0:00:01 > 0:00:03BBC Four Collections -
0:00:03 > 0:00:06specially chosen programmes from the BBC Archive.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14In the half century or more since his first exhibition,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17the work of Henry Moore has been seen in almost every country in the world.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22He's made a staggering total of something like 900 sculptures,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25many of them immense, as well as thousands of drawings
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and nearly a thousand graphics.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33In one year, when he was in his 80s, he had more than 40 exhibitions.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35In the later part of his life,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38the demand for his work never stopped.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42He received almost every award and honour that one can possibly imagine.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47I believe that Henry Moore is one of the greatest sculptors
0:01:47 > 0:01:49since the Renaissance.
0:01:49 > 0:01:53He's been to the art of sculpture what Picasso was to painting.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58Picasso opened up so many new ways of painting, he was a revolutionary
0:01:58 > 0:02:02in the sense of breaking down all the old ways and suggesting new ways.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Moore differed from Picasso in this respect.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Moore, as modern as he may have seemed at the beginning,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13never really lost his contact with tradition.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16He took the whole idea of 19thcentury sculpture,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19threw it away, but went back to what he called
0:02:19 > 0:02:21the world tradition of sculpture.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24By that he meant looking at every culture in the world,
0:02:24 > 0:02:26going back as far as 40,000 years
0:02:26 > 0:02:28to the very sources of sculptural expression.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33But however modern, revolutionary or surreal
0:02:33 > 0:02:35the sculpture may have seemed,
0:02:35 > 0:02:39his fundamental beliefs lay entirely within a humanistic tradition.
0:02:40 > 0:02:43HENRY MOORE: All our judgements of architecture,
0:02:43 > 0:02:46of form and everything else, are based on the fact
0:02:46 > 0:02:48that we are human beings of the shape we are.
0:02:48 > 0:02:56And that we have a height of average between five foot six and six feet,
0:02:56 > 0:02:58that we walk on two legs,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00that we have bones inside us
0:03:00 > 0:03:04and that we can move in certain ways and not in other ways,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07that we understand from ourselves,
0:03:07 > 0:03:10and from our mothers to begin with, softness and hardness.
0:03:10 > 0:03:11All this...
0:03:11 > 0:03:14If you don't, well, learn from your own body,
0:03:14 > 0:03:15you'll learn from nothing.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18And that for me, that the human body is the basis
0:03:18 > 0:03:21of all sense of form that all of us have.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24We learn how far a thing is away from us, as a child,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26by trying to touch the toy in the pram.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31We learn what is upright and so on because we are ourselves.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35If we were like horses and could go to sleep on all fours,
0:03:35 > 0:03:38all our architecture, all our art, would be different.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40Of course it would.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Of course it would.
0:03:42 > 0:03:43Well, Henry Moore had that way
0:03:43 > 0:03:46of making very unusual and provocative ideas sound as though
0:03:46 > 0:03:49they were common sense and very down to earth.
0:03:49 > 0:03:50I must have known him as a child,
0:03:50 > 0:03:52but I don't have any memories of that.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55The first place I really remember meeting him was here,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58in fact, in this very room. Not a room so much as a studio.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01It was, in fact, Henry Moore's first studio
0:04:01 > 0:04:04when he moved out of London into the country.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07And because the film I made about him in 1950 was the first film
0:04:07 > 0:04:10I had ever made, it was also my first film studio.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14It was, in fact, the village shop once.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17And up the back there was what was the butcher's shop.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20And Moore, I remember, was delighted, when they were digging round there,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23to find the ground was fill of huge shin bones and shoulder blades,
0:04:23 > 0:04:25and I think a lot of these probably gave him
0:04:25 > 0:04:28some inspiration for some of his sculpture.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31He certainly liked wearing a butcher's apron when he was working.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37I made six films about him over, I think, about 28 years.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39The last one for his 80th birthday.
0:04:39 > 0:04:42By then, I was beginning to feel as though I was a member of his staff.
0:04:42 > 0:04:43John.
0:04:45 > 0:04:50Put that...in-between you, put that just...somewhere on the side there.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54That's it, like that. No, it's about.. No. The other.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56Turn it right round the other side.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58It's got a better...
0:04:58 > 0:05:00No, right round.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02No, no. Look.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06No, no, no, no. All right, turn it over again. There.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09Now bring it over here, bring it... That's it, there.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15That'll be better, much better, when you're out of the way.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17You're standing in the light. There you are.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21'When I went to see him, as his 80th birthday approached,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24'I found him as eager to talk about his beliefs as ever.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26'He is, amongst other things, a meticulous photographer
0:05:26 > 0:05:29'of his own work and attends to every detail
0:05:29 > 0:05:31'with almost boyish enthusiasm.'
0:05:31 > 0:05:34Yes... No, I don't want that white edge at the back.
0:05:34 > 0:05:35That's it, there.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42That doesn't matter about having a sharp edge. There we are. Now...
0:05:42 > 0:05:45See, that will make a much better... There.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53Moore's expert knowledge of photography was a great help to me
0:05:53 > 0:05:55when I made my first film there in 1950.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59With the strange and impressive shapes that fill his studio,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02he picks up and carries on a tradition
0:06:02 > 0:06:04that has been extinct in England for 400 years,
0:06:04 > 0:06:08a tradition of expressiveness and truth to material.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12The studio is a workshop in which he turns his ideas into tangible forms.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18At first sight, this world is unfamiliar and puzzling to us.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22But the quality and quantity of Moore's work has a unity
0:06:22 > 0:06:26that could only come from great originality and strength.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32Sculpture of this kind is a challenge to our accepted ideas
0:06:32 > 0:06:35and we must understand the sculptor's approach to his work
0:06:35 > 0:06:37before we can appreciate the work itself.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40The sculptor is distinguished from other artists by his materials
0:06:40 > 0:06:42and by the way he uses them.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46Here are Henry Moore's hands and his tools.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58I learned from Moore a great deal
0:06:58 > 0:07:01about how to place and light sculpture for the camera,
0:07:01 > 0:07:03how to photograph it from many angles,
0:07:03 > 0:07:05how to move the camera right inside
0:07:05 > 0:07:07as though entering a tunnel and walking through it.
0:07:11 > 0:07:13I also learned a great deal about art.
0:07:13 > 0:07:14I think I picked up from him
0:07:14 > 0:07:18the basic sort of sign posts in my own artistic belief.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20It was impossible to work
0:07:20 > 0:07:24so closely with Moore without really absorbing his ideas.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Henry Moore was born at Castleford in Yorkshire.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32It's a typical 19th-century mining town.
0:07:32 > 0:07:35DH Lawrence was born in a very similar place in Nottinghamshire.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38There must be 100 others like it all over the country.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41Moore has been given the freedom of Castleford.
0:07:41 > 0:07:43They are as proud of him there as they would be
0:07:43 > 0:07:45if he'd played cricket for Yorkshire.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52He was born in 1898 in an ordinary terraced brick house.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56His father was a miner, and a friend of Herbert Smith,
0:07:56 > 0:07:58who helped to found the Yorkshire Miners' Union.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01When times were bad, his mother went out to work.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04There were eight children in the family all together.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Two died, three became teachers, one was lost to sight in Canada.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Henry, who went to the local school, was the one who was good at art.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17They still keep there a caricature of his headmaster,
0:08:17 > 0:08:20with his own name, much bigger, alongside.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23He carved it on the back of the school roll of honour,
0:08:23 > 0:08:25which he designed in 1916.
0:08:26 > 0:08:30He also wrote plays, acted in them, and designed the programme covers.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35He was good at pottery,
0:08:35 > 0:08:38and in all these activities, owed a great deal
0:08:38 > 0:08:39to the encouragement of his art teacher.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44As a boy, at school, I liked the art lessons, I liked drawing.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47I used to get my elder brother to draw horses for me, and so on,
0:08:47 > 0:08:48from as early as I can remember,
0:08:48 > 0:08:55but the little incident that clinches the thing in my mind was...
0:08:56 > 0:09:00..our parents used to send me and my younger sister
0:09:00 > 0:09:04to Sunday school on Sunday afternoons to get rid of us, I think, mainly.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08And the Sunday school we went to was a Congregational chapel,
0:09:08 > 0:09:10although we were Church of England.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15And the superintendent every Sunday used to give a talk about...
0:09:16 > 0:09:22..some little moral, it would always have a point to the talk.
0:09:22 > 0:09:23And one Sunday he told us about
0:09:23 > 0:09:28Michelangelo carving the head of an old faun in the streets of...
0:09:28 > 0:09:33In his studio, in the streets of Florence, and...
0:09:33 > 0:09:38But a passer-by stood to watch Michelangelo carving
0:09:38 > 0:09:40this head of an old faun and...
0:09:42 > 0:09:45..after watching two or three minutes, said to Michelangelo,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47"But an old faun wouldn't have all its teeth in."
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Michelangelo immediately, said the superintendent,
0:09:50 > 0:09:53took his chisel, knocked out two of the teeth
0:09:53 > 0:09:55and there, he said, was a great man,
0:09:55 > 0:09:57listening to the advice of other people,
0:09:57 > 0:09:59even though he didn't know them.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04Now, this story didn't stick in my mind, but it's moral -
0:10:04 > 0:10:07but merely that there was someone, Michelangelo, a great sculptor.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12And from then onwards, instead of saying, like most boys might,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15that one wants to be an engine driver and so on,
0:10:15 > 0:10:20this had just pinpointed something in my mind and I knew from then onwards.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27In the early 1950s, Henry Moore could just walk out of the house
0:10:27 > 0:10:30and into this shed, and that was all there was to it,
0:10:30 > 0:10:31and this was the only studio.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34There was a small space outside, a kind of patio,
0:10:34 > 0:10:35which faced the garage door.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38All the work was done within that small area,
0:10:38 > 0:10:40right up till the time when he became
0:10:40 > 0:10:43a really famous and international figure.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45But, of course, as his fame increased, his income increased,
0:10:45 > 0:10:48and with it, the size of his sculpture
0:10:48 > 0:10:50and the extent of the whole operation.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52It became quite extraordinary,
0:10:52 > 0:10:55the way Perry Green became almost a little country of its own,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58as Henry Moore occupied one building after another.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02It spread out over the fields, into the sheds and barns
0:11:02 > 0:11:04and it became a kind of sculpture park.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09'By 1958, his studio had expanded greatly.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12'Now that he was earning more, he could do more.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15'His old studio was used more and more for small pieces,
0:11:15 > 0:11:19'for polishing and finishing off castings and for maquettes,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22'and for the sort of jobs that assistants could do for him.'
0:11:24 > 0:11:27The garden around the house had grown very considerably
0:11:27 > 0:11:30and sculptures were placed in it to the best advantage.
0:11:34 > 0:11:36Beyond the garden, Moore had taken over two large fields
0:11:36 > 0:11:38and a small wood.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41In the first field he built a new studio, well away from the house,
0:11:41 > 0:11:44where he could work both night and day.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48It was built to his own design with doors and roof high enough
0:11:48 > 0:11:49for his largest works
0:11:49 > 0:11:51and a terrace onto which he could move his sculptures.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54This was important because he felt very strongly
0:11:54 > 0:11:56that sculpture meant to be looked at out of doors,
0:11:56 > 0:11:58cannot be made entirely indoors.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00THUNDER CRASHES
0:12:05 > 0:12:08Running a sculpture workshop on the scale that Henry Moore did
0:12:08 > 0:12:10made him something like the managing director
0:12:10 > 0:12:12of quite a large enterprise.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16All the same, he had a very strict routine to deal with all this.
0:12:16 > 0:12:18One wondered sometimes where and when
0:12:18 > 0:12:20he managed to do his actual creative work.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22But he'd have breakfast at eight,
0:12:22 > 0:12:24he would have a meeting with his staff at nine o'clock
0:12:24 > 0:12:26to brief them for the day's jobs.
0:12:26 > 0:12:28He would read The Times, perhaps for half an hour
0:12:28 > 0:12:30and then he would sit down with his secretary
0:12:30 > 0:12:32and go through the mail, things like this,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35before going down to the studios to see what was happening.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40All this took place in a very simple, straightforward domestic routine.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44Really very homely. And if you came down to see him you would have lunch.
