 0:57:07And that, I think, is the reason why fascists like Mussolini
0:57:07 > 0:57:09loved it so much.
0:57:25 > 0:57:32Mussolini was ousted in 1943 and was lynched by his own people
0:57:32 > 0:57:34shortly before the end of World War Two.
0:57:40 > 0:57:43And it is he who brings our story to a close.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52From the 18th century we believed white could enlighten us all.
0:57:52 > 0:57:59It could inspire us, improve us and delight us.
0:58:02 > 0:58:09But, in the modern age, it became a tool to divide, to exclude,
0:58:09 > 0:58:12and ultimately, to control.
0:58:13 > 0:58:18The purest colour had become the darkest colour of them all.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26Today we remain blind to white's darker side.
0:58:26 > 0:58:30We still think of it as a clean, blank canvas.
0:58:30 > 0:58:36But look closer and that canvas is for ever tainted
0:58:36 > 0:58:39with our own flaws and failings.
0:58:40 > 0:58:45White is the immaculate reflection of an impure world.
0:59:08 > 0:59:12Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd