0:00:09 > 0:00:12At the heart of Denmark's capital city, Copenhagen,
0:00:12 > 0:00:16you'll find probably the most elegant theme park in the world.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23The Tivoli Gardens first opened to the public in 1843.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28Nowadays, it's a playground for the modern Danish people,
0:00:28 > 0:00:31the happiest nation on Earth, according to the UN.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39At the centre of the park is the Hans Christian Andersen ride,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42named after Denmark's most famous writer.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47But as you disappear beneath the ground,
0:00:47 > 0:00:49you find all is not quite as it seems.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56Brightly painted automata re-enact the master storyteller's fairy tales.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00The Emperor's New Clothes,
0:01:00 > 0:01:02The Snow Queen...
0:01:04 > 0:01:07..The Little Mermaid.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09The presentation might look cheerful
0:01:09 > 0:01:12but, in truth, Anderson's fictions are disturbing.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15Tortured lovers,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18deranged tyrants,
0:01:18 > 0:01:21innocents doomed to a premature death.
0:01:23 > 0:01:28The tales of Hans Christian Andersen aren't just fairy stories for children,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32they're often extremely dark and I think they speak volumes
0:01:32 > 0:01:36about the often uneasy Danish sense of self
0:01:36 > 0:01:38and sense of national identity.
0:01:40 > 0:01:45Denmark's story is that of a small kingdom with an ambitious king.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50Ambitious to possess great art as well as a mighty Empire.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56It's a history of broken dreams,
0:01:56 > 0:01:58catastrophic adventures,
0:01:58 > 0:02:02and a precarious survival into modern times.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Long after the dreams of Empire faded, the art of Denmark
0:02:10 > 0:02:13would remain powerful and haunting.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19Like Hans Christian Andersen's most famous creation,
0:02:19 > 0:02:24Denmark was the duckling that longed to be a swan.
0:02:45 > 0:02:50Once upon a time, at the turn of the 17th century to be precise,
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Denmark was ruled by a proud and lusty king.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00Christian IV was a king on the crest of a wave.
0:03:03 > 0:03:05His navy ruled the seas.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09He was most powerful ruler in all the Nordic lands.
0:03:13 > 0:03:18Like any great king, he wanted the greatest palace in the world
0:03:18 > 0:03:20and he got it.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27So, this is it, the grand courtyard of Frederiksborg Castle.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30The most spectacular palace ever built in Denmark
0:03:30 > 0:03:35by the most ambitious Danish king who ever lived.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38It's tremendously grand,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40absolutely beautiful.
0:03:40 > 0:03:44Christian IV was a man with huge appetites.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48He'd travelled abroad, he'd seen the great architecture,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51the great sculpture of the renaissance and the baroque,
0:03:51 > 0:03:55and he wanted to create his own version of it here.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59But he had a problem, because he rules a nation where
0:03:59 > 0:04:0399% of the population are humble farmers.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Who is going to build his great castle?
0:04:05 > 0:04:09The answer is he has to import it all.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11German goldsmiths, German painters
0:04:11 > 0:04:15and a Dutch architect, Hans van Steenwinckel.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20Mannerist relief work and sculptures, this great red brick,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23like a private palace in Holland,
0:04:23 > 0:04:27except on a unimaginably vast scale.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34Imposing as it is from the outside,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38Frederiksborg Palace is even more sense-stunning within.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47A ballroom the size of a football pitch
0:04:47 > 0:04:52and miles of corridor, connecting glittering state chambers.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57This is my favourite room in the whole palace.
0:04:57 > 0:05:02Here we are at home with King Christian IV of Denmark,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06very much the swan in this graceful, elegant portrait
0:05:06 > 0:05:10by a Dutchman, Pieter Isaacsz. Of course he's a Dutchman.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14There he is with his baton of command,
0:05:14 > 0:05:17crown and helmet -
0:05:17 > 0:05:21an allusion to his recent victory over Sweden.
0:05:22 > 0:05:28Christian IV was known not only for his intellectual prowess,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33his ambition, but also his vigorous potency.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38He had two wives during the course of his long reign
0:05:38 > 0:05:41and more mistresses than you can shake a stick at.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43Here is his first wife,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47painted by a Danish artist, Renaitz.
0:05:47 > 0:05:52Anne Catherine, Princess of Brandenburg. Poor lady.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55Seven children in nine years,
0:05:55 > 0:05:59followed, predictably, by an early death.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03She passes, gives way to the love of his life, Kirsten Munk.
0:06:03 > 0:06:08She's even more prolifically receptive to his affection.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12She bears him 11 children in 13 years
0:06:12 > 0:06:15before committing adultery with a German count.
0:06:15 > 0:06:19That didn't go down well with our man Christian IV,
0:06:19 > 0:06:23so he had her banished and carried on with his many mistresses.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34Christian was a king who believed God was on his side.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47The palace chapel is like a bejewelled casket.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54It's one of the most splendid private chapels to survive from all of baroque Europe.
0:07:00 > 0:07:05And at the heart of it, made of ebony, silver and gold -
0:07:05 > 0:07:09pure gold - a great altarpiece.
0:07:11 > 0:07:17And what a monument it is to Christian's desire to pay homage
0:07:17 > 0:07:22to his God, perhaps in hope of military victory.
0:07:22 > 0:07:28At the centre, we've got this tremendously vivid crucifixion
0:07:28 > 0:07:33and above, all done in silver, Christ holding the banner
0:07:33 > 0:07:36of his victory over death.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40He exits the tomb in a flash of metalwork light.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Completely brilliant.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46And as often with these splendid royal commissions,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50there were layers built into the object
0:07:50 > 0:07:54that only the king and his priest would ever see.
0:07:54 > 0:08:00I'm very lucky because the verger has kindly let me open
0:08:00 > 0:08:04this central compartment, which shows the Last Supper.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08There's Judas with his twisted, uneasy body,
0:08:08 > 0:08:10clutching his bag of silver.
0:08:13 > 0:08:18There's Jesus Christ and in front of him they seem to be having a rabbit as their last supper.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23Now, you open it like this - I've had my training -
0:08:23 > 0:08:26and you let it rest on the key
0:08:26 > 0:08:30and there at the very centre we've got the nativity
0:08:30 > 0:08:32and it doesn't even end there.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38Inside here, I think it's where the wafer would have been kept,
0:08:38 > 0:08:44because on this panel here, etched rather than created in relief,
0:08:44 > 0:08:46almost like an engraving on silver,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49we've an image of Christ being circumcised.
0:08:49 > 0:08:54And inside here you've got another little world, this time of wooden inlay.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57It looks like an Italian cityscape.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00Isn't that a fantastic thing?
0:09:00 > 0:09:04Christian IV's altarpiece, secret compartments and all.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16Christian would turn Copenhagen into a grand city to rival
0:09:16 > 0:09:18any European capital.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25And at its heart, he built an astronomical tower
0:09:25 > 0:09:28to pierce the secrets of the skies.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37Christian himself would ascend it's great spiral ramp
0:09:37 > 0:09:40on horseback to survey the heavens.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49This great phallic astronomer's tower,
0:09:49 > 0:09:52protruding up from the centre of Copenhagen,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56is one of the great symbols of Christian IV's reign.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00To chart the position of the stars was also to be able to
0:10:00 > 0:10:02navigate the seas.
0:10:02 > 0:10:08He wanted far more than to be the king of a small principality.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13He wanted to occupy and to colonise the world.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16The ambition was immense.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20But the truth is that it wasn't really to be.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22How are we to think of him?
0:10:22 > 0:10:26I think that Hans Christian Andersen is quite a good place to start.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30Was Christian IV really the swan
0:10:30 > 0:10:33who came out of the ugly duckling?
0:10:33 > 0:10:38Or was he perhaps the emperor strutting in his new clothes,
0:10:38 > 0:10:44but actually naked. Vulnerable to the other greater forces of Europe?
0:10:44 > 0:10:46That turned out to be the case.
0:10:46 > 0:10:50The great castle Frederiksborg was really just a house of cards,
0:10:50 > 0:10:55this great tower was really just a tower of Babel
0:10:55 > 0:10:59and the story of Denmark would be the story not of a nation
0:10:59 > 0:11:02that grew and grew and grew,
0:11:02 > 0:11:07but the story of a dominion that shrank and shrank and shrank.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17Poor Christian, his dreams would come to nothing.
0:11:17 > 0:11:22And Denmark, rather like the princess in another fairy story,
0:11:22 > 0:11:26fell into a deep sleep for more than 150 years.
0:11:30 > 0:11:32Who would wake her up?
0:11:32 > 0:11:36Not a prince, certainly not a king,
0:11:36 > 0:11:38but the child of humble shoemaker.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48Born here in the sleepy streets of Odense in the middle of Denmark,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52he, with a little help from his friends, would take the nation
0:11:52 > 0:11:54on a new adventure.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02So, Henrik, where have you brought me?
0:12:02 > 0:12:05This is actually the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09So, this was the space in which he grew up from when he was two
0:12:09 > 0:12:11to when he was 14 years of age
0:12:11 > 0:12:15and over here we have his father's working table.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19We have his working tools. He was a cobbler, a very poor cobbler,
0:12:19 > 0:12:21and his mother was a washing woman.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26Are you saying that this, however many square metres it is,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29- was the whole family?- Yes.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33- There aren't other rooms that I'm missing?- No.- This is it.- Yes.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35They were from the lowest parts of society.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39But still they had access to the highest parts of society.
0:12:39 > 0:12:43Hans Christian Andersen played with the future king as a child,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47because his mother washed clothes for the king.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50So, it really was a small world, almost fairytale small.
0:12:50 > 0:12:53- Yeah. Yeah, exactly. - Goodness me.- Yeah.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57He was very lucky in a sense because there was made a school law
0:12:57 > 0:13:01and it was just about the time where people start to learn to read and write.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04When he was born, almost nobody could read and write in Denmark.
0:13:04 > 0:13:10And also he knocked on doors of people who were more well off and had books.
0:13:10 > 0:13:15So, when he went off to Copenhagen he had already read Schiller,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19Klopstock, Shakespeare and he says that he likes Shakespeare
0:13:19 > 0:13:21the best because it was the bloodiest.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24And he would re-enact the Shakespeare dramas
0:13:24 > 0:13:27- in his little puppet theatre. - How fantastic.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30So, he really was, so to speak, a self-made duckling.
0:13:30 > 0:13:35- Yeah.- I mean, if anyone made him into a swan, it was he himself. - Yeah, it was.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55There's a strong vein of social satire
0:13:55 > 0:13:57in Hans Christian Andersen's stories.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00When the great and the good appear they're usually rather absurd.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02Think of the emperor with his new clothes,
0:14:02 > 0:14:05or the princess who's so hypersensitive
0:14:05 > 0:14:08she can feel a pea through 20 mattresses.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11I think Andersen always remained the cobbler's son,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15a man with a sharp eye for social inequality.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17He knew that there were two Denmarks -
0:14:17 > 0:14:20one for the rich and one for the poor.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28But behind his tales, you can sense the outlines
0:14:28 > 0:14:31of a new Denmark taking shape.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33A place where the humble son of a cobbler
0:14:33 > 0:14:36might feel just as worthy as any king.
0:14:37 > 0:14:42It's no coincidence that Andersen's heroes rise from humble origins -
0:14:42 > 0:14:46most famously the swan chick reared in the wrong nest.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52But Andersen can't be reduced to black and white.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56He was a melancholic bachelor, as well as a successful writer.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00And it was as an artist, a maker of visual images,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05that he most fully revealed himself, anxieties and all.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07- You must be Pia?- Yeah.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10Andersen's art remains very little known,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12kept under lock and key in his hometown,
0:15:12 > 0:15:15under the watchful eye of conservator Pia Hannsen.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19- So this is the conservation studio? - Yes.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22And...yeah.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26- And this is...you've got it all ready for me?- Yes.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30So, these are very, very, rare, precious objects.
0:15:30 > 0:15:36They are papercuts made by Hans Christian Andersen himself,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39often for the entertainment of the children of the people
0:15:39 > 0:15:42with whom he spent much of his itinerant life staying
0:15:42 > 0:15:45- and here we have... May I pick it up?- Yes.
0:15:47 > 0:15:50..the golden swan. Isn't that beautiful?
0:15:51 > 0:15:53The great image of Danish hope.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56- I always think this is what Denmark wants to become itself.- Yeah.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00Denmark thinks it's the ugly duckling and it wants to become the swan.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Isn't that lovely? And how wonderful to have preserved it.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06I feel like a child in a sweet shop.
0:16:07 > 0:16:09Isn't that wonderful?
0:16:09 > 0:16:12I love the colours that they've been placed on.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17So that's a windmill, a sort of animated, human windmill,
0:16:17 > 0:16:19with a dangling dancer,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22some children at the bottom with umbrellas.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26I think I read somewhere that the word for mill or grinder
0:16:26 > 0:16:29is the same in Danish as the word for an artist - "maler".
0:16:29 > 0:16:31Yes, that's exactly.
0:16:31 > 0:16:37And the windmill, I notice, has got fountain pens for arms.
0:16:37 > 0:16:41So maybe this windmill is Hans Christian Andersen's portrait of himself,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45grinding away, turning out his stories.
0:16:45 > 0:16:50- How many of them are there all together? 50? 60 70?- No.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53- Not so many? - No, more, more.- More?- Yes.- Wow.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55But these are the greatest hits?
0:16:55 > 0:16:57Some of them.
0:16:57 > 0:17:01- What on Earth, this isn't a papercut, this is a blot?- No. This is a... Yes. That's an ink drawing.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04- So, he's created the image and then he's unfolded it.- Yes.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07- And then made some lines, yes.- Wow.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10- I like to imagine that that's the emperor.- Yes?
0:17:10 > 0:17:13This is when he still does have clothes
0:17:13 > 0:17:15and he's about to try on the naked suit.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18I've sometimes wondered if the emperor with his new clothes
0:17:18 > 0:17:22isn't Hans Christian Andersen's allegory of all these
0:17:22 > 0:17:27disastrously idealistic or dreamy
0:17:27 > 0:17:30kings of Denmark who lead them into great battles,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32which they then promptly lose.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37All the Danish emperors perhaps have no clothes.
0:17:37 > 0:17:38Gosh.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41Wow!
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Now what on Earth do you make of this?
0:17:44 > 0:17:46The three headed creature.
0:17:46 > 0:17:51It seems like an image of the divided personality.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56Somebody who presents one face to the world, the smiling face,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59but the other faces look to the side.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03So, what have here? You've saved the best...
0:18:03 > 0:18:05Oh, you have! You've saved the best for last.
0:18:05 > 0:18:08Well, certainly the most sinister for last.
0:18:08 > 0:18:10Isn't this something.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14This is the heart snatcher and I think this is an image that
0:18:14 > 0:18:18really goes to the centre of Hans Christian Andersen as a person.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20Always disappointed in love,
0:18:20 > 0:18:24always feeling that somehow it's not going to work out for him.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27And this is his revenge on Cupid, this image.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31Because there is cupid, he's got somebody's heart in his hand
0:18:31 > 0:18:33and he's hanging from a gallows
0:18:33 > 0:18:37because as Hans Christian Andersen explains,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40he is the thief who deserves to be hanged.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44And on this side is the man who's lost his heart.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46See the little heart down at the bottom?
0:18:46 > 0:18:50He's lost his heart, so he's dying for love and cupid deserves to die
0:18:50 > 0:18:54for making him fall so fatally in love.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58But that really is an image that goes to the heart -
0:18:58 > 0:19:01forgive the pun - of the work of Hans Christian Andersen.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Thank you so much for showing me these.
0:19:14 > 0:19:19If Hans Christian Andersen was the heart of 19th century Denmark,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22another man was the mind.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26He was a humble priest, inspired by the Enlightenment,
0:19:26 > 0:19:28who preached education for all.
0:19:35 > 0:19:39He believed that every man and every woman should be given the key
0:19:39 > 0:19:42to learning and given the chance to rise.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50He gave his sermons here at Copenhagen University.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52And his name?
0:19:52 > 0:19:54Nikolai Grundtvig.
0:19:55 > 0:20:01He founded the Danish Society and it met every Tuesday evening
0:20:01 > 0:20:05in rooms like this one, rented for the occasion.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09And the great difference between the Danish Society and the university,
0:20:09 > 0:20:13was that the society was open to everyone.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17They were so popular that the government came to regard them with suspicions.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22We've got some wonderful descriptions of them, written by government spies.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27One such spy wrote, "It's extraordinary, all kinds of ordinary people -
0:20:27 > 0:20:32"cobblers, tailors, servants - attend these meetings
0:20:32 > 0:20:36"and at the end, they are so enthused, they break out into song!"
0:20:36 > 0:20:42The subjects ranged widely from early 13th century Danish history,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45to Danish architecture, Danish archaeology,
0:20:45 > 0:20:49but they were always on Danish themes.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52In a sense, the subject matter wasn't that important,
0:20:52 > 0:20:57the idea behind it was what counted - the notion that all Danes,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59from whatever social class they might come,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02had education as their birthright.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07And what this marks, also, I think, is a great shift in the general perception
0:21:07 > 0:21:10of how society works.
0:21:10 > 0:21:16Society was no longer, so to speak, a clock set by the absolute monarch.
0:21:16 > 0:21:21It was something much more amorphous and something driven from beneath,
0:21:21 > 0:21:25driven by ordinary men and women, that was where the future lay.
0:21:34 > 0:21:39Ordinary people could become extraordinary,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42none more so than an 11-year-old boy who went on to become
0:21:42 > 0:21:45one of Europe's most famous sculptors.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54So famous, that the Danes would build a great temple to him
0:21:54 > 0:21:56in the heart of their capital city.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03He'd made his fame and fortune in Rome
0:22:03 > 0:22:09and the people welcomed him back like a Roman emperor returning triumphant.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15Talk about a rags to riches story.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19Bertel Thorvaldsen rose from humble origins to become
0:22:19 > 0:22:24not just the most famous artist of early 19th century Scandinavia,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28but the most famous artist of 19th century Europe.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32Rome was the centre of art world at the time
0:22:32 > 0:22:35and at the centre of Rome was Thorvaldsen.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38He might not be a household name today,
0:22:38 > 0:22:43but when he was at his peak, anybody who was anyone coming to Rome,
0:22:43 > 0:22:47had to have themselves carved by Thorvaldsen.
0:22:47 > 0:22:53Here, we see Lord Byron as Childe Harold on the point of utterance.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56Apparently, Byron didn't much like Thorvaldsen's sculptures of him -
0:22:56 > 0:23:00here's another one - he felt they were insufficiently melancholy.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11Thorvaldsen set out to make the art of Greece and Rome his own,
0:23:11 > 0:23:16to possess its forms, to bring classical sculpture in all
0:23:16 > 0:23:21its marmoreal perfection into the realm of Scandinavian art.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Stendhal, the French writer, criticised Thorvaldsen
0:23:27 > 0:23:30and said his figures tended to be a little inert.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33But I think that image of static beauty
0:23:33 > 0:23:36was something that Thorvaldsen worked very hard to create.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43He mastered a classical technique of carving in low relief,
0:23:43 > 0:23:46he studied Roman sarcophagi.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56He looked, perhaps, at the Elgin marbles, at the Parthenon frieze.
0:23:58 > 0:24:04His output was unparalleled. This is his answer to Canova's Three Graces
0:24:04 > 0:24:07and in its time, it was every bit as celebrated,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10the image of female beauty.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18And at the end of this great long enfilade of rooms,
0:24:18 > 0:24:22we find Thorvaldsen himself.
0:24:22 > 0:24:27This large, blond, phlegmatic Scandinavian.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30He's depicted himself as a kind of cross between Vulcan,
0:24:30 > 0:24:36but also Thor with his hammer. He's a Norse classical hero.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40And I wonder if in that hammer, so prominently clutched
0:24:40 > 0:24:45in his right hand, there isn't also a memory of his very low origins.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50He was the son of an Icelandic emigre, who'd come to Copenhagen
0:24:50 > 0:24:52to find work as a wood cutter.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56And it was in helping his father in cutting wood,
0:24:56 > 0:25:00that Thorvaldsen's talent for sculpture was discovered.
0:25:09 > 0:25:14This museum didn't just mark the rise of a single man,
0:25:14 > 0:25:17it marked a moment in the nation's history.
0:25:19 > 0:25:23In 1849, a few months after the Thorvaldsen museum opened,
0:25:23 > 0:25:26the people took power from the Danish king.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33It was a bloodless, almost fairy tale revolution.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37"Can I go back to bed now?" the King reportedly said to his advisors.
0:25:40 > 0:25:46At last, Denmark could be ruled by ordinary men and women.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49Denmark is at the crossroads
0:25:49 > 0:25:53and now it's going to stand tall and proud.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57And this sculpture - it's Thorvaldsen's masterpiece -
0:25:57 > 0:25:59it's Jason and the Golden Fleece.
0:25:59 > 0:26:03I think this unlocks the whole museum's meaning.
0:26:03 > 0:26:09As one of his contemporaries said, when Thorvaldsen's works came back
0:26:09 > 0:26:11to Copenhagen from Rome,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16he has brought with him the Golden Fleece of the classical past.
0:26:16 > 0:26:22But I think it was a classical past that had a huge meaning to Danes in that present moment.
0:26:22 > 0:26:28They felt that if any one nation really could reincarnate
0:26:28 > 0:26:31the great values of the classical past of Republican Rome
0:26:31 > 0:26:35and ancient Greece, it was the Danes.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40So what began, perhaps, as a personal statement for Thorvaldsen,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44this sculpture became a national statement for Denmark.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47It's an image of the country itself.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52With its eye on the future, it's captured that golden treasure,
0:26:52 > 0:26:56the ideal and the idea of democracy, and it isn't going to let go.
0:27:08 > 0:27:11Denmark was moving forward.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14The people's spirit had been expressed in sculpture,
0:27:14 > 0:27:17but the people themselves would be brought to life
0:27:17 > 0:27:20by the greatest painter of the time.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28Christoffer Eckersberg, another poor boy made good.
0:27:32 > 0:27:37At the start of his career he still had to pay court to the Danish nobility.
0:27:39 > 0:27:44Far away on the southern Danish coastline is the Valdamar Castle.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52Young Eckersberg came here to seek the favour of a wealthy baron
0:27:52 > 0:27:56and the castle still contains the work he made,
0:27:56 > 0:27:58a very unusual conception.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04So, how was an artist in early enlightenment Denmark
0:28:04 > 0:28:06to scrape a living?
0:28:06 > 0:28:10Well, among other things, he had to create sidelines,
0:28:10 > 0:28:15pictures to divert and entertain the Danish nobility.
0:28:15 > 0:28:21All of which brings me to this rather wonderful object.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25It's one of the best kept secrets of the Danish art tradition
0:28:25 > 0:28:29and it is Count Luel-Brockdorff's saucy cigar box.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31How did it work?
0:28:31 > 0:28:34Well, after dinner, the Count would come here
0:28:34 > 0:28:39to his billiard and smoking room with his male guests -
0:28:39 > 0:28:41only men were allowed in here -
0:28:41 > 0:28:46and he would offer them in turn a cigar,
0:28:46 > 0:28:48and when everybody had taken their cigar
0:28:48 > 0:28:52he would reveal a little trick at the heart of the box,
0:28:52 > 0:28:57he would lower this panel and reveal an image in the lid.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01Shock, horror, a couple making love.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06It's like a Boucher or a Fragonard, a French jeu d'esprit,
0:29:06 > 0:29:11but in Scandinavia the genitalia are in full view.
0:29:11 > 0:29:16The man is proudly erect. It's extremely explicit.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19Now, you could see this object as simply an early example
0:29:19 > 0:29:23of the famous Scandinavian openness about sexual matters,
0:29:23 > 0:29:28the very first Danish porno, but I think there's more to it than that.
0:29:28 > 0:29:33The artist responsible was familiar with the work of the other famous
0:29:33 > 0:29:38Hans Christian of Enlightenment Denmark, Hans Christian Orsted,
0:29:38 > 0:29:43the great scientist who discovered electro magnetism, and
0:29:43 > 0:29:47his theories about the attraction between the magnetic poles
0:29:47 > 0:29:51were applied by the artist to the sexual act.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55So, yes, this is a light-hearted, erotic work of art,
0:29:55 > 0:29:59but it's very much also an Enlightenment object.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12Like Thorvaldsen, Eckersberg and other young painters
0:30:12 > 0:30:17were given grants by the recently founded Danish Royal Academy
0:30:17 > 0:30:22to travel not just within Denmark, but into the wider world.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43There's a wonderful sense of freshness about Danish painting of the golden age,
0:30:43 > 0:30:49encapsulated by Thomas Lundbye's beautiful panoramic landscape.
0:30:49 > 0:30:54It's as if gazing across these rolling acres of Danish farmland
0:30:54 > 0:30:59bathed by the sunshine, he can see a new utopia.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04But these artists didn't just travel the Danish landscape,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06they also travelled further afield.
0:31:06 > 0:31:12They were the first generation of properly professionally trained Danish painters.
0:31:12 > 0:31:13So, where did they go?
0:31:13 > 0:31:17They went to Italy, flirting with the servant girls.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21Finding picturesque figures, like this priest
0:31:21 > 0:31:25reading with the hills of Rome in the background.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27They travelled, they visited the archaeological sites,
0:31:27 > 0:31:31they studied picturesque peasants, peeling cabbage leaves.
0:31:31 > 0:31:37And when they came back, they present to their contemporaries,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40ordinary men and women, images of their own faces.
0:31:40 > 0:31:45This is the first non-aristocratic, non-royal tradition of portraiture
0:31:45 > 0:31:49and I think this, for me, is one of its masterpieces.
0:31:49 > 0:31:55Eckersberg's portrait of a landowning count and his wife.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59And there's something almost hyperreal about it.
0:31:59 > 0:32:02Look how close they seem, it's almost as if they've got their noses
0:32:02 > 0:32:06pushed up against the glass of the past.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09They stare at us - or is that through us -
0:32:09 > 0:32:13and they seem almost unnaturally healthy.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17They shine like freshly picked apples.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32To get to the core of Eckersburg's genius, you have to come to the
0:32:32 > 0:32:34Danish Royal Academy in Copenhagen.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47Camilla Cadell, the Academy's historian, is my guide.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53- And before it was an academy, it was a royal palace?- Exactly.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58So, it's almost part of this transition from a monarchical to a democratic...
0:32:58 > 0:33:00Yeah, you could say so. Yes.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05Eckersburg came here as a young man with nothing but talent.
0:33:05 > 0:33:10He was formed here, he walked these stairs and corridors.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12- Shall I?- Yes, please.
0:33:14 > 0:33:17This building was the centre of Denmark's artistic revolution.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22- Oh, these are the modern photographic studios?- Yes.
0:33:22 > 0:33:27And at its centre, though it takes some time to penetrate the labyrinth,
0:33:27 > 0:33:30are some of Eckersburg's most daring pictures,
0:33:30 > 0:33:35given by the artist himself to inspire future generations.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39The Age Of The Enlightenment opens up before us.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41How fantastic!
0:33:49 > 0:33:52Eckersberg was one of the first Danish artists to create
0:33:52 > 0:33:56memorable images of the naked human form.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59Now, these pictures were never publicly exhibited.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02Had they been, they might have rather scandalised
0:34:02 > 0:34:04his contemporaries, who weren't used to seeing
0:34:04 > 0:34:07nude human beings on the walls of their art galleries.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10And they're unusual in many ways.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13Most artists of the time who did depict the nude,
0:34:13 > 0:34:16did so in preparation for grand mythological subjects,
0:34:16 > 0:34:20paintings of classical heroes engaged in valiant activities.
0:34:20 > 0:34:24But these pictures don't breathe any of that heroism or valour.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28They're very quiet, very modest, very unassuming.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33They're both guards here at the Royal Academy whom Eckersberg paid to pose for him.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38This model seems simply to be examining a wound in his hand.
0:34:38 > 0:34:43Whereas, this blonde model
0:34:43 > 0:34:48looking out with an expression in which determination to stand still
0:34:48 > 0:34:51for the artist is mingled slightly with boredom.
0:34:51 > 0:34:57He holds a straight piece of wood to enable to artist to create
0:34:57 > 0:35:02a true line on his canvas, his clothes lie by his side.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07When I look at these pictures, I almost don't think of them as nudes.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10They're paintings of human beings
0:35:10 > 0:35:13who happen not to have their clothes on.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16And it's even more true of his female nudes.
0:35:20 > 0:35:25These would have been even more risque had they been publicly exhibited,
0:35:25 > 0:35:28because it was actually against the law in Copenhagen,
0:35:28 > 0:35:32as it was in London, in the late 18th century and early 19th century,
0:35:32 > 0:35:36for a woman to pose naked before a male artist.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42In this case, we don't have any idea really who these two ladies are.
0:35:42 > 0:35:46The indication is from this picture, look at that rather large,
0:35:46 > 0:35:51slightly red hand, that perhaps they are serving women,
0:35:51 > 0:35:56certainly working women, who, again, Eckersberg has paid
0:35:56 > 0:35:58so that they will pose for him.
0:35:58 > 0:36:03And they're remarkably unprurient, remarkably unerotic,
0:36:03 > 0:36:05remarkably straightforward.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08Think of the great nudes of the European tradition of painting -
0:36:08 > 0:36:13Titian's Venus of Urbino, displaying herself erotically before the gaze
0:36:13 > 0:36:15of the implicitly male viewer.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18There's none of that sense in these pictures.
0:36:18 > 0:36:24I think what Eckersberg is trying to do is almost penetrate to the core
0:36:24 > 0:36:26of what a Danish person is.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28As if Eckersberg is saying,
0:36:28 > 0:36:32"Well, we Danes here in our Age Of Enlightenment,
0:36:32 > 0:36:35"we don't need powdered wigs,
0:36:35 > 0:36:37"we don't need fancy clothes,
0:36:37 > 0:36:42"we don't need allegorical grandiosity to make us better.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46"We are who we are and we're quite content with that."
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Mm-hm. The storeroom.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14Thank you very much.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18So, here she is,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21the daughter of the gatekeeper.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25Now this picture always used to be hung in the director's office
0:37:25 > 0:37:31here at the Royal Academy, but she's been fairly recently consigned
0:37:31 > 0:37:35to the basement. Partly perhaps because we've got this
0:37:35 > 0:37:39terrible modern fear of looking at images of naked children.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41The shadow of paedophilia hangs over us.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44It's made an image like this taboo.
0:37:44 > 0:37:48Whereas, for Eckersberg himself, I think this was perhaps
0:37:48 > 0:37:52his ultimate expression of what the nude might mean for modern Denmark.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55It's a young girl, naked.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58The girl at this point, the child -
0:37:58 > 0:38:00think of the Enlightenment philosophy of Rousseau -
0:38:00 > 0:38:03represents innocence, purity.
0:38:03 > 0:38:05And I think that for Eckersberg,
0:38:05 > 0:38:10this child represents Danish society in the golden age,
0:38:10 > 0:38:13in the first flush of innocence and youth.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17It's a beautiful image, the encapsulation of an ideal.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36But Denmark's dreamers and idealists had their enemies.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41Those who hated the idea of their country
0:38:41 > 0:38:43as a naked, defenceless little girl.
0:38:46 > 0:38:51They wanted to clothe her in national costume,
0:38:51 > 0:38:55put a flag in her hand, arm her with a sword
0:38:55 > 0:38:57and send her off to war.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04By the middle of the 19th century, Denmark might have freed itself
0:39:04 > 0:39:08from the shackles of an absolutist past, but it hadn't
0:39:08 > 0:39:13altogether renounced all ambitions to be a major European power
0:39:13 > 0:39:19and the most nakedly jingoistic painting of the period is this one.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23Mother Denmark, painted in 1851
0:39:23 > 0:39:28by a female artist, Elizabeth Jericho-Baumann.
0:39:28 > 0:39:33Here, she created the single most famous nationalistic,
0:39:33 > 0:39:37Danish image of the entire 19th century.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41There she stands. Not a classical goddess,
0:39:41 > 0:39:44more of a Nordic heroine
0:39:44 > 0:39:49with her Viking jewellery and her ancient sword.
0:39:49 > 0:39:55A Danish flag on her shoulder, ready to march off into a future,
0:39:55 > 0:39:59which the painting seems to predict will be full of military victories,
0:39:59 > 0:40:01new territories won.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04There are grey clouds on the horizon,
0:40:04 > 0:40:08which I think the painter means us to believe are in Denmark's past
0:40:08 > 0:40:11but, in truth, they lay in the future.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16This dream of a newly invigorated, powerful, military Denmark
0:40:16 > 0:40:19would prove to be yet another Danish illusion.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42It would be Mother Denmark's sons who paid the price.
0:40:44 > 0:40:481864 was the year of catastrophe.
0:40:48 > 0:40:50Denmark went to war with mighty Prussia.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57The Danish army was outnumbered, its weapons inferior,
0:40:57 > 0:41:01but that didn't stop their nationalist politicians,
0:41:01 > 0:41:03with their dreams of empire.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06Emperors with no clothes, indeed.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18SHOUTS IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:41:23 > 0:41:27Inevitably, the Danes met with defeat, a defeat so crushing,
0:41:27 > 0:41:32so bloody, that it's become a scar on the national memory.
0:41:37 > 0:41:42One of the stars of the recent Danish television drama 1864
0:41:42 > 0:41:46is actor Soren Malling, globally famous as a detective
0:41:46 > 0:41:49in another Danish serial, The Killing.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52So, Soren, it's a very uneasy feeling that I have sitting
0:41:52 > 0:41:54with you, because I know I'm supposed to interview you,
0:41:54 > 0:41:56but I expect you to interview me
0:41:56 > 0:42:00cos I can't see you except as the policeman in The Killing.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04I feel like I must be the guilty one.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07Time is, like, 2:30. You're under arrest.
0:42:07 > 0:42:13So, Soren, 1864 doesn't mean a great deal to many people outside Denmark,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16but in Denmark, it's a date of great significance.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18Can you explain that?
0:42:18 > 0:42:22Before 1864, we felt like we were big, you know, war heroes.
0:42:22 > 0:42:24We were a huge country.
0:42:24 > 0:42:29We could do nearly everything, but especially 1864, we lost big time.
0:42:32 > 0:42:34I mean, for the first time in 100 years,
0:42:34 > 0:42:36or maybe 200-300 years, we lost.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39I mean, not just lost, we really lost big time.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44Was this a bloody war?
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Did a lot of Danish people lose their lives?
0:42:47 > 0:42:49Mmm. A lot.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53At that time, I do believe that 8,000 very young boys,
0:42:53 > 0:42:57between 15 and 20, in two hours were killed.
0:42:57 > 0:43:02I mean, the big, big battle who ended the war took only two hours.
0:43:02 > 0:43:04The German came, there were many more,
0:43:04 > 0:43:07I mean, thousand and thousand, and they had better weapons.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09That was also part of the big mistake from
0:43:09 > 0:43:11the Danish generals and politicians.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15If you talk about foreign policy, we became a nonaggressive country
0:43:15 > 0:43:19and I do believe it has a big influence on who we are today.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23Going from a huge country, if you consider all the square miles
0:43:23 > 0:43:26we had at that time, to a very small country
0:43:26 > 0:43:27with only five million people.
0:43:27 > 0:43:30It was a kind of mark and, from that mark,
0:43:30 > 0:43:34we started considering more about how to develop a small country.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38So we actually spent many, many years,
0:43:38 > 0:43:42I mean, trying to figure out, who are we as a nation?
0:43:50 > 0:43:53The story of Denmark is a mix of light and dark.
0:43:56 > 0:43:58Bright ideals,
0:43:58 > 0:44:00harsh disappointments.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06Danes today still hark back to the time of Hans Christian Andersen,
0:44:06 > 0:44:09Thorvaldsen, Eckersberg.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11They call it their golden age.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18Cut short by the shock of 1864,
0:44:18 > 0:44:22it was followed by a time of anxious reflection.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27A silver age, you might say.
0:44:32 > 0:44:35And its uneasy spirit was captured
0:44:35 > 0:44:38in the last years of the 19th century
0:44:38 > 0:44:42in the quicksilver paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52I think of Hammershoi as one of the first artists to create
0:44:52 > 0:44:56visual equivalence to what Sigmund Freud
0:44:56 > 0:44:59described as "the sense of the uncanny",
0:44:59 > 0:45:03that sense that you get when the ordinary world suddenly seems
0:45:03 > 0:45:08charged with a sense of mystery, perhaps even a sense of terror.
0:45:08 > 0:45:13This picture, Hammershoi's wife and his mother,
0:45:13 > 0:45:15a genre painting,
0:45:15 > 0:45:17a painting of a snapshot of ordinary life,
0:45:17 > 0:45:22but one from which the meaning has somehow become drained.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24There are old, masterly elements in Hammershoi's work.
0:45:24 > 0:45:27He was besotted by the art of Vermeer
0:45:27 > 0:45:31and you can see that in some of these tender, delicately worked
0:45:31 > 0:45:36interiors, but there's always this sense of mystery,
0:45:36 > 0:45:38of strangeness.
0:45:38 > 0:45:41I mean, this is what the world looks like once it's been
0:45:41 > 0:45:45drained of grand ideas, great schemes.
0:45:45 > 0:45:51Look at that figure, gazing out of an otherwise empty interior.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Even more beguiling is this work of art.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59It's simply called Dust Motes and what does it show us?
0:46:01 > 0:46:03Some light coming through a window.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11Hammershoi was a contemporary of Ibsen and Munch in Norway.
0:46:11 > 0:46:16Ibsen, the great playwright of silence, of awkwardness,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20of anxiety. Munch, the great painter of The Scream.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24And, in a sense, I think Hammershoi is responding to the same world
0:46:24 > 0:46:28that they were responding to, a world of urban alienation.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32Friedrich Nietzsche's declaration that God is dead.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34But tellingly, Hammershoi the Dane,
0:46:34 > 0:46:37he doesn't scream,
0:46:37 > 0:46:38he whispers.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54Hammershoi shrinks the world to the space of a room
0:46:54 > 0:46:56where you could hear a pin drop.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01But these aren't just paintings of interiors.
0:47:01 > 0:47:05I think they're paintings of a state of mind, the Danish mentality.
0:47:07 > 0:47:09Fearful? Perhaps.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12Introverted, certainly,
0:47:12 > 0:47:15focused only on what's close at hand...
0:47:15 > 0:47:17hearth and home.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31So what happened next?
0:47:31 > 0:47:34Well, that's another fairy story.
0:47:34 > 0:47:39But this time, there'd be no more kings or emperors, no tin soldiers.
0:47:40 > 0:47:45Denmark entered the 20th century determined to stay out of trouble
0:47:45 > 0:47:47and put its own little house in order.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52It's as if the whole nation turned away from the outside world.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57This is the Funen Village,
0:47:57 > 0:48:01just outside Hans Christian Andersen's hometown of Odense.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05It quirkily encapsulates a very Danish form of nostalgia.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13The houses here were all built long ago and it was only in
0:48:13 > 0:48:16the 20th century that they were brought together into this
0:48:16 > 0:48:21heritage museum, with quacking ducks and people in historic fancy dress.
0:48:21 > 0:48:24Morning, morning.
0:48:25 > 0:48:28I think the village is what many Danes
0:48:28 > 0:48:30would like Denmark itself to be...
0:48:32 > 0:48:35..a self-sufficient fairytale world,
0:48:35 > 0:48:39safe from whatever fires might burn elsewhere.
0:48:39 > 0:48:44It was made by a people who still remembered 1864 and all that.
0:48:49 > 0:48:51What is this museum?
0:48:51 > 0:48:55A beautifully maintained memorial
0:48:55 > 0:49:00to the lives of the common man and woman.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05The whole place is like a living film set.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08Well, it is a film set of the past.
0:49:08 > 0:49:13The Danish historical drama 1864 was largely shot in these rooms.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16But I also think the whole museum is a very potent symbol
0:49:16 > 0:49:20of the very modern Danish national psyche.
0:49:20 > 0:49:25Much of it was created in the 1940s at the height of World War II.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29Denmark was neutral, invaded, occupied,
0:49:29 > 0:49:31it had its resistance...
0:49:31 > 0:49:35Dark times but they still found time to create this,
0:49:35 > 0:49:39a celebration of ordinary, peaceful, domestic life.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44A celebration of the beauty of small.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58In the dominion that shrank and shrank and shrank,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01welcome to the littlest Denmark of all.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07Lego Denmark,
0:50:07 > 0:50:10the safest country in the world...
0:50:16 > 0:50:19..where anyone can build whatever house they want.
0:50:22 > 0:50:24There's heavy industry, but no pollution.
0:50:29 > 0:50:33There's a royal palace, but it's only waist-high.
0:50:37 > 0:50:41And I wonder if this isn't more than just child's play.
0:50:41 > 0:50:45I wonder if Lego doesn't actually make rather a big statement
0:50:45 > 0:50:47about the way the Danish imagination works.
0:50:50 > 0:50:53There is something rather quaint about Lego.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57It represents the very opposite of modern computer play.
0:50:57 > 0:51:01Single, alienated children glued to their screens,
0:51:01 > 0:51:03killing imaginary foes.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07Lego brings mother and daughter, father and son together
0:51:07 > 0:51:10to create something good, something beautiful.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13You might say it turns the modern playroom
0:51:13 > 0:51:17into a mini version of Danish democratic society.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22Lego is Scandinavia's most famous global export and you could say
0:51:22 > 0:51:28it represents 20th century Denmark's one attempt at imperialism.
0:51:28 > 0:51:30But what a benevolent form of imperialism.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33Play well, play together!
0:51:41 > 0:51:46This spirit of togetherness, this love of the small and the safe,
0:51:46 > 0:51:50is reflected everywhere in modern Denmark, including the language.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55There's a key word in Danish - "hygge",
0:51:55 > 0:51:58meaning intimate,
0:51:58 > 0:52:00cosy,
0:52:00 > 0:52:01comfortable.
0:52:06 > 0:52:08I think it helps to explain why,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11here in Denmark during the modern period,
0:52:11 > 0:52:14they never set out to shock or disgust anyone,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16to turn taste on its head.
0:52:17 > 0:52:22Instead, they redesigned objects for the ordinary home,
0:52:22 > 0:52:26elevating them to the status of works of art.
0:52:30 > 0:52:32Are you sitting comfortably?
0:52:32 > 0:52:34Then I'll begin.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45Danish modern furniture was designed to be comfortable, affordable,
0:52:45 > 0:52:47this was furniture for all,
0:52:47 > 0:52:50practical, useful, but also beautiful.
0:52:50 > 0:52:55And, on a day like this, when the Scandinavian sun is low in the sky,
0:52:55 > 0:52:59you've got this wonderful transverse lighting,
0:52:59 > 0:53:03you can really appreciate how these chairs and tables
0:53:03 > 0:53:08were also conceived by their makers as sculptural objects,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11and yet, they're for the home.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16The elegance of Poul Kjaerholm's stone table,
0:53:16 > 0:53:20a simple disc cut from the finest material,
0:53:20 > 0:53:22just placed there for our contemplation.
0:53:22 > 0:53:29Wegner's beautiful day bed with its shark's teeth angling mechanism
0:53:29 > 0:53:33for the head rest, these beautiful struts of wood
0:53:33 > 0:53:37which are part practical but part sculptural, very much so.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40Arne Jacobsen's famous egg chair.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44I feel as if I'm sitting in an egg.
0:53:44 > 0:53:46It's absolutely beautiful,
0:53:46 > 0:53:50but I think it's also very distinctively Danish.
0:53:50 > 0:53:55How does the modern spirit express itself in different nations
0:53:55 > 0:53:58and what does that tell us about them?
0:53:58 > 0:54:01Think of American modern art,
0:54:01 > 0:54:06the grand sublimities of Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko
0:54:06 > 0:54:09or the ironic commentaries of Andy Warhol
0:54:09 > 0:54:11on consumer capitalist society.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16Think of German post-war art, full of a sense of disenchantment
0:54:16 > 0:54:20with all the atrocities of the 20th century.
0:54:20 > 0:54:22There's none of that here.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25There's no strong sense of irony,
0:54:25 > 0:54:29or tragedy, or mystery, or misery.
0:54:29 > 0:54:33What there is, I think, is a determination to get on with
0:54:33 > 0:54:38ordinary daily life and to make absolutely the most of it,
0:54:38 > 0:54:42to find and make beauty in your own corner of the world
0:54:42 > 0:54:45and in your own home.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48Danish modernism is hygge modernism.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58For the Danes, small really is beautiful.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05And maybe that's the moral of their fairy tale.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10Some little chicks aren't cut out to grow into swans.
0:55:12 > 0:55:16In fact, staying small suits them very well.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24And the ideal of the small, the homely hygge spirit,
0:55:24 > 0:55:28which lies at the heart of 20th century Denmark...
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Well, I think it's wonderful.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32Certainly worth dwelling on.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40And there's one building which, in my opinion,
0:55:40 > 0:55:44expresses that Danish spirit more perfectly than any other.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54A parish church, named after the great Enlightenment educator
0:55:54 > 0:55:57Nikolai Grundtvig, in the suburbs of Copenhagen.
0:56:14 > 0:56:18Is this modern Denmark's most beautiful building?
0:56:18 > 0:56:19Well, I think so.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23And it's also a space that enables us to measure the huge distance
0:56:23 > 0:56:27that separates the old baroque, absolutist Denmark
0:56:27 > 0:56:30to the Denmark of today.
0:56:30 > 0:56:36Think back to where I started off in the chapel of Christian IV
0:56:36 > 0:56:41in Frederiksborg Castle, a space full silver and gold
0:56:41 > 0:56:45and rich ornamentation, but also a space essentially created
0:56:45 > 0:56:50for the contemplation of one single man.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55This is a cathedral for everyone.
0:56:55 > 0:56:57A cathedral for the people.
0:56:57 > 0:57:00Every inch of it breathes the spirit of inclusiveness.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05It's made from six million bricks,
0:57:05 > 0:57:11roughly the same number of bricks as there are people in modern Denmark.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16It represents the modern Danish love of modular construction,
0:57:16 > 0:57:19given a spiritual impetus.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23This is, so to speak, holy Lego.
0:57:26 > 0:57:29Also the Danish love of modern design -
0:57:29 > 0:57:32the convenient, homely modern chair
0:57:32 > 0:57:36is wedded to a spirit of high idealism.
0:57:36 > 0:57:40And it reminds me very much of something that Grundtvig himself
0:57:40 > 0:57:42once said. He said,
0:57:42 > 0:57:47"Man is not an ape, to ape himself or others,
0:57:47 > 0:57:51"He is a being of incomparable divine beauty,
0:57:51 > 0:57:55"whose task it is, through generation after generation,
0:57:55 > 0:57:59"to participate in a great divine experiment."
0:58:00 > 0:58:04And I think that, too, is what this space expresses.
0:58:04 > 0:58:07So long as the chairs are all empty,
0:58:07 > 0:58:10the building is not complete, it demands a congregation.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14What it says is that the higher good,
0:58:14 > 0:58:19whether that be our sense of God or our sense of society,
0:58:19 > 0:58:22requires the participation of all.
0:58:22 > 0:58:27This world is what we make it, but we all have to make it together.
0:58:27 > 0:58:30And what could be more Danish than that?
0:58:34 > 0:58:37# There once was an ugly duckling
0:58:37 > 0:58:41# With feathers all stubby and brown
0:58:41 > 0:58:45# And the other birds in so many words said
0:58:45 > 0:58:48# Quack! Get out of town
0:58:48 > 0:58:52# Quack! Get out Quack! Quack! Get out
0:58:52 > 0:58:55# Quack! Quack! Get out of town
0:58:55 > 0:58:58# And he went with a quack And a waddle and a quack
0:58:58 > 0:59:02# In a flurry of eiderdown... #