0:12:44 > 0:12:48Lunch would be cold lamb, baked potato, something like that.
0:12:48 > 0:12:49Everybody had a bottle of Guinness,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52each separate bottle of Guinness for each plate.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54Each one with its own little opener, I always remember that.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58You do sort of get sidelights on people.
0:12:58 > 0:13:04I remember having a dinner with the abstract sculptor Naum Gabo
0:13:04 > 0:13:06and he chose chicken, spring chicken,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09and watching him trying to carve that spring chicken...
0:13:09 > 0:13:10It was a total disaster -
0:13:10 > 0:13:13within two minutes there was just wreckage on the plate.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Now, to see Moore carving into a sirloin of beef
0:13:16 > 0:13:18was one of the small joys of life, cos in no time at all
0:13:18 > 0:13:21there was the most beautiful two-piece reclining figure there.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24RADIO PLAYS IN WORKSHOP
0:13:25 > 0:13:27Of course, things could go wrong.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30There was a great occasion once, I think, when a sculpture fell off
0:13:30 > 0:13:34the back of a lorry on the motorway, which puzzled the police somewhat.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37Er... We were lucky once, in fact, if lucky is the word,
0:13:37 > 0:13:41because we had cameras there when something quite serious went wrong.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47'The sculpture was tied by nylon straps
0:13:47 > 0:13:49'to the jib of a massive crane.'
0:13:49 > 0:13:52'The hangar roof, only inches above, created problems.'
0:13:53 > 0:13:57'A false move, a faulty calculation, and the sculpture could slip,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00'the crane overturn, the hangar be demolished.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03'Noack drew the lines along which he would cut.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06'He hoped to take out a whole half-section in a single piece.'
0:14:08 > 0:14:10RADIO PLAYS IN BACKGROUND
0:14:11 > 0:14:13RADIO: '..Whatever you do this Whitsun,
0:14:13 > 0:14:17'you must take your friends to Spedeworth Stock Car Racing...'
0:14:17 > 0:14:19As Noack cut the last few inches, the weight of the sculpture
0:14:19 > 0:14:22was transferred from its base to the straps.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25Anything could happen now.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29RADIO: '..All the places for Spedeworth Stock Car Racing,
0:14:29 > 0:14:31'this Whitsun.'
0:14:32 > 0:14:34MAN 1: Schoen drin. Aber heraus...Sie nicht ziehen.
0:14:34 > 0:14:35MAN 2: Ja, ja.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39MAN 1: Schoen runter... Das kann ruhig ein bisschen hier raushangen.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45'Moore went to lunch.'
0:14:45 > 0:14:47MECHANICAL THRUMMING
0:14:53 > 0:14:54Things began to go wrong.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58The upper section had dropped and its edge fouled the piece below.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00Ugly cracks appeared.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03The crane had no room to manoeuvre and was very nearly off-balance.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06The section had to be cut free.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09MUSIC PLAYS ON RADIO
0:15:11 > 0:15:12'Then it happened.'
0:15:12 > 0:15:14MAN YELLS AND WHISTLES
0:15:15 > 0:15:18The top section had cracked at its narrowest part,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21the plaster was torn, the armature had snapped.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24The falling piece swung into the other half of the sculpture
0:15:24 > 0:15:26and made an ugly dent.
0:15:26 > 0:15:28By the time they'd got the first piece out,
0:15:28 > 0:15:30Moore came back from lunch...
0:15:30 > 0:15:32'Surprisingly, he was calm, philosophical
0:15:32 > 0:15:34'and above all, practical.'
0:15:34 > 0:15:36MAN: No, a little bit more.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39Maybe you can drive it some?
0:15:40 > 0:15:41MOORE: 'It can be mended.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44'I mean, there's... This is what life is.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47'Sometimes you'll purposely destroy a thing
0:15:47 > 0:15:49'to make something else out of it.'
0:15:50 > 0:15:56'Art is not a process of just gradual perfection.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59'You'll have accidents, you'll have troubles, you'll have...'
0:16:00 > 0:16:02'You'll have difficulties.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06'You'll destroy things, you'll discard something,
0:16:06 > 0:16:11'you'll make a new thing, and all this is the way you live.
0:16:11 > 0:16:14'So, you take the rough with the smooth.'
0:16:16 > 0:16:17'I don't think it's very surprising
0:16:17 > 0:16:19'that working with Henry Moore on doing films
0:16:19 > 0:16:21'was an education in itself.'
0:16:21 > 0:16:24Education, I think, was very close to his heart.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26Not only had he benefited so much from hard work
0:16:26 > 0:16:29and education himself - scholarship boy and so on -
0:16:29 > 0:16:32he had the greatest respect for his teachers,
0:16:32 > 0:16:33or some of them at least,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36a great respect for what he got out of museums.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41He had great respect, I think, for teaching himself, as a duty.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43He liked taking people round.
0:16:43 > 0:16:45He liked making films, he liked explaining,
0:16:45 > 0:16:48and he was jolly good at it.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51He knew exactly how to use the television and film medium.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55Primitive art makes a straightforward statement.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59Its primary concern is with the elemental.
0:16:59 > 0:17:03And it's simplicity comes from a direct and strong feeling.
0:17:04 > 0:17:08Which is very different from being simple for the sake of being simple,
0:17:08 > 0:17:10which only leads to emptiness.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12I think you will see what I mean
0:17:12 > 0:17:15if you look at this Mexican pottery figure.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21It was made by someone with a direct and immediate response to life
0:17:21 > 0:17:23to whom art was a channel
0:17:23 > 0:17:28for expressing strong hopes, beliefs and fears.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32Well, this was, for me,
0:17:32 > 0:17:37an important stage of my development as a sculptor...
0:17:38 > 0:17:42..because although I was still mainly a stone sculptor,
0:17:42 > 0:17:47in fact completely absorbed in stone carving...
0:17:48 > 0:17:50..I was dissatisfied with the...
0:17:51 > 0:17:53..usual idea of direct carving,
0:17:53 > 0:17:57in which the forms are all so embedded in each other
0:17:57 > 0:18:02that they don't have a free, independent existence.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06And here I was trying to make... so that, say, this form,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09which is like the shape of an egg, which is the body,
0:18:09 > 0:18:12is completely, almost completely realised,
0:18:12 > 0:18:15though not separated from the rest,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19that is that I was making the forms...
0:18:20 > 0:18:23..realised enough and yet, compact enough.
0:18:23 > 0:18:30It was a very...important stage in my development as a sculptor.
0:18:30 > 0:18:37Also, I was in this, getting the freedom to...
0:18:38 > 0:18:40..mix forms...
0:18:40 > 0:18:43the forms of one thing with the forms of another, and yet,
0:18:43 > 0:18:50perhaps making a unit, a kind of organic unit out of the whole.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53And this I've done at later times.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56I mean, here is the back view of a figure.
0:18:56 > 0:18:57This is a kind of egg.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01This is the sort of head and it has...
0:19:01 > 0:19:08The whole has some sort of sense of a jug, but it is an organic form.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12And I remember a little child, my niece, I think, who was very young,
0:19:12 > 0:19:16when she first saw this, she said, "Oh, an elephant in an armchair."
0:19:16 > 0:19:18HE CHUCKLES Which was a, er...
0:19:18 > 0:19:23I was very pleased that she had felt some real object, some real...
0:19:24 > 0:19:25..person.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35JOHN READ: Sometimes Henry Moore's simple, common-sense explanations
0:19:35 > 0:19:39seemed a bit too simple when one thought about the works that he made.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42He was always ready to explain the sturdy dimensions
0:19:42 > 0:19:45of his female figures by telling that old story of his
0:19:45 > 0:19:47about how he used to rub his mother's back as a child
0:19:47 > 0:19:50to help her with her rheumatism.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53It's certainly true that his chief muse was an earth mother,
0:19:53 > 0:19:55but I wonder sometimes
0:19:55 > 0:19:57if there wasn't also a Venus or an Aphrodite in the background.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04Some of his work seems to me to be sensual and tender,
0:20:04 > 0:20:07extremely beautiful and sexually overt.
0:20:07 > 0:20:09But the erotic content - if that's what we can call it -
0:20:09 > 0:20:12was something he wasn't at all anxious to talk about.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17The whole of life is...
0:20:19 > 0:20:20..is made up of the...
0:20:22 > 0:20:27I mean, if you want to look and if you want to interpret form
0:20:27 > 0:20:28from this point of view,
0:20:28 > 0:20:33then everything is...sex.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37And the appreciation,
0:20:37 > 0:20:43everybody's appreciation of form is built on this appreciation of sex.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47I think that my...
0:20:47 > 0:20:53Part of my early training as a young sculptor comes from being...
0:20:53 > 0:20:56going to a mixed secondary school...
0:20:57 > 0:21:01..where I could look at all the girls' legs,
0:21:01 > 0:21:03all from the age of 12 or 13
0:21:03 > 0:21:07and I could tell you in the school any...
0:21:07 > 0:21:12which girl was which, if you'd only shown me her figure
0:21:12 > 0:21:14from the knee downwards.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17This was... Some of this... I mean, this is a...
0:21:17 > 0:21:20But it isn't that thing that you mean.
0:21:20 > 0:21:24I mean, the fullness of form.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28The tautness of form, all these things are connected with life
0:21:28 > 0:21:29and life is sex and so on.
0:21:29 > 0:21:33So, it's not a...
0:21:35 > 0:21:40It's not a conscious theme that you'll use your brain over.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43I suppose to many people, especially in the '40s and '50s,
0:21:43 > 0:21:46Henry Moore was best known as the man who made sculptures with a hole in.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48In fact, of course,
0:21:48 > 0:21:51the thing he was best known for was the reclining figure.
0:21:51 > 0:21:52But these reclining figures,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55many of which he did just before the war, beautiful though they were,
0:21:55 > 0:21:58were only really admired and known about by a few people.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02The work that made him famous in the popular mind were his drawings,
0:22:02 > 0:22:03not his sculptures,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06and these drawings came about when the war started
0:22:06 > 0:22:07and his friend, Kenneth Clark,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10who was then director of the National Gallery,
0:22:10 > 0:22:12appointed him as a war artist.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15MOORE: 'I used to go into London, two or three days a week,
0:22:15 > 0:22:17'to do my shelter drawings.'
0:22:19 > 0:22:21'It's curious how they all started.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25'To begin with, I hadn't wanted to be a war artist,
0:22:25 > 0:22:27'although I had been asked to be.'
0:22:28 > 0:22:30'Because, to me, there seemed no...'
0:22:31 > 0:22:34'..nothing unusual and nothing different
0:22:34 > 0:22:37'in that early period of so-called Phoney War
0:22:37 > 0:22:41'that made any new experience or gave me any new experiences.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43'But this particular night,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46'for some reason or other we came back by Tube,
0:22:46 > 0:22:51'and it was then that I first saw the shelterers down the Tube.'
0:22:52 > 0:22:55I began to be fascinated by all the people,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58the kind of family life that they were leading
0:22:58 > 0:23:02and these children, still fast asleep,
0:23:02 > 0:23:06although the trains were rattling by and making a terrific din.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10And there, stretched out in front of me,
0:23:10 > 0:23:13were rows and rows of reclining figures...
0:23:13 > 0:23:15Henry Moore reclining figures.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26One imagined that perhaps there'd never been scenes like that,
0:23:26 > 0:23:27so gentle,
0:23:27 > 0:23:31except perhaps when the slaves were all being exported
0:23:31 > 0:23:34from Africa to America.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36In the hulls of slave ships,
0:23:36 > 0:23:39people would be all crowded together like that, probably.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49Sometimes, like in this,
0:23:49 > 0:23:54I was trying to make two people there seem as though they were a sculpture
0:23:54 > 0:23:58or in a tomb because down below it did feel sometimes like a tomb.
0:24:00 > 0:24:05So occasionally, my sculptural interests come into it,
0:24:05 > 0:24:11and I may...distort figures or change them for sculptural purposes.
0:24:11 > 0:24:16But ordinarily, it was me trying to record the...
0:24:17 > 0:24:21..experiences that one had, because it was intensely human.
0:24:21 > 0:24:25There was even humour and so on, occasionally. It was a very...
0:24:26 > 0:24:30And...here there are distortions in a way that,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32like the thinness of the legs,
0:24:32 > 0:24:35and the pointedness that they are to give, well,
0:24:35 > 0:24:37something not consciously,
0:24:37 > 0:24:40but sometimes pointed forms give a kind of sense of fear,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42which other forms don't.
0:24:43 > 0:24:45It was something of a paradox, wasn't it,
0:24:45 > 0:24:49that what Henry Moore became famous for was not the open air
0:24:49 > 0:24:51and the human figure in the landscape,
0:24:51 > 0:24:53which was what he believed in,
0:24:53 > 0:24:56but for these figures trapped and enclosed underground in the dark.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59But, of course, his greatest single contribution, I think,
0:24:59 > 0:25:02to the art of sculpture, was his idea of being able to combine
0:25:02 > 0:25:06one's feeling about the landscape and one's feeling about the human figure.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09Not as two separate things, but as one single image.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13He saw the figure as a landscape, he saw the landscape as a figure.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16A romantic idea - a romantic tradition in English literature
0:25:16 > 0:25:20and in English painting - combined now in one single body of work.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26One of the most characteristic qualities of Moore's work
0:25:26 > 0:25:29is the way in which the contours and shapes of the human figure
0:25:29 > 0:25:32are used to echo certain qualities of landscape.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35For the first time in the whole history of art,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38a sculptor has successfully extended his subject
0:25:38 > 0:25:40to incorporate landscape,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43which hitherto, had remained the painter's domain.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46The flow of a skyline.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48The slope of a hill.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52The qualities of light and shade and of space out in the open
0:25:52 > 0:25:55can affect a sculptor as much as a painter.
0:25:55 > 0:25:59Poets, painters, writers and particularly English artists
0:25:59 > 0:26:01have a long tradition of romantic absorption
0:26:01 > 0:26:03in the emotional relationships
0:26:03 > 0:26:06between man and the natural world in which he lives.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28This very special sculptural quality of landscape,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31rather strange and wild, immensely powerful and monumental,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34was certainly something Moore knew all about
0:26:34 > 0:26:37from his childhood excursions on the Yorkshire moors.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02In the quiet, civilised fields of Hertfordshire,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05his sculptures generated this same power.
0:27:06 > 0:27:11A leg is clothed in a massive cliff face of drapery,
0:27:11 > 0:27:14which flows over a body whose trunk is as strong as the trunk of a tree.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19The shoulder supported on the arm is a hill
0:27:19 > 0:27:23and the head almost a monument or a lookout post on a summit.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31An enclosed field with summer trees and hedges
0:27:31 > 0:27:32becomes a place of mystery.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35Figures half in sun, half in shade
0:27:35 > 0:27:38seem to exercise an ancient and uncanny spell.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Their bony, fossil-like forms are smooth, immensely strong
0:27:43 > 0:27:45and seem as old as life itself.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47RHYTHMIC DRUMMING
0:28:13 > 0:28:16WIND HOWLS
0:28:16 > 0:28:18There is a remote glen in Scotland which has become
0:28:18 > 0:28:21a kind of sculpture valley.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25By a deserted track, a solitary figure stands like a sentinel...
0:28:25 > 0:28:28and the winds blow between its slender limbs.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40Nearby on rising ground, another group sits in a position of command.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44They embody the idea of royalty.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47The heads of this king and queen are abstracted into shapes
0:28:47 > 0:28:50which combine ancient symbols of majesty -
0:28:50 > 0:28:55the bird head, the beak, the beard, the crown.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59They have about them a fierceness too,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02appropriate to the authority of tribal rulers.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08SINISTER MUSIC
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Yet, in details, the sculptor's vision is intensely realistic,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23suggesting the ordinary humanity behind the symbols of regal power.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27The bodies are smoothed and rounded
0:29:27 > 0:29:29as though moulded and weathered by the elements
0:29:29 > 0:29:31into forms of sinuous strength.
0:29:53 > 0:29:56The king and queen are guardians and rulers of the kingdom
0:29:56 > 0:29:59that stretches beneath their gaze to the distant border.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06Behind, an immense monument in bronze,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09a tonne in weight, rests on the hilltop.
0:30:09 > 0:30:11It can be seen like a beacon for miles away.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15It stands exposed like a massive boulder,
0:30:15 > 0:30:17left there by a glacier thousands of years ago.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21Moore calls this a crucifixion thorn,
0:30:21 > 0:30:24combining in it suggestions of a cross,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28a severed torso and human suffering.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40In 1963, then 65 years old,
0:30:40 > 0:30:43Henry Moore received the highest award
0:30:43 > 0:30:45that a civilian can receive in Britain.
0:30:45 > 0:30:46He was given the Order of Merit.
0:30:47 > 0:30:50Now, that might have been a point, you would think,
0:30:50 > 0:30:52for him to put his feet up and to retire,
0:30:52 > 0:30:54but in fact, he was at his creative peak
0:30:54 > 0:30:57and artists, indeed, don't retire.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01He'd already started dividing up the reclining figure into two pieces,
0:31:01 > 0:31:02three pieces, four pieces.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04There were entirely new ideas and themes emerging.
0:31:06 > 0:31:08One of the best sculptures of that time, I think,
0:31:08 > 0:31:12was his Atom Piece, which dealt with the whole business of atomic power
0:31:12 > 0:31:14and atomic energy within one symbol that he invented.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18He also was able to really do anything he wanted
0:31:18 > 0:31:21in terms of size and scale, there were no technical limits any longer
0:31:21 > 0:31:24to what he could do, there were no financial limits.
0:31:26 > 0:31:28He also began to go to Italy
0:31:28 > 0:31:30and there he bought a small two-bedroom villa,
0:31:30 > 0:31:33a very modest place, in a little seaside town
0:31:33 > 0:31:35that was called Forte dei Marmi.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38Now, Moore was not really the man for family holidays,
0:31:38 > 0:31:41there was always a reason behind these trips abroad.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44And Forte dei Marmi was very near the marble quarries,
0:31:44 > 0:31:47the very famous Carrara marble quarries,
0:31:47 > 0:31:49where Michelangelo had worked.
0:31:53 > 0:31:57To the chemist, marble is just calcium carbonate.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00To the workers in the mountain villages, it's a job.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04To the directors of the Henraux quarries,
0:32:04 > 0:32:06where Michelangelo got his stone...
0:32:06 > 0:32:09it's almost a religion, a mystique.
0:32:16 > 0:32:18WINCH SQUEAKS
0:32:18 > 0:32:21MECHANICAL CLANGING
0:32:21 > 0:32:23MECHANICAL THRUMMING
0:32:27 > 0:32:29MECHANICAL CLANGING
0:32:32 > 0:32:33CLINKING OF METAL TOOLS
0:32:33 > 0:32:35MAN CALLS OUT COMMAND
0:32:35 > 0:32:38CYCLE REPEATS
0:32:57 > 0:32:59Moore, of course, doesn't work up in the mountains,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02but he never fails to get there every year,
0:33:02 > 0:33:04to Altissimo, the highest peak,
0:33:04 > 0:33:08and to talk to people who go with him about Michelangelo.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12MOORE: 'Perhaps I've got a tremendous admiration
0:33:12 > 0:33:14'and obsession almost with Michelangelo.'
0:33:15 > 0:33:19'And to be up in the very same mountain
0:33:19 > 0:33:22'and to have pointed out to me
0:33:22 > 0:33:25'the cave where Michelangelo quarried some of the stone
0:33:25 > 0:33:29'and to realise what difficulties he must have had,
0:33:29 > 0:33:34'what superhuman problems he had to cope with.
0:33:34 > 0:33:41'That, plus the unbelievable romantic impression,
0:33:41 > 0:33:44'the spectacular scenery...
0:33:44 > 0:33:47'He is rather like a runner who could run a four-minute mile,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50'but Michelangelo could run a three-minute mile.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55'This sort of admiration that one has, as I look at the Altissimo,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57'all this comes back,
0:33:57 > 0:34:02'and so it's all mixed up with one's feeling for Michelangelo.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05'He'd have a stronger feeling about the marble than we have
0:34:05 > 0:34:09'because he had to quarry it himself,
0:34:09 > 0:34:13'but I have the advantage, as we all have now,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16'of choosing the stone after it's been quarried for us.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20'We don't have to do all that terrific work.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23'I mean, some of us may grumble, some of us may...
0:34:23 > 0:34:27'think that we have difficult problems,
0:34:27 > 0:34:30'but our problems are nothing compared with what...'
0:34:31 > 0:34:34'..a person like Michelangelo and the problems he had.'
0:34:34 > 0:34:36I think somehow in Italy,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Moore found that the association with Carrara
0:34:39 > 0:34:42was in some way fulfilling his destiny.
0:34:42 > 0:34:44This feeling that he had for Michelangelo
0:34:44 > 0:34:47was really quite deep and profound within him.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50And, of course, it was quite widely shared there in Italy.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52He used to go to a little beach hut.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55He didn't go to any of the grand hotels or to the beach clubs
0:34:55 > 0:34:57or any of the fashionable places,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59but each year to exactly the same place, a little row of huts.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02And the old lady who was in charge of these huts
0:35:02 > 0:35:04got to know him very well.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08I borrowed his hut for a day on the beach and when we went down
0:35:08 > 0:35:12and introduced myself, she said, "Ah, Henry Moore," she said.
0:35:12 > 0:35:14And then the most eloquent gesture,
0:35:14 > 0:35:16she pressed her knuckles onto her forehead -
0:35:16 > 0:35:18"Henry Moore, Michelangelo".
0:35:21 > 0:35:23'He was very fond of games, very great sense of fun.'
0:35:24 > 0:35:27'Sometimes this came out in the things that he did
0:35:27 > 0:35:29'whilst you were talking quite seriously.'
0:35:29 > 0:35:33In fact, Henry Moore never switched off the sculptural part of his mind.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35As you were sitting there with him,
0:35:35 > 0:35:39he was quite literally sizing you up, weighing you up.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42I can think of several instances of a sort of instinct
0:35:42 > 0:35:43that was always there.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46Talking with him about sculpture and his interlocking pieces,
0:35:46 > 0:35:50he simply illustrated the idea by taking some potato crisps
0:35:50 > 0:35:52out of the basin on the bar
0:35:52 > 0:35:55and fixing them together in different ways to make his point.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57Another time, after we had been filming,
0:35:57 > 0:35:59we were sitting having dinner in the hotel
0:35:59 > 0:36:02and enjoying the meal and enjoying the chianti,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05and he suddenly looked at me and said,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08"I bet I can tell you the circumference of your head."
0:36:08 > 0:36:10Well, I haven't the foggiest idea.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13But he guessed and he measured it with a tape measure
0:36:13 > 0:36:15cos he always carried a tape measure in his pocket.
0:36:15 > 0:36:17You would never find Henry Moore anywhere in the world
0:36:17 > 0:36:19without this little tape measure.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22And he measured my head and he got it right within quarter of an inch.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24He then went round everybody else in the film unit -
0:36:24 > 0:36:27the production assistant, the camera and the camera assistant,
0:36:27 > 0:36:29the sound recordist - measured all their heads,
0:36:29 > 0:36:31got every one of them absolutely dead right.
0:36:31 > 0:36:33And we were very impressed with this
0:36:33 > 0:36:34so we went into the hotel lounge for coffee.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39It was a very respectable hotel, and we sat down on the chintz sofa
0:36:39 > 0:36:42and we said, "Well, come on, Henry, how high is the coffee table?"
0:36:42 > 0:36:45He took out his tape measure - "23 inches."
0:36:45 > 0:36:47It was, he had won again.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50"How high is the lamp standard? What about the sideboard?"
0:36:50 > 0:36:53And here was this amazing scene and England's greatest sculptor
0:36:53 > 0:36:55on his hands and knees with a tape measure, measuring up
0:36:55 > 0:36:59all the furniture to the rather tipsy applause of the film crew.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04In 1972, now in his 74th year,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07the mayor of Florence invited Moore to arrange an exhibition
0:37:07 > 0:37:10in the grounds of the Belvedere fortress that overlooked the city.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13It was to be the most spectacular and comprehensive exhibition
0:37:13 > 0:37:14of his lifetime.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18It was in a wonderful open-air setting,
0:37:18 > 0:37:19in the brilliant Italian sunshine
0:37:19 > 0:37:21and surrounded by some of the greatest art of the Renaissance.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25At the time, Moore saw the opportunity as a challenge
0:37:25 > 0:37:28to show that his own work could stand in comparison
0:37:28 > 0:37:31with the best of the Renaissance, with Masaccio and Michelangelo.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33He had, after all, been to Florence as a student,
0:37:33 > 0:37:37many, many years before to study just those very works.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39Looking back on that exhibition now,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42it seems to me that it was a triumph of vindication.
0:37:42 > 0:37:44Not only of the authority of Henry Moore's work,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47but also of the whole modern movement.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52In four months, nearly 400,000 people came from all over the world
0:37:52 > 0:37:54to see the exhibition.
0:37:54 > 0:37:57Nothing could have been less like the inhibiting atmosphere
0:37:57 > 0:37:59of a museum or gallery.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04The placing of modern sculpture in a setting of Renaissance beauty
0:38:04 > 0:38:07was a provocative act of faith.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10The mood of the visitors was easy and relaxed,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14for in Florence art is taken for granted as a natural part of life.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22The citizens of Florence took the exhibition to their hearts
0:38:22 > 0:38:27and proudly put its exhibits to uses the artist had not foreseen.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29Sculptures were photographed
0:38:29 > 0:38:33as if they were film stars, religious relics or fashion models.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47At times, the terraces of the Belvedere
0:38:47 > 0:38:50had the atmosphere of a fairground or festival.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54It was a public pleasure ground, filled with movement and people
0:38:54 > 0:38:57and prospects of sculpture that continually changed
0:38:57 > 0:39:00with the time of day or the vagaries of the weather.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03THUNDER RUMBLES
0:39:08 > 0:39:11In the Renaissance, Michelangelo had nothing worse to face
0:39:11 > 0:39:14than the patient and deferential Vasari,
0:39:14 > 0:39:17the first biographer of the great artists of his time.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22Moore turned out in the rain to face television cameras
0:39:22 > 0:39:25and journalists with deadlines to meet and planes to catch.
0:39:31 > 0:39:33The great cathedral dome by Brunelleschi,
0:39:33 > 0:39:35the famous tower designed by Giotto,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38the museums and churches filled with works
0:39:38 > 0:39:41by Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Masaccio and Michelangelo
0:39:41 > 0:39:43all slipped by,
0:39:43 > 0:39:46an out-of-focus backdrop to a modern artist in the news.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56The big sculptures in the open air, each one sited by Moore himself,
0:39:56 > 0:39:59were what made this exhibition unique.
0:39:59 > 0:40:00One would have had to travel the world
0:40:00 > 0:40:03to see so much at any other time.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19This two-piece reclining figure is Moore's half-scale model
0:40:19 > 0:40:22for a work which stands in the Lincoln Center, New York.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28Oval with Points is one of his latest pieces.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31One edition of this is at Princeton University, America.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34This reclining figure, made in the 1950s,
0:40:34 > 0:40:37is the model for the much larger UNESCO figure,
0:40:37 > 0:40:40which stands in Paris, carved from Roman travertine marble.
0:40:46 > 0:40:50Crucifixion Form, bronze, 1955.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53The best-known version of this stands on the top of a mountain in Scotland.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07Reclining Figure: Arch Leg. One copy in California, another in Jerusalem.
0:41:12 > 0:41:17Torso, 1967. There are nine casting of this.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19There is such a demand for Moore's work
0:41:19 > 0:41:22that editions of six or seven are quite usual.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29King and Queen, 1952.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31There are editions of this
0:41:31 > 0:41:33in Scotland, London, Germany and New York.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Square Form with Cut, 1970,
0:41:37 > 0:41:40solid marble from Carrara.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52JOHN READ: Of course, at the time nobody believed for a minute
0:41:52 > 0:41:54that that retrospective exhibition in Florence was going to be
0:41:54 > 0:41:56the last Henry Moore retrospective.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59In fact, his exhibitions continued year after year
0:41:59 > 0:42:01in almost every country in the world.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04But sculpture is a tough, hard trade,
0:42:04 > 0:42:08and gradually, as he got older, Moore turned more and more to drawing.
0:42:08 > 0:42:09Now, drawing he used to do
0:42:09 > 0:42:12simply to find out what he wanted to do in sculpture.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14It was a means to an end or a way of training his eye.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16But now he was doing drawing for its own sake.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20HENRY MOORE: I've always been fascinated by sheep.
0:42:20 > 0:42:24I think there's something about sheep which no other animal,
0:42:24 > 0:42:28er, for me, has quite that ancient...
0:42:28 > 0:42:32biblical, er, quality.
0:42:32 > 0:42:34And I began drawing the sheep,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37just merely because I couldn't do my sculpture,
0:42:37 > 0:42:42not because I intend doing, um...a sculpture sheep
0:42:42 > 0:42:44but merely because I enjoy drawing...
0:42:45 > 0:42:48..and I enjoy sheep,
0:42:48 > 0:42:53so that, for two or three weeks, while the packing was going on,
0:42:53 > 0:42:58I came down here each day and drew the sheep.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02And one of the things that I found one could do
0:43:02 > 0:43:07was that, if they came near the window, by tapping on the window,
0:43:07 > 0:43:08the sheep couldn't see inside,
0:43:08 > 0:43:11because it's darker in here than it is in the field,
0:43:11 > 0:43:13but they were curious. They could hear.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16And they'd stand, even for five minutes,
0:43:16 > 0:43:21just looking in this way, just looking through,
0:43:21 > 0:43:25trying to find out where the noise came from,
0:43:25 > 0:43:28and they'd stay like that for nearly five minutes,
0:43:28 > 0:43:29giving me the chance to draw them.
0:43:32 > 0:43:33Same, er...
0:43:37 > 0:43:38So...
0:43:39 > 0:43:41But gradually,
0:43:41 > 0:43:45I got to understand the shape of the sheep better through drawing them.
0:43:45 > 0:43:50To begin with, they were just round, fluffy lumps,
0:43:50 > 0:43:53balls of wool, it seemed.
0:43:53 > 0:43:57But underneath that, one discovered that of course there is the, um...
0:43:59 > 0:44:02..the skeleton and the form of the sheep.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04And gradually, I went on drawing them,
0:44:04 > 0:44:07I understood the shape of the sheep.
0:44:08 > 0:44:13Now I find that I can draw for its own sake,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16and not as I used to,
0:44:16 > 0:44:21with an ultimate motive in the drawing of using it for sculpture.
0:44:21 > 0:44:26Now I can draw and just enjoy the drawing,
0:44:26 > 0:44:30just enjoy drawing from life, drawing from nature.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35But I shall finish this, probably, as a kind of life cycle of sheep,
0:44:35 > 0:44:39because after this period, which I missed by being in Italy,
0:44:39 > 0:44:41there's a period when the sheep are shorn,
0:44:41 > 0:44:44and then they become entirely different creatures.
0:44:44 > 0:44:49I saw it happen, but I wasn't able to spend the time drawing.
0:44:49 > 0:44:55You must be able to guess the right, er, proportions, otherwise you won't.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58I mean, your eye has to be a correct eye.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01You must know whether a thing is too black or too light,
0:45:01 > 0:45:05but it isn't the black and the lightness, and it isn't the...
0:45:05 > 0:45:08You've got to think of it as form, you've got to use perspective.
0:45:08 > 0:45:10A thing that comes nearer to you
0:45:10 > 0:45:12is bigger than a thing that's further away.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17And often, with students drawing a figure, like me drawing you,
0:45:17 > 0:45:22they'll make, instead of making your foot and knee bigger in proportion,
0:45:22 > 0:45:27the same kind of length to it that it would be if you were standing up
0:45:27 > 0:45:30and all in the same plane.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34All those kind of things are things that one learns
0:45:34 > 0:45:37only by a lot of thinking.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40I mean, again, people think that artists
0:45:40 > 0:45:44are people that work for pleasure, by instinct,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47and without ever using their minds.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52There's a bigger intellectual effort in learning to draw properly,
0:45:52 > 0:45:55which Leonardo showed it and Michelangelo showed it.
0:45:55 > 0:45:56Those had great intellects.
0:45:56 > 0:46:02It isn't a God-given gift to everybody, that they can just draw.
0:46:03 > 0:46:05Lately, I've been drawing trees,
0:46:05 > 0:46:11because the trunks of trees are remarkably like human figures.
0:46:13 > 0:46:14I do a close-up.
0:46:14 > 0:46:20This, to me, is like a knuckle or a knee or a breast,
0:46:20 > 0:46:26but there is the solidity and the body, the meat in it.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29And here I was just drawing the trunk and the kind of mother and child,
0:46:29 > 0:46:34or the big and the small, the big trunk and then the ivy growing up it.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37I think if I were an educationalist,
0:46:37 > 0:46:39I'd suggest that drawing should be made
0:46:39 > 0:46:43much more necessary or regular in schools,
0:46:43 > 0:46:46not because you're trying to make
0:46:46 > 0:46:49a nation of painters or sculptors or artists
0:46:49 > 0:46:52but only because you teach grammar and literature
0:46:52 > 0:46:55not because you're trying to make another lot of Shakespeares
0:46:55 > 0:46:57but to make them understand and use language.
0:46:57 > 0:46:59Well, in the same way,
0:46:59 > 0:47:04I think drawing is a tremendous eye-opener to people,
0:47:04 > 0:47:06and it would make their lives much richer.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12Moore, I think, somewhere talked about art as being
0:47:12 > 0:47:15a stimulation to greater effort in living,
0:47:15 > 0:47:17"effort" rather than "enjoyment".
0:47:17 > 0:47:19But then, for him, you see, work WAS enjoyment.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23I once asked him what he felt
0:47:23 > 0:47:27about the general attitude to culture in a modern age....
0:47:28 > 0:47:31..because there are times, in fact, when one wonders, really,
0:47:31 > 0:47:34whether there are not more important things than the arts.
0:47:34 > 0:47:36And he admitted with me that, in fact,
0:47:36 > 0:47:39for many people the arts were not the most important thing in life,
0:47:39 > 0:47:41not, certainly, as important to them
0:47:41 > 0:47:43as they would be to him, to a practising artist.
0:47:43 > 0:47:48But, he said, can you name a single civilisation in the past
0:47:48 > 0:47:51which we don't know about through its arts and its crafts
0:47:51 > 0:47:54rather than its laws or any other aspects, its politics?
0:47:54 > 0:47:57It's the arts and the crafts by which we judge them.
0:47:57 > 0:48:01And he said, every time in history when a civilisation goes down,
0:48:01 > 0:48:03the arts decay first.
0:48:03 > 0:48:08Art, he said, is really like in a chemical formula,
0:48:08 > 0:48:10the thing that they call a catalytic agent.
0:48:10 > 0:48:15It's a tiny, tiny, small element within the whole,
0:48:15 > 0:48:17and yet without it nothing happens.
0:48:17 > 0:48:22Art, to him, is the catalyst of society and of civilisation.
0:48:23 > 0:48:27When he could work no more with the solid forms of sculpture,
0:48:27 > 0:48:29his mind turned to imaginary visions,
0:48:29 > 0:48:32mysterious images where forms emerge from darkness.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34In fluid and airy drawings
0:48:34 > 0:48:38there were vague suggestions of shapes and hills, spires,
0:48:38 > 0:48:41and one felt the mists might clear
0:48:41 > 0:48:43and a new world of form might be revealed.
0:48:50 > 0:48:52Now, around the fields and woods of the countryside,
0:48:52 > 0:48:54where he has worked for so many years,
0:48:54 > 0:48:55his sculptures give me
0:48:55 > 0:48:59a tremendous physical feeling of reassurance and of wellbeing.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02It not only comes from the protective maternal forms
0:49:02 > 0:49:05that he's exploited all his life. One might expect that.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10But also from works which give off immense energies and powers.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13They are symbols of endurance and tenacity.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15In the fields around his home,
0:49:15 > 0:49:18he's placed images as monumental as Stonehenge
0:49:18 > 0:49:20and infinitely more humane.