0:00:02 > 0:00:03MUSIC: La Marseillaise
0:00:03 > 0:00:06Liberty, equality, fraternity -
0:00:06 > 0:00:08Vive la Republique!
0:00:08 > 0:00:12If ever there was a moment when history was brought to a stop
0:00:12 > 0:00:17and civilisation was reborn in a new and different shape, this was it.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21France was about to embark on the most dangerous
0:00:21 > 0:00:25and the biggest adventure in its history.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32As Charles Dickens put it, "It was the best of times,
0:00:32 > 0:00:34"it was the worst of times...
0:00:34 > 0:00:37"it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."
0:00:39 > 0:00:42The French Revolution put an end to the monarchy.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46The nobility was forced to flee the country or face death.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49The authority of the church was overthrown.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53But with the people's new sense of liberty and freedom
0:00:53 > 0:00:55came the rule of the mob
0:00:55 > 0:00:58and many innocent people went to their deaths.
0:01:03 > 0:01:04Yet a new leader emerged
0:01:04 > 0:01:08who had become the most powerful man in the world,
0:01:08 > 0:01:11the romantic hero of the age -
0:01:11 > 0:01:13Napoleon Bonaparte.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17The French Revolution would liberate France from the past
0:01:17 > 0:01:19and ignite a century of change.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25Art would be at the very epicentre of the revolution.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29Art would be on the streets, on the barricades,
0:01:29 > 0:01:34artists would record events but they would also incite events.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36Romantics and revolutionaries
0:01:36 > 0:01:41would take art to places it had never been before.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44They had set out to transform the hearts,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47the minds and the souls of the people,
0:01:47 > 0:01:51preparing mankind for a new age.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23This story begins on the eve of revolution.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27The lull before the storm.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34Paris in the 1780s...
0:02:35 > 0:02:38..a city of fine architecture and great art,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40unrivalled in Europe.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44A city of enlightenment and sophistication,
0:02:44 > 0:02:46apparently at ease with itself.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53But storm clouds were gathering.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56The country had been running out of money for decades.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00The extravagance of Louis XIV at Versailles and wars overseas
0:03:00 > 0:03:03had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy.
0:03:04 > 0:03:08The new king, Louis XVI, knew there was trouble ahead,
0:03:08 > 0:03:12but still clung to the vestiges of absolute power.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19A young and up-and-coming artist, Jacques-Louis David,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22destined to be the chronicler of his age,
0:03:22 > 0:03:25was working on two enormous paintings.
0:03:26 > 0:03:28Both had been commissioned by the king
0:03:28 > 0:03:30to preach a message to his people.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35"Know your duty and do your duty,
0:03:35 > 0:03:36"whatever the cost."
0:03:39 > 0:03:44The subject is a story from the ancient Roman past.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Three brothers
0:03:48 > 0:03:53are making their vow of loyalty to Rome...
0:03:54 > 0:03:58..as they prepare to take three swords from their father.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03They will do battle with three of their enemies from Alba
0:04:03 > 0:04:05and the result will determine the war.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11But there is a human cost involved in this oath of violence
0:04:11 > 0:04:13against the enemy.
0:04:13 > 0:04:18And that human cost is depicted by David in this part of the painting,
0:04:18 > 0:04:22embodied in particular by this figure in white,
0:04:22 > 0:04:26swooning in grief and anticipation.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30She is the sister of those three brothers.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32And here's the twist,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35she is betrothed to one of the three men
0:04:35 > 0:04:39that they must and do, in the story, kill.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43So by enacting the vow and saving Rome,
0:04:43 > 0:04:48they make of their sister a premature widow.
0:04:48 > 0:04:49That's the nature of the choice.
0:04:51 > 0:04:57And the same opposition between honour and family,
0:04:57 > 0:05:01duty to country and duty to self
0:05:01 > 0:05:05is depicted in this even more troubling painting.
0:05:15 > 0:05:21Brutus has learned that his sons were plotting to overthrow Rome.
0:05:21 > 0:05:25He has betrayed them and they have been killed.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29This is the moment when their dead bodies are brought to him,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32feet first,
0:05:32 > 0:05:36by these men of granite, the lictors,
0:05:36 > 0:05:38with their eyes of stone.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Look at the figure of Brutus.
0:05:42 > 0:05:48He sits in shadow. His eyes are full of remorse, anguish,
0:05:48 > 0:05:53his hand is knotted around the document
0:05:53 > 0:05:56that revealed to him their treason
0:05:56 > 0:05:59and his feet are twisted over one another.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02He is in agony but he has done his duty.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05That's what these pictures are about.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09Doing your duty, supporting the state, no matter what.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11These pictures found favour.
0:06:11 > 0:06:15This painting was commissioned by Louis XVI.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21And yet, while these paintings are not in any way revolutionary,
0:06:21 > 0:06:26I think they do show David's profound unease,
0:06:26 > 0:06:30his conflicted nature, as a person.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34He has actually found it very difficult to deliver the message
0:06:34 > 0:06:36he was supposed to deliver,
0:06:36 > 0:06:40because he places so much emphasis
0:06:40 > 0:06:46on the cost of this sacrifice of self to state.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52But if you look at the painting with a heart,
0:06:52 > 0:06:55it's hard for you to feel that it was really worth it.
0:06:55 > 0:07:01And at the very centre of the painting, its focal point,
0:07:01 > 0:07:06an emblem of the home that's been ripped apart,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10ripped apart...
0:07:10 > 0:07:12it's a basket full of sewing.
0:07:19 > 0:07:22David's pictures were so full of doubt,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24it's as if they were inviting the French people to imagine
0:07:24 > 0:07:27different endings to the stories.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31What if Brutus's sons were to live?
0:07:31 > 0:07:33And break the power of the state?
0:07:33 > 0:07:38What if swords were taken up to kill a ruler, not save him?
0:07:40 > 0:07:44In the real world, in the Paris of 1789, not the Rome of old,
0:07:44 > 0:07:46that's exactly what would happen.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49David's pictures turned out to be a premonition.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Within weeks of Brutus going on show,
0:07:56 > 0:07:58the storming of the Bastille,
0:07:58 > 0:08:00hated symbol of Royal power,
0:08:00 > 0:08:03signalled the end of absolute monarchy.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06The end of aristocratic power,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09the end of the Catholic Church in France.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13It was the 14th of July, 1789 -
0:08:13 > 0:08:17the people suddenly were free to invent a better world.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20This was the dawn of a new age.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27The first meeting of the new revolutionary government
0:08:27 > 0:08:30took place on a royal tennis court.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33And Jacques-Louis David, who had been, at best,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36a reluctant propagandist for the King, captured the moment.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40Having joined the revolution at the first clarion call,
0:08:40 > 0:08:41he became its painter.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46And in this excitable sketch for a never-completed canvas,
0:08:46 > 0:08:51he shows Mirabeau, early leader of the insurgency,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53at the epicentre of a human earthquake.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57This time it's not just three men making an oath,
0:08:57 > 0:09:02but a thousand and this time, they're all vowing not to protect,
0:09:02 > 0:09:05but to overthrow the status quo.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09Above them, the winds of change blowing so hard,
0:09:09 > 0:09:12they make the whole ancien regime seem as fragile
0:09:12 > 0:09:15as an umbrella turned inside out by a gale.
0:09:19 > 0:09:24The first months were mayhem, but calculated mayhem.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27Across the Republic, the old royal flag with its fleur-de-lis
0:09:27 > 0:09:31was burned and a new flag raised in its place.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33The tricoleur, red, white and blue.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39There would be a new revolutionary calendar and a new architecture,
0:09:39 > 0:09:43devoted to the ideals of reason and justice.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58There is only one building in modern Paris
0:09:58 > 0:10:01where you can still breathe the fresh, clean air
0:10:01 > 0:10:04of the French Revolution in its first and most idealistic phase
0:10:04 > 0:10:09and this is it. The Pantheon. Le Pantheon.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11It wasn't actually built
0:10:11 > 0:10:14during the revolution, but shortly before,
0:10:14 > 0:10:18and the revolutionaries had this brilliant idea of taking it over
0:10:18 > 0:10:21and turning it from a church,
0:10:21 > 0:10:26which it had been meant to be, into a new kind of building,
0:10:26 > 0:10:28a secular space intended to celebrate
0:10:28 > 0:10:31not God, not the kings of France,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35not the saints, but the free ideas of free men.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39So they stripped the whole place of religious images, religious symbols,
0:10:39 > 0:10:41symbols of the monarchy.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44They blocked in all of the lower windows
0:10:44 > 0:10:47to create this sepulchral gloom,
0:10:47 > 0:10:50and they turned it into a temple
0:10:50 > 0:10:54to a new phase in the human spirit.
0:11:07 > 0:11:09To the crypt of the Pantheon,
0:11:09 > 0:11:11the bodies of those who died for the cause,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15heroes of revolution, were brought for a solemn burial.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21And alongside those martyrs were placed the prophets.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24The remains of men such as Voltaire, atheist,
0:11:24 > 0:11:26playwright and philosopher of the Enlightenment,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31revered by the revolutionaries, were dug up and reinterred here.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34Opposite Voltaire,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38the freethinker and political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
0:11:38 > 0:11:42brought to his last resting place in a carved wooden box
0:11:42 > 0:11:44as homely as a travelling gypsy caravan.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49This is one of my very favourite objects
0:11:49 > 0:11:53to have survived from the French Revolution.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57I see it as a masterpiece of revolutionary folk art,
0:11:57 > 0:12:02if you will. It's got this beautiful hand carrying the torch of truth
0:12:02 > 0:12:07and passing it on, even from the grave, to future generations.
0:12:07 > 0:12:08If you come round here...
0:12:10 > 0:12:13..you can see even more of...
0:12:14 > 0:12:17..the homely splendour of this wonderful thing -
0:12:17 > 0:12:21his tomb is being blessed by the seasons.
0:12:21 > 0:12:27They are bringing the bounty of nature and laying it on his grave.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30Over here, we've got a woman symbolising, I think,
0:12:30 > 0:12:31the muse of motherhood.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35Rousseau had written time and again about the nobility,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39the holiness of the child and I think this was something that really
0:12:39 > 0:12:41struck a chord with the revolutionaries
0:12:41 > 0:12:45because everyone in the revolution was a kind of child,
0:12:45 > 0:12:47living in a brave new dawn.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51These beautiful mourning human faces.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55It's such a wonderful thing and most eloquent of all,
0:12:55 > 0:12:57look at this little detail here.
0:12:57 > 0:13:03The handles that were used to carry this thing, into the Pantheon.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07It is very important to realise that things like this were originally
0:13:07 > 0:13:10carnival floats as well as tombs,
0:13:10 > 0:13:12they were part of huge, elaborate,
0:13:12 > 0:13:16public celebrations of the values of the revolution.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25David, the great pageant master of revolution,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27understood the French people well.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31With the abolition of the church, they had lost their saints,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34they had lost their heaven.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36The processions that he orchestrated
0:13:36 > 0:13:39gave them new saints and a new holy place,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42the Pantheon, to which they might make pilgrimage.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51But while revolution is inspiring, it is also unstable,
0:13:51 > 0:13:55and the French Revolution quickly splintered into factions.
0:13:55 > 0:13:57David was on the extremist wing
0:13:57 > 0:14:00and now he voted for taking revolution
0:14:00 > 0:14:04to the point of no return, the execution of the King.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13On the 21st of January, 1793,
0:14:13 > 0:14:18Louis XVI was executed by guillotine in the Place De La Revolution.
0:14:22 > 0:14:24The blood that dripped from Louis' head
0:14:24 > 0:14:26onto the faces of a frenzied crowd
0:14:26 > 0:14:28would soon turn into a river.
0:14:28 > 0:14:30This was the time known as the Terror,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33when the guillotine was busy every day.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37Hundreds of people, many of whom had supported the revolution
0:14:37 > 0:14:39in its early days, went to their deaths,
0:14:39 > 0:14:41often on the flimsiest of evidence.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51The French Revolution was the first triumphant people's revolt
0:14:51 > 0:14:54in the history of the western world.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59And it established the first great rule of every revolution to come.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02All revolutions eat their children.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15At the Musee Grevin, Paris's answer to Madame Tussauds,
0:15:15 > 0:15:17they still remember one event
0:15:17 > 0:15:21that marked the moment when the dream finally turned sour -
0:15:22 > 0:15:26the killing of one revolutionary by another.
0:15:26 > 0:15:28All the more shocking because the killer was a woman.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33Charlotte Corday's victim, Jean-Paul Marat,
0:15:33 > 0:15:36was a vengeful extremist who had incited mass murder
0:15:36 > 0:15:38on the streets of Paris.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50David has taken...
0:15:50 > 0:15:54this scene, a tawdry assassination
0:15:54 > 0:15:57of an unpleasant man
0:15:57 > 0:16:01and turned it into an image for all history.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07A bloodthirsty man sitting in his bath in his apartment
0:16:07 > 0:16:12is murdered by a young woman who can't bear the tyranny
0:16:12 > 0:16:14that he's perpetuating.
0:16:17 > 0:16:21Marat, let's face it, was a nasty piece of work,
0:16:21 > 0:16:25a tyrant who took pleasure in signing death warrants by the score.
0:16:25 > 0:16:30He loved the blood of the Terror. He was the voice of the Terror.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33Physically, too, he was repulsive.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37He suffered from what contemporaries called une lepre,
0:16:37 > 0:16:42a form of leprosy which meant he had to immerse himself in his bath
0:16:42 > 0:16:45pretty much the whole day long.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49His head he wrapped in a turban soaked in vinegar.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54David takes the details, he takes this scene,
0:16:54 > 0:17:00and he's turned Marat himself into a new Jesus Christ.
0:17:02 > 0:17:07Look at that right arm dangling so heavily from the side of the bath,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11holding the quill pen which it's about to release.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16That right arm is borrowed directly
0:17:16 > 0:17:22from perhaps the most famous image of Christ in the Renaissance world.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26Michelangelo's Pieta in the Vatican in Rome.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31The wound Charlotte Corday inflicted on Marat, that, too,
0:17:31 > 0:17:36has given David an opportunity to apotheosise Marat
0:17:36 > 0:17:40as another Christ, because here it evokes, of course,
0:17:40 > 0:17:42the image in Christ's side,
0:17:42 > 0:17:46pierced by the soldier, with his spear.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50And there's one last detail borrowed, I think,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53from Caravaggio's Martyrdom of St Matthew,
0:17:53 > 0:17:55in which the saint bleeds to death
0:17:55 > 0:17:57into a baptismal pool,
0:17:57 > 0:18:00but the notion behind it all is the same.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03Here's a martyr, a saint.
0:18:03 > 0:18:08He is going to the revolutionary equivalent of heaven.
0:18:12 > 0:18:13But the killing went on.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18On the 16th of October, 1793,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22David outlined the grimmest royal portrait in history,
0:18:22 > 0:18:28as the Queen, Marie Antoinette, haggard, dishevelled as a tramp,
0:18:28 > 0:18:31passed by his window on her way to the guillotine.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35France was beginning to feel like hell on earth.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47For 13 months, the Terror raged.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50More innocent people went to their deaths.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54The Place de la Revolution was now so soaked in human blood,
0:18:54 > 0:18:58stray dogs came from far and wide to lap it up.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03There were rumours of abused bodies and cannibalism.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09During this terrible time, David painted portraits
0:19:09 > 0:19:11as well as propaganda,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14and these apparently innocent paintings
0:19:14 > 0:19:17are perhaps his most chilling of all.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20This is his friend Madame Trudaine,
0:19:20 > 0:19:23dressed in plain clothes and wearing no jewellery,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27shown in a bare room so that no-one might suspect her
0:19:27 > 0:19:29of wealth or nobility.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32But what fear there is in her eyes,
0:19:32 > 0:19:34and behind the fear an unspoken question -
0:19:34 > 0:19:36will it never end, this terror?
0:19:39 > 0:19:42And it did. And among the first victims of its end
0:19:42 > 0:19:46was the painter himself, Jacques-Louis David,
0:19:46 > 0:19:47thrown into prison.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51He painted this self-portrait, his life hanging in the balance.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54He'd be reprieved, but only just,
0:19:54 > 0:19:56and he'd never be quite the same man again.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06As David fell, so, too, the hardliners fell from power.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10And a new age of change was to dawn in France.
0:20:16 > 0:20:21Seldom has history timed the arrival of one man to such effect.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25A man who would harness the fury of the mob to take France
0:20:25 > 0:20:27on a great imperial adventure.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36The Musee de l'Armee in Paris is a latter-day shrine
0:20:36 > 0:20:38to Napoleon Bonaparte,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42whose monstrous ego and genius would intoxicate a nation.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47He also established the second great rule of revolution -
0:20:47 > 0:20:50turn its energies outwards, find enemies elsewhere to fight.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58'Museum conservator Gregory Spourdos has the delicate task
0:20:58 > 0:21:00'of looking after the great man's relics.'
0:21:01 > 0:21:02After you.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13That's the most famous silhouette in the world, I think.
0:21:16 > 0:21:18You're touching Napoleon's hat!
0:21:51 > 0:21:52Wow. I can feel the power.
0:21:52 > 0:21:56I can feel the power surging through my veins.
0:21:56 > 0:21:57It's an incredible thing.
0:22:16 > 0:22:17Wow.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22Oh, wow. That's amazing.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30What's the... the clock?
0:22:44 > 0:22:45Ah, OK.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53We must synchronise our watches.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56On doit synchroniser ses montres. Oui, tout a fait. Tout a fait.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59That's Napoleon... That's quite a watch.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05'Napoleon certainly didn't waste time.'
0:23:06 > 0:23:10By 1797, just three years after the end of the Terror,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12his armies had conquered more territory
0:23:12 > 0:23:14than all the armies of Louis XIV.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19And wherever he went, he took possession of art
0:23:19 > 0:23:23and objects of antiquity in vast quantities.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Venice lost its most prized possessions -
0:23:26 > 0:23:28the bronze horses of San Marco.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32They were brought back to Paris
0:23:32 > 0:23:36and paraded in a show of booty that lasted two days.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40This was Napoleon's answer to the pageantry of revolution.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42But these weren't processions to honour the dead
0:23:42 > 0:23:47like Rousseau or Voltaire. These were the triumphs of a new Caesar,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51bringing the riches of the world to his new Imperium.
0:23:53 > 0:23:57To Napoleon, these weren't merely acts of pillage.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02He justified his Project Art Theft as the liberation of art,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05freeing it from the tyranny of the past
0:24:05 > 0:24:07and the obfuscation of religion.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12And he brought everything back to the Louvre,
0:24:12 > 0:24:17which characteristically he renamed the Musee Napoleon.
0:24:17 > 0:24:21And, of course, the prize exhibit was to be himself.
0:24:28 > 0:24:33David painted this heroic, monumental portrait of Napoleon
0:24:33 > 0:24:36in 1801, to commemorate one of his most heroic feats,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39crossing the Alps with his army,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43just as Hannibal had done in the days of ancient Rome.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49He sits astride this fiery, spirited steed,
0:24:49 > 0:24:51urging his army onwards,
0:24:51 > 0:24:54his cape fluttering in the sky.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57It's a glacial Alpine landscape.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00There are some wonderful details down below.
0:25:00 > 0:25:05You can see between the fluttering strands of the horse's tail,
0:25:05 > 0:25:07this little blurred face.
0:25:07 > 0:25:09Here, a soldier,
0:25:09 > 0:25:14pushing a vast piece of artillery up the mountain and on they go.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19But the focus is right in the middle, Napoleon.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25And he's been rendered almost as if he were a monumental equestrian
0:25:25 > 0:25:28statue, frozen for ever.
0:25:29 > 0:25:34The horse symbolises the unruly energies of the people.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37And the ruler who holds the reins of the horse,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41who controls the horse even as the horse rears up,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44is almighty, powerful.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48He is totally in control of his nation.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59How do you understand a man like Napoleon?
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Perhaps the best way is through his obsessions.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05And here, in the library of the Sorbonne,
0:26:05 > 0:26:07they still keep a monument to Napoleon's
0:26:07 > 0:26:08greatest obsession of all.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13He was fascinated by ancient Egypt.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16The power and the mystery of the Pharaohs, builders of the pyramids.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Not only did he invade Egypt,
0:26:22 > 0:26:26he took with him a second army of artists and archaeologists
0:26:26 > 0:26:28to record its every temple.
0:26:28 > 0:26:31It's as if he wanted to capture the magic and power
0:26:31 > 0:26:33of the Pharaohs and make it his own.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39Their work would result in an academic publication
0:26:39 > 0:26:42that's had a profound influence on the Western world.
0:26:49 > 0:26:50Wow.
0:26:50 > 0:26:52That's fantastic.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54So, this is the frontispiece.
0:26:54 > 0:26:55This is volume one.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59This is where everything begins.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03C'est formidable. And I understand...
0:27:25 > 0:27:27Oui, oui, oui.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37It's fantastic. I wasn't expecting it in colour.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40It's amazingly thorough. Comment ca se dit en francais?
0:27:57 > 0:27:59Look, there's a chap here coming.
0:27:59 > 0:28:00A French artist.
0:28:00 > 0:28:03He's going in to make his drawings.
0:28:03 > 0:28:05But in the distance there is a French soldier.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08You've got the two sides of the Egyptian campaign, here.
0:28:08 > 0:28:10You've got a soldier, French soldier, in the distance,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12keeping an eye on things.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14And here in the foreground you've got the artist
0:28:14 > 0:28:18trudging towards the ruins, that he's going to spend all day drawing.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20So that they can be reproduced here.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01It was all very well accumulating the great works of past empires,
0:29:01 > 0:29:04but who was going to create lasting monuments
0:29:04 > 0:29:06to Napoleon and his empire?
0:29:07 > 0:29:10He asked David to travel with him to Egypt...
0:29:11 > 0:29:15..but David said he was too old for adventures
0:29:15 > 0:29:18and recommended his young pupil, Antoine Gros.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23Gros had already proved himself a few years earlier,
0:29:23 > 0:29:26depicting Napoleon as a dashing young soldier
0:29:26 > 0:29:28during the wars in Italy.
0:29:28 > 0:29:33So Napoleon asked Gros to come on the Egyptian campaign,
0:29:33 > 0:29:34and the resulting picture
0:29:34 > 0:29:36still hangs in the Louvre today.
0:29:45 > 0:29:48Napoleon's instructions to his painter were very clear -
0:29:48 > 0:29:50create propaganda for me.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Glorify me.
0:29:52 > 0:29:57Make the French people feel the triumph of my campaigns.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02Whether Antoine Gros succeeded in the case of this painting,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05I leave it to you to judge.
0:30:08 > 0:30:14Napoleon's at the centre and he's been given, by his painter,
0:30:14 > 0:30:17the old powers once ascribed to the King.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20He has the King's touch,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24the ability to cure those who suffer from any malady.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Gros has made us think, very intentionally, I believe,
0:30:29 > 0:30:34of Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38But there are other elements in the picture,
0:30:38 > 0:30:42elements that suggest that Gros himself
0:30:42 > 0:30:44was unable ultimately to deliver
0:30:44 > 0:30:48the resounding propaganda painting that Napoleon wanted.
0:30:48 > 0:30:53Look, for example, at this whole left-hand area of the painting.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56A vision of hell.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59The grisly detail.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03The soldier who's been blinded by trachoma,
0:31:03 > 0:31:07the bane of the Egyptian campaign.
0:31:07 > 0:31:11The naked soldier erupting with evil boils.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13Look at his armpit.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16But above all, look at his scale.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22If he were to stand up, he'd be ten feet tall.
0:31:24 > 0:31:29So, yes, we've got the image of Napoleon, blessing and saving,
0:31:29 > 0:31:34but it's dwarfed by the image of misery and suffering.
0:31:35 > 0:31:40Gros tried so hard to paint war as something glorious...
0:31:41 > 0:31:42..but he just couldn't.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53In 1804, Notre Dame in Paris played host
0:31:53 > 0:31:57to one of the most extraordinary coronations of the modern age.
0:31:59 > 0:32:03Extraordinary because Napoleon actually crowned himself
0:32:03 > 0:32:05and his consort Josephine.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08The Pope, looking on,
0:32:08 > 0:32:10stunned by the gilded hubris of it all.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18At the French Senate, in the old Palais du Luxembourg,
0:32:18 > 0:32:23there's still more than a flavour of Napoleon's new imperial style.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26He'd become the most powerful man in history
0:32:26 > 0:32:28and he wanted everyone to know about it.
0:32:35 > 0:32:37Wow.
0:32:37 > 0:32:38Wow.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44So, here I am. They've let me into the French equivalent
0:32:44 > 0:32:49of the House of Lords. I'm in search of one of Napoleon's great relics.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54This interior is, of course, Second Empire, mid-19th century, but boy,
0:32:54 > 0:32:56does it speak of the spirit of Napoleon.
0:32:56 > 0:33:00Boy, does it make you think, the French are so good at pomp.
0:33:00 > 0:33:02They're really good at it.
0:33:02 > 0:33:06No-one does pomp and grandeur better than the French.
0:33:06 > 0:33:08And here we are!
0:33:08 > 0:33:10Here it is.
0:33:10 > 0:33:11Here's the great relic.
0:33:13 > 0:33:17It's Napoleon's own throne.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19And it was built for him,
0:33:19 > 0:33:24made for him, by a man called Jacob-Desmalter.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27And it's just this wonderful...
0:33:27 > 0:33:32Look at it, look at this embroidery, the N that we see forever.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34Just the feeling of luxury.
0:33:37 > 0:33:38The bumblebee,
0:33:38 > 0:33:41a symbol that Napoleon loved for his France
0:33:41 > 0:33:43because it stood for industry, hard work.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51These sphinxes or griffins, which meant to place Napoleon,
0:33:51 > 0:33:55who loved to borrow symbols and images of power,
0:33:55 > 0:34:00this time sitting on this throne, he's actually a pharaoh.
0:34:02 > 0:34:07There's something, it has to be said, faintly tawdry about it all.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10It's a little bit Wizard of Oz.
0:34:13 > 0:34:18And it reminds me a little bit of something Voltaire once said.
0:34:20 > 0:34:24He said, "No matter how great the King or how proud the Emperor,
0:34:25 > 0:34:27"no matter how splendid his throne,
0:34:27 > 0:34:31"he's really only ever sat on his own bum".
0:34:37 > 0:34:44If Napoleon had an Achilles heel, it was belief in his own invincibility.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47No-one saw that more clearly than a brilliant young painter
0:34:47 > 0:34:50called Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
0:34:50 > 0:34:52Attracted and repulsed by Napoleon
0:34:52 > 0:34:54at one and the same time,
0:34:54 > 0:34:57Ingres produced one of the most alarming portraits in history.
0:35:07 > 0:35:09I personally find it almost terrifying.
0:35:09 > 0:35:12Many great paintings invite you in,
0:35:12 > 0:35:15but I never want to get much closer than this.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18I find it revealing that they keep it behind glass.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22It's almost as if you're in the reptile house...
0:35:24 > 0:35:26..looking at a very dangerous animal.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31And there's this fear that somehow it might leap out and bite you.
0:35:31 > 0:35:37Ingres borrowed as many images for this painting as Napoleon borrowed
0:35:37 > 0:35:38symbols for himself.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41They're all there. If you start at the bottom,
0:35:41 > 0:35:44the Carolingian Eagle, emblem of power.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48Move up. On the left-hand side,
0:35:48 > 0:35:54he holds the sceptre of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58To the other side, the hand of justice, of Charlemagne.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03His head is crowned with golden laurel leaves,
0:36:03 > 0:36:06which make him a Roman emperor.
0:36:06 > 0:36:08By his side dangles
0:36:08 > 0:36:11the bejewelled sword of Charlemagne.
0:36:11 > 0:36:15How many different forms of power does Napoleon seem to possess?
0:36:15 > 0:36:19But in a sense, all those emblems are just the prelude
0:36:19 > 0:36:22to the final crescendo
0:36:22 > 0:36:25which arrives through its composition,
0:36:25 > 0:36:28this hieratic frontal pose,
0:36:28 > 0:36:32taken by Ingres from the van Eyck altarpiece painted for Ghent
0:36:32 > 0:36:35which Napoleon had looted, which was on display in the Louvre.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37It's a painting of God, the Father.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43So Ingres has painted Napoleon as all the Roman emperors,
0:36:43 > 0:36:48every French emperor, and the Christian God himself.
0:36:48 > 0:36:50Who could be more powerful than this?
0:36:50 > 0:36:56It's an image almost crazed in its celebration of Napoleon's power.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59And I think perhaps for that reason,
0:36:59 > 0:37:03perhaps because Ingres had gone so far in his youthful enthusiasm,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07the painting didn't actually meet with the favour he hoped for.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11One critic said it looked as though it had been painted by moonlight.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14And so the painting was quickly forgotten.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17Ingres pretended he'd never painted it.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20It languished in store rooms and eventually wound up here
0:37:20 > 0:37:23in a neglected corner of the Musee de l'Armee.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29But although it was rejected, although it was despised,
0:37:29 > 0:37:33I think the real reason for that was because it actually spoke the truth.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41The truth, especially when it came to his own megalomania,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44was the last thing Napoleon wanted.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46And his luck was running out.
0:37:50 > 0:37:55Antoine Gros was still working away at heroic propaganda,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58but he'd witnessed one horror too many on the battlefield
0:37:58 > 0:38:02and now he could only see premonitions of disaster.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06In each new picture, Napoleon got smaller.
0:38:06 > 0:38:11Here, he's stranded like a postage- stamp figure in a sea of dead men.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15This is triumph made to look like defeat,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19a frostbitten prophecy of worse to come -
0:38:19 > 0:38:25the loss of virtually his whole army in the frozen wastes of Russia.
0:38:26 > 0:38:28It's as if all Napoleon's artists
0:38:28 > 0:38:33knew deep inside the mad adventure could only end one way.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35And they were proved right.
0:38:35 > 0:38:39By 1815 and all that.
0:38:39 > 0:38:44Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, followed by his exile and death.
0:38:44 > 0:38:47France was left bankrupt and in ruins.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57The romantic poet Alfred de Musset
0:38:57 > 0:39:00would call the generation after Napoleon
0:39:00 > 0:39:03"fervent, pale and nervous."
0:39:04 > 0:39:07The generation that had been told that each high road led
0:39:07 > 0:39:09to a capital of Europe.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13In their heads they had an entire world,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16but now everything was empty.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18And the only sound was the sound
0:39:18 > 0:39:21of the bell tolling in the parish steeple.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26Theirs was the generation of the fallen and the disappointed.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36Now France had a new constitution and a new monarch,
0:39:36 > 0:39:39in the unattractive shape of Louis XVIII.
0:39:39 > 0:39:43No-one had faith in him, or in anything much else besides.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49Then in 1816, events unfolded in the press
0:39:49 > 0:39:52that seemed to capture the national malaise.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57A naval frigate, La Meduse,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59was wrecked off the coast of Africa
0:39:59 > 0:40:03because of the incompetence of the French captain.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07In a grim echo of the Terror,
0:40:07 > 0:40:11abandoned survivors on a raft resorted to cannibalism.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16These stomach-turning events would inspire the first great masterpiece
0:40:16 > 0:40:19of the pale and nervous generation,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22a work created by a young painter,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26a fragile genius called Theodore Gericault.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38The raft of the Medusa is one of the most compellingly ambiguous
0:40:38 > 0:40:41monumental paintings ever created.
0:40:41 > 0:40:47It's often said that Gericault idealised the real events
0:40:47 > 0:40:51on which he based his picture,
0:40:51 > 0:40:54but there are plenty of horribly realistic details,
0:40:54 > 0:40:56for those with eyes to find them.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03Look at the man on the left, or rather is that just half a man?
0:41:05 > 0:41:10Look at the figure to the right falling backwards into the sea.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16There's an axe on the raft and there's blood on the axe,
0:41:16 > 0:41:21a reminder that those who survived did resort to cannibalism.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25You can read it politically,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28in which case it symbolises
0:41:28 > 0:41:31the ship of the French state
0:41:31 > 0:41:34mismanaged by government,
0:41:34 > 0:41:38set adrift forever on a stormy sea,
0:41:38 > 0:41:41yearning for certainties
0:41:41 > 0:41:43that they've lost and will never regain.
0:41:45 > 0:41:50You can read it as a personal statement of loss.
0:41:50 > 0:41:55Just as he set out on the adventure of painting the picture,
0:41:55 > 0:41:59Gericault had said goodbye forever to his mistress.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02In which case, we would see all of those men
0:42:02 > 0:42:06desperately reaching towards the horizon as self portraits,
0:42:06 > 0:42:08looking for his lost love.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14Above all, I think it is THE great image
0:42:14 > 0:42:20of what Alfred de Musset described as this lost generation
0:42:20 > 0:42:23after the years of Napoleon's glory,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26condemned to wander the world...
0:42:28 > 0:42:36..in this crepuscular, melancholic twilit period of France's decline.
0:42:50 > 0:42:55Alas, the genius of Gericault would be extinguished all too soon,
0:42:55 > 0:42:59dead at just 32 years old of consumption,
0:42:59 > 0:43:04the fatal condition preordained for the pale and nervous generation.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16Almost as soon as he's dead,
0:43:16 > 0:43:19Gericault becomes a cult figure, a martyr,
0:43:20 > 0:43:24marked by this extraordinary tomb monument.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28It's as if from this point onwards,
0:43:28 > 0:43:32France will no longer trust its leaders, its institutions
0:43:32 > 0:43:34or the church to give it meaning.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38It will be down to the single, creative artist.
0:43:38 > 0:43:40As Baudelaire,
0:43:40 > 0:43:42the great French writer who would be the spokesman for the generation
0:43:42 > 0:43:46to follow Gericault, as he said, from now on,
0:43:46 > 0:43:49tous, c'est moi et moi, c'est tous.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52"Everything is me, and I am everything".
0:43:59 > 0:44:00For its French audience,
0:44:00 > 0:44:02Gericault's picture had been too much,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05its depth of pathos too shocking.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10Mankind was rendered more tragic,
0:44:10 > 0:44:12more alone in the world than ever before.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19A friend of Gericault's, a young painter called Eugene Delacroix,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23said the picture propelled him into the realms of insanity
0:44:23 > 0:44:24when he first saw it.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27Delacroix set to work on his own versions
0:44:27 > 0:44:29of the romantic nightmare.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32Instead of Gericault's raft,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35he set his figures adrift on a ship bound for hell.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40And then came another far more disturbing work,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43a crescendo of sex and death.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50The perfect romantic artist,
0:44:50 > 0:44:55the great painter of the age of "moi" was Delacroix.
0:44:55 > 0:45:00Why? Because he could only paint them while he was an artist entirely
0:45:00 > 0:45:05trapped in his own personal, subjective fantasies,
0:45:05 > 0:45:07and he only had two modes.
0:45:07 > 0:45:13One was despondency, and the other was frenzy,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15and this is frenzy.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27He based the picture on a half-baked play by Lord Byron
0:45:27 > 0:45:29called Sardanapalus,
0:45:29 > 0:45:34which tells the tale of an ancient despot of Nineveh.
0:45:34 > 0:45:39Sardanapalus, who discovering that his city is about to be sacked,
0:45:39 > 0:45:43orders the immolation of all his concubines,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46the destruction of all his possessions
0:45:46 > 0:45:48and the death of all his horses.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52What a fantastic pretext for Delacroix,
0:45:52 > 0:45:55a mad orgy of destruction,
0:45:55 > 0:45:57bathed in the colour red.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01You experience the painting as a cascade of horrible detail and this
0:46:01 > 0:46:04really is one of the most repugnant paintings
0:46:04 > 0:46:07ever created in the entire history of art.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10Start from the top -
0:46:10 > 0:46:14bound concubine, struggling concubine, collapsed concubine,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17knifed concubine.
0:46:17 > 0:46:22Dying horse, straining slave, trailing pile of booty.
0:46:23 > 0:46:28Suppliant, desperate foot, limp hand, more treasure.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32It's a kind of crazed kaleidoscope.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35And what's its real subject, anyway?
0:46:35 > 0:46:37Who is Sardanapalus, really?
0:46:38 > 0:46:43This megalomaniac, this Nero figure,
0:46:43 > 0:46:46this imperial potentate,
0:46:46 > 0:46:48master of all he surveys.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51Well, I think in Delacroix's imagination,
0:46:51 > 0:46:53he's an alter ego for Napoleon.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Delacroix always remained obsessed
0:46:56 > 0:47:00by the memory of Napoleon and his glory days,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03and I think what he's really doing in this picture
0:47:03 > 0:47:08is redesigning a more suitable death for Napoleon.
0:47:09 > 0:47:12This is how Delacroix thinks
0:47:12 > 0:47:17Napoleon should really have gone out, with a bang, not a whimper.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25Delacroix's most famous painting was created three years later in 1830,
0:47:25 > 0:47:27Liberty Leading The People,
0:47:27 > 0:47:30commemorating the so-called July Revolution of that year.
0:47:30 > 0:47:32MUSIC: La Marseillaise
0:47:35 > 0:47:38It's the exception to the rest of the artist's work,
0:47:38 > 0:47:40a rare image of hope and idealism,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43a reminder that revolution could still seem sexy.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47But almost before the paint was dry,
0:47:47 > 0:47:49the uprising of 1830 had been put down,
0:47:49 > 0:47:54the monarchy had been restored and it was business as usual in France.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03In this age of rupture and failed ideals,
0:48:03 > 0:48:07where could the romantic artist hope to find stability?
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Perhaps in the world of art itself.
0:48:11 > 0:48:13While all else crumbled,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17art's own traditions could still be held up for veneration.
0:48:18 > 0:48:20That was the message preached
0:48:20 > 0:48:22at the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
0:48:22 > 0:48:26where 19th-century students of painting learned their craft.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29And it was for the school's lecture theatre
0:48:29 > 0:48:31that Paul Delaroche painted one of the most ambitious pictures
0:48:31 > 0:48:33of the age,
0:48:33 > 0:48:39so huge it dwarfed even the enormous canvases of David and his followers.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47It's called The Artists Of All Times,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50and what it expresses is the idea
0:48:50 > 0:48:55that art has remained a continuous conversation, from ancient Greece
0:48:55 > 0:48:58all the way into modern Paris.
0:48:58 > 0:49:01So at the centre we see
0:49:01 > 0:49:04Iktinos, Phidias, Zeuxis,
0:49:04 > 0:49:08Greek architect, Greek painter, Greek painter.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10On this side,
0:49:10 > 0:49:14all the masters of painting whose speciality has been drawing,
0:49:14 > 0:49:17beginning with Poussin on the right-hand side.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Close to him is Leonardo da Vinci.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22In the middle we see Michelangelo.
0:49:22 > 0:49:24Behind is Raphael.
0:49:24 > 0:49:28On the left-hand side, the artists who specialise in colour.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33So there we have Titian, we have Velazquez, we have van Dyck.
0:49:33 > 0:49:34They're all talking to each other,
0:49:34 > 0:49:37they're all communicating one with the other,
0:49:37 > 0:49:40the idea being that in the end we're all in it together,
0:49:40 > 0:49:42the past feeds into the present.
0:49:42 > 0:49:47It's a wonderful, brilliant, beautiful continuum.
0:49:47 > 0:49:49But the great paradox behind it is
0:49:49 > 0:49:53that Delaroche painted it in 1841 at exactly
0:49:53 > 0:49:59the moment when French art was about to be split and divided
0:49:59 > 0:50:02as it had never been split and divided before.
0:50:05 > 0:50:09So, who would finally shatter the mould?
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Shockingly, it would be a weather-beaten survivor
0:50:11 > 0:50:14from the glory days of Napoleon.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17None other than Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,
0:50:17 > 0:50:2082 years old and still up for a fight.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23The irony was that Ingres himself
0:50:23 > 0:50:26had taught Delaroche everything he believed.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29Ingres himself celebrated antiquity,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33claimed to be a spokesman for classical values...
0:50:35 > 0:50:38..but scratch the surface and it's a different story.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41Look at his portraits and you come face-to-face
0:50:41 > 0:50:44with the romantic sense of self,
0:50:44 > 0:50:49each person a solitary god in their own private world.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54Meet Monsieur Bertin, the Buddha of the bourgeoisie...
0:50:57 > 0:51:01..meet Madame Moitessier, the Sphinx of the 2nd Empire...
0:51:02 > 0:51:06..but of course they're not deities, they are not immortals -
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Ingres was telling his audience
0:51:09 > 0:51:11that the gods of old had flown
0:51:11 > 0:51:15and wouldn't be seen again save as ghosts, not in this plush,
0:51:15 > 0:51:16comfortable world.
0:51:20 > 0:51:24But, it was only when it came to paint his very last masterpiece
0:51:24 > 0:51:27that Ingres finally let the mask slip.
0:51:32 > 0:51:34What do we see?
0:51:34 > 0:51:38Hundreds of naked women, combing each other's hair...
0:51:40 > 0:51:44..spraying each other with perfume,
0:51:44 > 0:51:47dancing, chatting, gossiping,
0:51:47 > 0:51:53but really what an unbridled image of lust it is.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57Ingres had spent his whole life declaring
0:51:57 > 0:52:01that his art represented "le pur classique" - ha!
0:52:03 > 0:52:04What is classical about that?
0:52:05 > 0:52:09What this painting really marks
0:52:09 > 0:52:16is the final severing of the artist who most wanted to belong
0:52:16 > 0:52:19to the past from the past,
0:52:19 > 0:52:23from anything resembling authority, convention, tradition.
0:52:23 > 0:52:27He is suddenly admitting to himself
0:52:27 > 0:52:30as a very old man that really none of that counts.
0:52:30 > 0:52:34He doesn't actually connect to anything.
0:52:34 > 0:52:40He has nothing to believe in except Baudelaire's "Le moi".
0:52:40 > 0:52:45The me. And if you're just a "me", what is painting then?
0:52:47 > 0:52:51Just the projection of your own irregularities, eccentricities,
0:52:51 > 0:52:53passions and obsessions.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58You're left in the orgy of your own mind.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02And I think it's deeply significant
0:53:02 > 0:53:05that Picasso regarded this picture
0:53:05 > 0:53:09as one of the undoubted masterpieces of the 19th century.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13It was the painting that marked the beginning of modern art,
0:53:13 > 0:53:15because with this painting,
0:53:15 > 0:53:19art declared itself forever
0:53:19 > 0:53:22to be the creation of the individual
0:53:22 > 0:53:25cut adrift from tradition.
0:53:34 > 0:53:36In the world of public culture,
0:53:36 > 0:53:39the shock waves went unnoticed at first.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46The Palais Garnier, showpiece of the Second Empire,
0:53:46 > 0:53:48began construction in the 1860s
0:53:48 > 0:53:52and was nearing completion as Ingres breathed his last.
0:53:58 > 0:54:03It's the perfect temple to official taste, a machine-made Versailles,
0:54:03 > 0:54:06a fanfare to the power of the past,
0:54:06 > 0:54:11complete with painted nymphs on every wall and ceiling.
0:54:23 > 0:54:24For two centuries and more,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27French artists had spoken the antique language
0:54:27 > 0:54:29of Greece and Rome.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38But by now, that language of art was in its death throes
0:54:38 > 0:54:42or at least in its final decadence.
0:54:42 > 0:54:43So, what would come next?
0:54:44 > 0:54:48The greatest critic of the romantic era, Charles Baudelaire,
0:54:48 > 0:54:53looked into his crystal ball to bury the past and predict the future.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01During the one brief settled period of his life,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Baudelaire lived here in a house on the Quai d'Anjou.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07They've marked the spot by gilding the balcony
0:55:07 > 0:55:10from which he once overlooked the Seine.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13It was as an art critic that Baudelaire pronounced
0:55:13 > 0:55:17his most eloquent funeral oration.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21"The painters of now must no longer spend their time in their studios
0:55:21 > 0:55:23"studying plaster casts,
0:55:23 > 0:55:26"clothing their characters in the costumes
0:55:26 > 0:55:28"of ancient Greeks and Romans.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32"No. The painters of now must immerse themselves
0:55:32 > 0:55:34"in the chaos of the city,
0:55:34 > 0:55:40"plunge into the crowd, become at once mirrors and kaleidoscopes,
0:55:40 > 0:55:43"reflecting every fragment, every corner of modern life,
0:55:43 > 0:55:46"no matter how base, vulgar or ugly.
0:55:47 > 0:55:53"The painter of today must go in search of modernity."
0:55:58 > 0:56:01France was changing.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05Paris had grown to three times the size it had been in Napoleon's time.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09The Industrial Revolution, late in the day compared to other countries,
0:56:09 > 0:56:11had at last arrived.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18The city, in all its complexity, its immorality and overcrowding,
0:56:18 > 0:56:20would now fascinate the artist.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28Edouard Manet would bewilder audiences
0:56:28 > 0:56:32with his blurred brushstrokes and random crowds.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42He would celebrate a prostitute as a modern-day Venus.
0:56:44 > 0:56:46And he would baffle his audience
0:56:46 > 0:56:49with the scandalous vision of naked women
0:56:49 > 0:56:51picnicking with frock-coated gentleman
0:56:51 > 0:56:54by the side of a stream.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56Modern life wasn't just transient,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59it was unfathomable, a vision of chaos.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05Artists at the cutting edge now only had one rule -
0:57:05 > 0:57:08keep rewriting the rules.
0:57:08 > 0:57:11Gustave Courbet too was a great iconoclast,
0:57:11 > 0:57:15and it was he who set the pattern for the next century and more.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Think the unthinkable, paint the unpaintable.
0:57:19 > 0:57:22And if it causes a scandal, all the better.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30To give you some idea of just how shocking Courbet could be
0:57:30 > 0:57:32to his contemporaries,
0:57:32 > 0:57:35I'd like you to imagine for a moment that it's 1866,
0:57:35 > 0:57:36you're a Parisian art lover
0:57:36 > 0:57:38and you've been invited into his studio to see
0:57:38 > 0:57:43a painting called L'Origine du Monde, The Origin of the World.
0:57:43 > 0:57:45What do you have in your mind?
0:57:45 > 0:57:48Could it be a painting like this that you're going to see?
0:57:48 > 0:57:50An idealised nude,
0:57:50 > 0:57:54running her fingers through some perfectly pure stream of water
0:57:54 > 0:57:57symbolising the origin of all things?
0:57:57 > 0:58:03Or could it be a primeval landscape, such as this one?
0:58:03 > 0:58:05Raw, savage nature?
0:58:06 > 0:58:08Uh-uh.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Courbet, Courbet the blatant realist,
0:58:11 > 0:58:15he's got something very different in mind.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18A blatant depiction of the place,
0:58:18 > 0:58:21literally, from which we all come.
0:58:21 > 0:58:25Here it is. L'Origine du Monde.
0:58:29 > 0:58:32This was Courbet's sacred truth,
0:58:32 > 0:58:34the truth made flesh,
0:58:34 > 0:58:39and from there it was just a short step to the birth of modern art.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43But that's a story for next time.