0:00:04 > 0:00:08NEWSREEL: 'I wish with all my heart that everyone fighting in this war
0:00:08 > 0:00:09'and above all those...'
0:00:09 > 0:00:13Sunday the 15th of April, 1945,
0:00:13 > 0:00:16the last days of the Second World War.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20'..barbed wire fence that leads to the inner compound of the camp...'
0:00:20 > 0:00:23The British Army were advancing towards Berlin,
0:00:23 > 0:00:27and as they picked their way through the remnants of the Nazi regime,
0:00:27 > 0:00:31they made an appalling discovery.
0:00:34 > 0:00:38'I drove slowly above the Belsen concentration camp
0:00:38 > 0:00:42'and found myself in the world of a nightmare.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46'As we went deeper, we saw more of the horror of the place
0:00:46 > 0:00:47'and I realised that what...'
0:00:47 > 0:00:50These horrific images
0:00:50 > 0:00:53sent shock waves through the western world.
0:00:53 > 0:00:58They seemed to challenge all of our basic assumptions,
0:00:58 > 0:01:01that civilisation was civilised,
0:01:01 > 0:01:06and that deep down human nature was good, not wicked.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11But how could you possibly believe those things after this?
0:01:13 > 0:01:16These scenes forced an entire generation
0:01:16 > 0:01:19to look deep within itself
0:01:19 > 0:01:22and confront the biggest questions of them all.
0:01:22 > 0:01:25What does it mean to be human
0:01:25 > 0:01:28and how, after this tragedy,
0:01:28 > 0:01:31how could we build a more humane world?
0:01:37 > 0:01:39I believe that in Britain,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43some of the most resonant answers to those questions
0:01:43 > 0:01:45came from our painters.
0:01:47 > 0:01:52The inheritors of a powerful and uniquely British tradition.
0:01:52 > 0:01:56They used their art to go where few others dared.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01They explored our capacity for cruelty
0:02:01 > 0:02:03and violence.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10They exposed the delusions of the consumer age.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17And they led us away from fear and anxiety,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21teaching us to relish the pleasures of life once again.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25But as the world finally recognised
0:02:25 > 0:02:29the importance of these British masters,
0:02:29 > 0:02:30we turned against them.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35And today, our great painting tradition
0:02:35 > 0:02:37is in peril.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04The horrific events of the Second World War,
0:03:04 > 0:03:08left scars on the human consciousness.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17Never before had people seen evil on such a vast scale.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23Never before was man capable of his total annihilation.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28Never before did the future of humanity
0:03:28 > 0:03:30seem so fragile.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39And it was one of our most penetrating painters,
0:03:39 > 0:03:43who would capture the anxiety of his age.
0:03:49 > 0:03:55Until his death, Lucian Freud lived and worked in Britain,
0:03:55 > 0:04:01but he had originally come here as a refugee from Nazi Germany
0:04:01 > 0:04:05and the horrors he had escaped, haunted much of his early painting.
0:04:09 > 0:04:15This is a portrait of Freud's first wife, Kitty, from 1947.
0:04:16 > 0:04:23It's so delicate and so much love and care has gone into making it
0:04:23 > 0:04:28and she is like a little Virgin Mary of the twentieth century.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32But the closer you look, you begin to realise
0:04:32 > 0:04:35this is a deeply disturbing modern picture
0:04:35 > 0:04:38that's poised on a knife edge between beauty and horror,
0:04:38 > 0:04:43between perfection and catastrophe.
0:04:46 > 0:04:51Every part of it is quietly unsettling.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56Kitty's big beautiful green eyes are glazed over
0:04:56 > 0:04:58like those of the dead.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Her hair is electrified
0:05:01 > 0:05:04into this thatch of agitated energy,
0:05:04 > 0:05:07and even the little kitten stares out at us
0:05:07 > 0:05:10like some kind of implacable enemy.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13But it's the way she holds it that's most disturbing of all,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16because where one expects to find tenderness,
0:05:16 > 0:05:21all you get is her throttling the poor animal's neck.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23And you get this feeling
0:05:23 > 0:05:27that something truly awful is about to happen.
0:05:39 > 0:05:44Freud had articulated the anxiety of post-war Britain,
0:05:44 > 0:05:46though he offered no salvation.
0:05:48 > 0:05:55But alone in the wild landscape of Wales, one painter was to try.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00Graham Sutherland was a kind of gentleman artist
0:06:00 > 0:06:03and a romantic at heart.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10In the 1930s, he'd explored the coast of Pembrokeshire obsessively,
0:06:10 > 0:06:14and he found in it a seductive and mysterious beauty
0:06:14 > 0:06:17that he lovingly expressed in his art.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25Every time he came to Pembrokeshire,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29which he did about three times a year, I'd go down and meet him.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32What fascinated me was the fact
0:06:32 > 0:06:34that he was so well dressed for these walks.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36He did have quite smart gum boots.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40He had checked trousers, nice covert coat,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44discussing nonstop, all the time, every little facet,
0:06:44 > 0:06:49organic, stones, rocks, lichen etc.
0:06:50 > 0:06:53See, this is what I can paint, you know.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58We sort of discussed everything, all facets of life.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01GRAHAM SUTHERLAND: If I go for a walk in the country,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04there are millions of things around me.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08But one reacts to certain things only.
0:07:08 > 0:07:15One notices just those things which happen to move one's senses.
0:07:17 > 0:07:19One has the idea.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26But after the Second World War,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Sutherland's work would undergo a radical shift.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36Sutherland had been walking this landscape for years.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42To him, it seemed to be a beautiful and peaceful paradise,
0:07:42 > 0:07:46a kind of haven from the modern world,
0:07:46 > 0:07:51and a place that always seemed to cure him of his deepest worries.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53But this time, things were different.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56This time, everywhere he looked,
0:07:56 > 0:08:01he saw reminders of the brutal world in which he lived.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19Sutherland became most obsessed with thorn trees, like this one.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23He thought they were the perfect metaphor for everything
0:08:23 > 0:08:26that had gone wrong with the world in his lifetime.
0:08:26 > 0:08:32They reminded him of the barbed wire of the concentration camps,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35of instruments of human torture,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39and the sharp lines of military hardware.
0:08:39 > 0:08:45For Sutherland, a tiny natural form like this little thorn,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48symbolised a cruel and broken world,
0:08:48 > 0:08:52in which atrocity was ever present,
0:08:52 > 0:08:57and in which nature and man was doomed to destroy itself.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10GRAHAM SUTHERLAND: These thorn trees seemed to be a subject on their own.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17A piece where the points of the thorns pierce the air,
0:09:17 > 0:09:19mark out space,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24were to me like a piece of open sculpture.
0:09:26 > 0:09:32If you meet this man, he's charm, he's lovely, he's intelligent.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37He's sort of Renaissance in a way. He's interested in everything,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41music, architecture, painting, people...
0:09:41 > 0:09:45but then he's painting spiky.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47And you think, "I wonder why?"
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Because the spikiness and the sensitivity
0:09:50 > 0:09:52of the man and the painting
0:09:52 > 0:09:54doesn't quite go together.
0:09:56 > 0:09:57But I quite like that.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01It's the precarious tension, as he calls it, of opposites.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08I did thorn trees, thorn heads,
0:10:08 > 0:10:14again based on this original sickle shaped idea,
0:10:14 > 0:10:16which you see all over the county.
0:10:22 > 0:10:27I find Sutherland's thorn paintings dark and disturbing pictures.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32But he realised that if he was to fully confront
0:10:32 > 0:10:36and express the brutal age in which he was now living,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39landscape painting was simply not enough.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44He felt that now he had no choice, but to tackle the biggest
0:10:44 > 0:10:48and most powerful subject in the history of western art.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59BELL RINGS, CHORAL MUSIC
0:10:59 > 0:11:05In 1945, Sutherland came to this church, St Matthew's in Northampton.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15Here, he would conceive of a monumental painting,
0:11:15 > 0:11:20a piece he hoped would speak to an anxious and bewildered nation.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23...God's grace, mercy and peace be with you.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26CONGREGATION RESPONDS
0:11:30 > 0:11:34Sutherland concluded that only one subject could truly express
0:11:34 > 0:11:39the horrors of his own age, and that was the Crucifixion.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42He'd never painted anything like it before - he was, after all,
0:11:42 > 0:11:47a landscapist - but he was determined to do it, and do it well.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50So determined that he built a crucifix in his studio,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53strung himself up against it with some rope,
0:11:53 > 0:11:56and sketched himself in the mirror as he hung there.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00That way, he reasoned, his crucifixion would be more real,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03and more honest than any that had gone before it.
0:12:05 > 0:12:06SUTHERLAND: The commissioning of the painting
0:12:06 > 0:12:09was suggested by the Vicar of St Matthew's, Cannon Hussey.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13The picture was finished by the end of 1946,
0:12:13 > 0:12:17and hung in the transept of St Matthew's Church, Northampton.
0:12:20 > 0:12:21And here it is.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24This is as close to an old master painting
0:12:24 > 0:12:27as you can get in the 20th century.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30Sutherland has taken the most influential theme of them all,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33the subject of all those great medieval sculptures
0:12:33 > 0:12:38and Renaissance paintings, and he's converted it, masterfully,
0:12:38 > 0:12:42I think, into a gruesome salute to a genocidal world.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44Look at Christ's suffering.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48Look at the contorted hands.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53Look at the gasping ribcage, look at the stretched limbs.
0:12:53 > 0:12:56It's these limbs that Sutherland would have seen
0:12:56 > 0:12:58as he crucified himself in his studio.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03And look, the crown of thorns. Those thorns again.
0:13:03 > 0:13:05This isn't a landscape painting,
0:13:05 > 0:13:09but the memory of Pembrokeshire is still there.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13And in all this suffering, and in all this pain,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17Sutherland, I think, wants us to see the bodies at Belsen,
0:13:17 > 0:13:20the burnt victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
0:13:20 > 0:13:25and the countless murdered soldiers and civilians around the globe.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31All the world's sins, combined, condensed, distilled,
0:13:31 > 0:13:33into one suffering body.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40But, the whole point of the Crucifixion
0:13:40 > 0:13:44is that Christ triumphs over death, his suffering isn't in vain.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47Even now, there is hope in despair
0:13:47 > 0:13:51and there is some goodness left in a wicked world.
0:13:58 > 0:14:01Sutherland's masterpiece chimed well
0:14:01 > 0:14:04with an emerging spirit in post-war Britain.
0:14:07 > 0:14:13Amidst the austerity there came hope that a new Jerusalem could be built
0:14:13 > 0:14:15from the ashes of war.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22This was the vision of Prime Minister, Clement Attlee,
0:14:22 > 0:14:25and he began creating a welfare state
0:14:25 > 0:14:26to provide a standard of living
0:14:26 > 0:14:30that previous generations could only have dreamt of.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38But there was one place that showed little interest
0:14:38 > 0:14:42in Attlee's Utopian vision.
0:14:48 > 0:14:52Soho was a kind of netherworld,
0:14:52 > 0:14:57a nefarious haven of criminals, chancers and ne'er-do-wells,
0:14:57 > 0:15:02who revelled in all the illicit pleasures that London could offer.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11And at its very centre was one of our most notorious artists.
0:15:11 > 0:15:15For him, salvation was an illusion.
0:15:16 > 0:15:22He only believed in fear, pain and desire.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26His name, was Francis Bacon.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29IN TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:
0:15:51 > 0:15:54Bacon was the son of an Irish racehorse trainer,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57but he fled home as a teenager
0:15:57 > 0:16:01after his father found him trying on his mother's underwear.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04He then embarked on a dissolute and promiscuous youth,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08dominated by alcohol, drugs and sadomasochism.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12And it was these sordid pleasures and pains of the flesh
0:16:12 > 0:16:15that he decided to explore in his art.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30IN TRANSLATION FROM FRENCH:
0:16:37 > 0:16:42The violence in his life was matched by the way he worked.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45Bacon had no formal training,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49he painted with intuition and intensity,
0:16:49 > 0:16:53using walls as pallets, clothes as brushes,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56and destroying anything that failed to please him.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05But his secret lay in found imagery,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08which he devoured and distorted in his art.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20And when it came to his breakthrough painting,
0:17:20 > 0:17:23Bacon, like Sutherland before him,
0:17:23 > 0:17:28turned to the most evocative subject in western art.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31But his approach was very different.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35What is the difference in the attitude
0:17:35 > 0:17:37when you start on a crucifixion?
0:17:37 > 0:17:43Well, you're working then about your own feelings and sensations, really.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47You might say it's almost nearer to a self-portrait,
0:17:47 > 0:17:53that you are working on all sorts of very private feelings
0:17:53 > 0:17:57about behaviour and about the way life is.
0:18:00 > 0:18:06Bacon's crucifixion is not about Jesus, it is about us.
0:18:11 > 0:18:13While Sutherland paints the heroic figure of Christ,
0:18:13 > 0:18:19Bacon paints grotesque figures at the base of the Crucifixion.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Here's one weeping on the side, another one
0:18:22 > 0:18:25grimacing with the teeth showing, and a rather disgusting figure here,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28baying for blood.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32And while Sutherland believes that in the end things will get better,
0:18:32 > 0:18:39Bacon tells us there is no better, this is all there is.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44No wonder everyone who saw this in the 1940s was shocked
0:18:44 > 0:18:49to their very core, and no wonder people still see this
0:18:49 > 0:18:52as one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56But I have a confession to make.
0:18:57 > 0:19:02I don't think it's a masterpiece. I think it's badly painted,
0:19:02 > 0:19:06I think it's cliched, and I think it's too obviously strident
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and too obviously monstrous.
0:19:09 > 0:19:14You know, it's very easy for artists to scare us, to horrify us,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18but it's very, very difficult for them to move us and to touch us.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23And I think that Bacon had a long, long way to go,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27before he could truly represent the sorry lot of humanity.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36From his paint-splattered studio,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Bacon continued his lonely exploration
0:19:39 > 0:19:42of the darkness that lay at the heart of humanity.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57But there was another side to Bacon's complex personality
0:19:57 > 0:19:59that very few would ever see.
0:20:01 > 0:20:07Right at the first sitting, it struck me immediately
0:20:07 > 0:20:14how warm and kind and enthusiastic he was.
0:20:15 > 0:20:21Here was, in my view, the greatest living painter in the world.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26And I was a student, basically.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29But he treated me totally as an equal.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35And he was so sweet, you know? So nice and normal,
0:20:35 > 0:20:40and not anything like the Francis that I'd read about.
0:20:42 > 0:20:50I do resent films and books that depict only Francis
0:20:50 > 0:20:54as some kind of masochistic sexual predator.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58He wasn't.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00He really wasn't.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03He was trying to express in his work
0:21:03 > 0:21:08the awfulness of what human beings have to experience.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Francis lived through a time
0:21:14 > 0:21:19when somebody needed to say what he said.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30In 1971, Bacon was awarded with a major retrospective
0:21:30 > 0:21:33at the Grand Palais,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35the most prestigious exhibition hall in Paris.
0:21:40 > 0:21:44The only other living painter to have been honoured in this way
0:21:44 > 0:21:45was Picasso.
0:21:48 > 0:21:51It was to be the pinnacle of Bacon's career.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Bacon had brought with him to Paris his boyfriend,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10a low-life Londoner called George Dyer,
0:22:10 > 0:22:15who Bacon had apparently met while Dyer was burgling his apartment.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20A passionate relationship ensued between the two men,
0:22:20 > 0:22:24but here, as Bacon expected his greatest triumph,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28that relationship would bring about a tragedy.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52On the eve of the grand opening,
0:22:52 > 0:22:57Bacon was out celebrating his success with the rich and famous,
0:22:57 > 0:23:02while George Dyer was left to drink alone at a cafe round the corner.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11After a night of heavy drinking,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14Dyer finally found his way back to this hotel,
0:23:14 > 0:23:20and he waited alone for Bacon to return.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32Dyer had a history of depression and self-harm,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35but we'll never know exactly what went through his mind
0:23:35 > 0:23:37that night in this hotel room.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43What we do know is that shortly after returning here,
0:23:43 > 0:23:45he decided to swallow a lethal cocktail
0:23:45 > 0:23:49of anti-depressants, amphetamines and barbiturates.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57The pain started immediately, so Dyer staggered into the bathroom
0:23:57 > 0:24:00and tried to vomit the pills back into this sink.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02But it was too late.
0:24:13 > 0:24:18This extraordinary footage of the exhibition opening
0:24:18 > 0:24:22was taken just hours after Bacon had found his lover dead.
0:24:37 > 0:24:43That's the one where he suddenly thought of George.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52And there was like this frozen moment...
0:24:52 > 0:24:56and his eyes just welled with tears.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02And he was far, far away.
0:25:10 > 0:25:16I think it was only now, in grief, that Bacon truly felt the pain
0:25:16 > 0:25:19that he'd been seeking to explore in his art.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25And he began a series of memorials to his dead lover,
0:25:25 > 0:25:29which I believe are his finest achievements in painting.
0:25:32 > 0:25:34This is one of Bacon's memorials to Dyer,
0:25:34 > 0:25:38and it's very much an attempt to bring him back to life.
0:25:38 > 0:25:40These two canvasses on the side,
0:25:40 > 0:25:43these are portraits of Dyer sitting down in his underwear,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45just as he used to do when he was alive,
0:25:45 > 0:25:48and staying the night at Bacon's apartment.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50And this middle painting,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53this is a great celebration of their relationship,
0:25:53 > 0:25:55and they're making love.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58But the closer you look at this painting,
0:25:58 > 0:26:03the less certainty you find, the less optimism you find.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07Look again at these portraits - the eyes are closed,
0:26:07 > 0:26:11the body is scarred, wounded and mutilated and bleeding,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14and even here, in this remarkable passage of painting,
0:26:14 > 0:26:17being eaten away by the shadows that surround it.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20It's almost here as though a hand has reached out from behind
0:26:20 > 0:26:24and is pulling Dyer back into the void.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27This is an intensely dramatic piece of painting.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32You can see Bacon is really fighting a desperate battle,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35desperately trying to paint his lover back to life,
0:26:35 > 0:26:37as death is painting him away.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44And look again at this middle painting -
0:26:44 > 0:26:46are they really making love?
0:26:46 > 0:26:49Or is this a fatal embrace of the living and the dead?
0:26:49 > 0:26:52Bacon's last desperate, grief-ridden embrace
0:26:52 > 0:26:55with someone who's gone already?
0:26:57 > 0:26:59What a painting this is.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03What a devastating meditation on the human condition.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09Suddenly this feeling develops, that humans are nothing more than
0:27:09 > 0:27:11the flesh and fluids from which they're made,
0:27:11 > 0:27:17that despite all our pretensions, all life is, is desire and death,
0:27:17 > 0:27:20and that, try as we might to make our lives meaningful,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24all we are is lonely and fragile creatures,
0:27:24 > 0:27:27fighting in vain against the night.
0:27:31 > 0:27:32In his masterpiece,
0:27:32 > 0:27:37Bacon had finally expressed the hopelessness of life.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42But his was a message not everyone wanted to hear.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47# Hey, have you heard about... #
0:27:47 > 0:27:50JAUNTY TUNE PLAYS
0:27:50 > 0:27:53# ..Yes, for smoking that you're bound to like... #
0:27:53 > 0:27:55'You see, Dristan tablets shrink swollen...'
0:27:55 > 0:27:57ROMANTIC MUSIC PLAYS
0:27:57 > 0:27:59From across the Atlantic,
0:27:59 > 0:28:02a new idea of salvation had taken root.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04'Come to where the flavour is.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07'Come to Marlboro country.'
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Happiness, health and freedom were available to everyone.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15All they had to do was go shopping.
0:28:15 > 0:28:16Hi, kids!
0:28:16 > 0:28:18This is the watch.
0:28:18 > 0:28:20In the charm and colour of natural gold...
0:28:20 > 0:28:25The imagery of consumerism was everywhere,
0:28:25 > 0:28:29and no-one, not even our painters, could fail to be seduced.
0:28:29 > 0:28:33Your mouth feels clean, your throat refreshed.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36The snow-fresh coolness of cool.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39All of these things were so much more exciting
0:28:39 > 0:28:44than those dusty old paintings at the Royal Academy.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48Why not make paintings about Coca-Cola and motorcars
0:28:48 > 0:28:52and aeroplanes and band aids and corn flakes?
0:28:52 > 0:28:55Surely these things were just as valid subjects for art,
0:28:55 > 0:28:57as all that other stuff?
0:28:58 > 0:29:01Things go better with Coke after Coke after Coke.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09One man was determined to examine this onslaught of images,
0:29:09 > 0:29:13and his name was Richard Hamilton.
0:29:13 > 0:29:17The influence of America was very strong at that time in England,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21and I simply felt the need for artists becoming concerned
0:29:21 > 0:29:22with the world about them,
0:29:22 > 0:29:26their own environment, their own visual environment,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29and trying to find some solution to this problem.
0:29:30 > 0:29:35In 1956, Hamilton joined forces with a maverick group
0:29:35 > 0:29:37of artists, architects and thinkers.
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Together they formed the Independent Group,
0:29:43 > 0:29:46and they set themselves a very ambitious task.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52Hamilton and his group wanted to investigate every aspect
0:29:52 > 0:29:55of the new consumer culture that was taking over Britain.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58They wanted to know what food people were eating,
0:29:58 > 0:30:00what magazines they were reading...
0:30:00 > 0:30:02Hamilton's favourite was Playboy.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05..what they were speaking about on the telephone,
0:30:05 > 0:30:06listening to on the radio,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09and what they were watching on the newest invention of them all,
0:30:09 > 0:30:11the television set.
0:30:11 > 0:30:13# TV is the thing this year... #
0:30:17 > 0:30:20'Anyone who thinks abstract artists are too abstract
0:30:20 > 0:30:23'should drop in at the Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition
0:30:23 > 0:30:25'devoted to collaboration between architects,
0:30:25 > 0:30:27'painters and sculptors.'
0:30:27 > 0:30:29To tell the world about their work,
0:30:29 > 0:30:32the Independent Group put on an exhibition
0:30:32 > 0:30:36and they called it This Is Tomorrow.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41'But don't be too sure our houses won't look like this tomorrow.
0:30:41 > 0:30:42'Anything can happen.
0:30:44 > 0:30:47'Remember, you probably wouldn't have believed yesterday
0:30:47 > 0:30:50'what is happening today.'
0:30:50 > 0:30:52Frankly, their efforts would largely have been forgotten
0:30:52 > 0:30:57had it not been for Hamilton's contribution.
0:30:57 > 0:31:01A piece of work that would catapult him to stardom
0:31:01 > 0:31:03and change art for good.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07And this is it. It's called, rather wonderfully,
0:31:07 > 0:31:11Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?
0:31:11 > 0:31:13It consists of all the different things
0:31:13 > 0:31:16that Hamilton thought defined the modern age.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19It's a kind of distillation of all his research.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23So, you've basically got everything there - a comic book on the wall,
0:31:23 > 0:31:25a Ford motor car sign on the lampshade,
0:31:25 > 0:31:28a television, a telephone, some tinned food,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32and I think "ham" is a kind of signature, short for Hamilton.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35You've got a couple of electrical appliances,
0:31:35 > 0:31:37and at the heart of this mass-produced Garden of Eden
0:31:37 > 0:31:40are of course its very own Adam and Eve -
0:31:40 > 0:31:44a body-builder and a glamour model.
0:31:44 > 0:31:48And they're made beautiful by the products that surround them.
0:31:48 > 0:31:52And this is Hamilton's profound answer to the question
0:31:52 > 0:31:53of what makes us human.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56We are, he declares, what we buy.
0:32:00 > 0:32:04But Hamilton wanted to go further and look deeper
0:32:04 > 0:32:07into the mechanisms of the consumer world.
0:32:07 > 0:32:11# I walk
0:32:11 > 0:32:16# Where once the grass was green. #
0:32:16 > 0:32:21And there was one product which excited his inquisitive mind
0:32:21 > 0:32:23like no other.
0:32:26 > 0:32:30# ..What bird could sing
0:32:30 > 0:32:34# Whose eyes have seen
0:32:34 > 0:32:38# Broken blossoms
0:32:38 > 0:32:40# On the field of war? #
0:32:40 > 0:32:42The motor car.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44Now, in the 1950s almost everyone had them,
0:32:44 > 0:32:49but for Hamilton, their sparkling chromes and curvaceous lines
0:32:49 > 0:32:53made them the grand public sculptures of the mid-20th century.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58And he was determined to immortalise them in paint.
0:33:03 > 0:33:08But the motor car would become the subject of his most cryptic
0:33:08 > 0:33:10and penetrating painting.
0:33:10 > 0:33:17# ..Then have died so many dreams... #
0:33:17 > 0:33:21It's called Hommage A Chrysler Corp,
0:33:21 > 0:33:24and Hamilton gave it a French title solely in order
0:33:24 > 0:33:27to make fun of all those pretentious paintings
0:33:27 > 0:33:30that'd been coming out of Paris for years.
0:33:30 > 0:33:35Now, you can see quite clearly the car. There is the chrome bumper,
0:33:35 > 0:33:40there we've got the headlamps and its pink wing.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42But this painting isn't ABOUT the motor car.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45Hamilton's far cleverer than that.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48Look more closely and you begin to notice
0:33:48 > 0:33:54this shadowy figure of a woman with bright-red lipstick
0:33:54 > 0:33:57leaning over the car's bonnet.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01Now why? Why has Hamilton included such a strange figure here?
0:34:01 > 0:34:03I think he's done it
0:34:03 > 0:34:05because that's precisely what the car companies did.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Their adverts always included
0:34:08 > 0:34:13a glamorous and scantily clad woman draped over their products.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17That way, their products would become irresistible
0:34:17 > 0:34:19to gullible male consumers like me.
0:34:19 > 0:34:23So, what Hamilton's painting is not just the car.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27He's painting how we consumers are manipulated into buying things
0:34:27 > 0:34:30that we don't need, we don't want
0:34:30 > 0:34:32and we certainly can't afford.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36If you want to know what Hamilton actually thinks about this,
0:34:36 > 0:34:37there is one clue,
0:34:37 > 0:34:41and that's this little form sneaking out from underneath the bumper.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46That, Hamilton tells us, is a jawbone, part of a skull.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50And when you see that, suddenly the whole painting begins to change,
0:34:50 > 0:34:55and a secret image begins to emerge from the obvious image.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59Suddenly, the whole car becomes a skull.
0:34:59 > 0:35:04You can see here, I hope, the eye socket, the nostril,
0:35:04 > 0:35:06the mouth, the jaw bone.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12Underneath the glamorous surface of the consumer age,
0:35:12 > 0:35:14things aren't so pretty.
0:35:28 > 0:35:31But in a town far, far away
0:35:31 > 0:35:34from the flash car showrooms of London,
0:35:34 > 0:35:35there lived a boy.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41Unlike Hamilton, he wanted to believe in
0:35:41 > 0:35:44the Utopian promises of the 1950s,
0:35:44 > 0:35:47and he was convinced they could liberate him
0:35:47 > 0:35:50from the shackles of his upbringing.
0:35:53 > 0:35:58David Hockney was born in Bradford in 1937.
0:35:58 > 0:36:03His parents were old-fashioned working-class do-gooders.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06They raised their children as devout Methodists,
0:36:06 > 0:36:12and refused to allow even drinking or smoking in the family home.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17But from an early age, it was clear that David didn't quite fit in.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24David Hockney's school reports speak volumes.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27And they're very funny, too, and I'm going to read a few.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Divinity - "Does not concentrate and disturbs others".
0:36:32 > 0:36:34In Geography - "Too casual".
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Maths - "His efforts have been spasmodic."
0:36:38 > 0:36:40In French, this is particularly good -
0:36:40 > 0:36:45"Negligible progress, only the occasional gleam of understanding".
0:36:45 > 0:36:49But my favourite part of the report is from the headmaster,
0:36:49 > 0:36:50and he writes,
0:36:50 > 0:36:52"He will be glad to establish himself
0:36:52 > 0:36:55"as a sincere and serious person
0:36:55 > 0:36:57"by steady work and merit."
0:36:57 > 0:37:01That's my favourite, because David Hockney's idea of merit
0:37:01 > 0:37:04couldn't have been more different.
0:37:04 > 0:37:08David actually wanted to be... an artist.
0:37:10 > 0:37:14But not everyone in Bradford appreciated his talents.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17That's when I first met Hockney,
0:37:17 > 0:37:21a student helping the post office
0:37:21 > 0:37:23deliver all their parcels and letters.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28It wasn't a hard job, and by lunchtime, usually, we'd finished,
0:37:28 > 0:37:33and so we tended to park the wagon up and go into hiding a little bit
0:37:33 > 0:37:36till about 3pm, and then we'd sit in the back of this wagon
0:37:36 > 0:37:39and Hockney would be there with his sketchpad,
0:37:39 > 0:37:41and he'd say, "What do you think of this?"
0:37:41 > 0:37:46And I'd look at them and I thought, "Well, these are rubbish." Yeah!
0:37:48 > 0:37:51Bradford wasn't a Bohemian city.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54It wasn't a city particularly for the arts...
0:37:54 > 0:38:01and it wasn't a city for individualism, really.
0:38:01 > 0:38:05If you wore a tie that was a little bit bright,
0:38:05 > 0:38:07people would...you know.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10I think David didn't look any different
0:38:10 > 0:38:13to any other student that was on the Christmas post,
0:38:13 > 0:38:18and I suppose that's because he didn't WANT to look any different.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21We conformed. We conformed.
0:38:24 > 0:38:25By his early 20s,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29Hockney realised that if he was to ever succeed as an artist,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33he had to leave his home town behind him and make his way instead
0:38:33 > 0:38:36to somewhere that was just about to get swinging.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45In 1959, at the age of 20,
0:38:45 > 0:38:49David won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London.
0:38:56 > 0:39:00At the time, the Royal College was the cosmopolitan heartbeat
0:39:00 > 0:39:02of British avant-garde
0:39:02 > 0:39:06and as far away from Bradford as you could possibly get.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11# Oh, oh, and then you move it slow
0:39:11 > 0:39:14# When lights are low
0:39:16 > 0:39:17# Now, you got something... #
0:39:19 > 0:39:24David Hockney re-invented himself almost overnight.
0:39:24 > 0:39:25He bleached his hair,
0:39:25 > 0:39:29he bought himself some now-famous circular spectacles,
0:39:29 > 0:39:34and he started to wear some very strange clothes.
0:39:34 > 0:39:39The V-neck yellow tank top, pistachio-green polo shirt,
0:39:39 > 0:39:45and within just months, little David from Bradford
0:39:45 > 0:39:47had become the living embodiment
0:39:47 > 0:39:51of Britain's entire youth counter-culture movement.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08'But between parties, David did find time for some painting.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16'At the Royal College, he started making pictures
0:40:16 > 0:40:18'that were as uninhibited as his lifestyle.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24'The amorous embrace of two lovers.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28'And confessions of childhood crushes.
0:40:35 > 0:40:36'David was gay,
0:40:36 > 0:40:40'and at the Royal College, he used his paintings to come out.
0:40:47 > 0:40:49CRACKLY RADIO BROADCAST
0:40:53 > 0:40:54'But in the 1960s,
0:40:54 > 0:40:58'David's desires were actually still illegal.'
0:41:02 > 0:41:06'To satisfy them, he had to look beyond Britain.'
0:41:06 > 0:41:08RADIO: ..I would like to help people be cured of,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10where it occurs.
0:41:11 > 0:41:14'Hockney's favourite magazine was this one,'
0:41:14 > 0:41:15Physique Pictorial,
0:41:15 > 0:41:18published in Los Angeles
0:41:18 > 0:41:22but available in all specialist London newsagents.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26This is the May 1958 edition,
0:41:26 > 0:41:27and it shows, well,
0:41:27 > 0:41:31I mean, it shows a lot of naked male bodies,
0:41:31 > 0:41:36bodies that are somehow freed from the laws of anatomy.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40I mean, it really is, when you look at it, rather absurd,
0:41:40 > 0:41:43but these butch Californian bodies
0:41:43 > 0:41:47convinced Hockney that if he wanted to liberate himself,
0:41:47 > 0:41:49California was the place to go.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52'In January 1964,
0:41:52 > 0:41:57'David Hockney visited Los Angeles for the first time.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00'He fell instantly in love
0:42:00 > 0:42:03'with the beautiful place and its beautiful people.'
0:42:05 > 0:42:06I thought this is the place.
0:42:06 > 0:42:09I thought it's so sexy, all these incredible boys.
0:42:09 > 0:42:11Everybody wore little white socks then.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14It's always sunny.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17It's got all the energy of the United States
0:42:17 > 0:42:19with the Mediterranean thrown in.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25'Hockney started to paint Los Angeles as an earthly paradise.'
0:42:26 > 0:42:31It's a bit like Europe in the sense it's like a sunny, naked version
0:42:31 > 0:42:35of the Portobello Road with more healthy people.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43'Emerald-green lawns are sprinkled with hypnotic elegance.
0:42:43 > 0:42:50'Young men shower in clean, modern interiors
0:42:50 > 0:42:54'and housewives pose in impeccably furnished homes.'
0:43:04 > 0:43:06Marvellous shadow.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09'But nothing about California
0:43:09 > 0:43:13'excited Hockney quite like its swimming pools.'
0:43:16 > 0:43:20The interesting thing about water
0:43:20 > 0:43:22is it's something you can't quite define, isn't it?
0:43:22 > 0:43:25It's, uh, unclear yet clear.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30And somehow the problem of depicting it
0:43:30 > 0:43:32becomes a wonderful way of
0:43:32 > 0:43:36thinking of graphic terms and devices.
0:43:38 > 0:43:43Somehow it's a subject that's got a lot of richness there.
0:43:46 > 0:43:49Now they've gone right in the shadow, though.
0:43:49 > 0:43:51Come back over here where the light is.
0:43:53 > 0:43:58'And a swimming pool was the setting for David's most famous painting.'
0:44:01 > 0:44:02A Bigger Splash.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04It's only called that
0:44:04 > 0:44:08because Hockney painted two smaller splashes before it.
0:44:08 > 0:44:09Now people often ask me
0:44:09 > 0:44:13why this painting is so enduringly popular,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16and I think first it's very, very beautiful.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18The whole thing is about balance -
0:44:18 > 0:44:22the balance between the top half and the bottom half,
0:44:22 > 0:44:25between the horizontals and the verticals,
0:44:25 > 0:44:27between the pinks and the blues,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30and of course between order and chaos.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34The whole thing has been painstakingly calculated
0:44:34 > 0:44:38to create a sense of visual perfection.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Nothing has been left to chance.
0:44:40 > 0:44:42In fact I feel that the whole thing
0:44:42 > 0:44:45is like a kind of piece of frozen music,
0:44:45 > 0:44:47and that makes it endlessly fascinating to look at.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52It is of course about the moment forever captured,
0:44:52 > 0:44:54those couple of seconds when the splash
0:44:54 > 0:44:55is right up in the air.
0:44:55 > 0:44:59But at the same time it's about the moment forever missed.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02Ironically, the only human presence in this painting
0:45:02 > 0:45:03isn't present at all,
0:45:03 > 0:45:05because he or she
0:45:05 > 0:45:07has just disappeared under the water.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10That creates a sense of suspense.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13It's like a whodunnit without an ending.
0:45:13 > 0:45:14You know something -
0:45:14 > 0:45:17I feel that if I look, at this painting long enough,
0:45:17 > 0:45:20the splash will subside and a little human head
0:45:20 > 0:45:22will pop out from underneath the water.
0:45:24 > 0:45:25But it hasn't happened yet.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30But I think the real reason this painting is so popular
0:45:30 > 0:45:34is because it's unashamedly optimistic.
0:45:34 > 0:45:38It's about paradise found, captured and bottled forever
0:45:38 > 0:45:40for our delectation.
0:45:40 > 0:45:41It's about happiness.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44It's about Hockney finally finding a place
0:45:44 > 0:45:46where he could be himself and where he could be free.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49And who wouldn't like a painting that's about that?
0:45:51 > 0:45:54Aren't we all searching for our own version of this?
0:46:18 > 0:46:19'In just 20 years,
0:46:19 > 0:46:24'British painters had led the nation on a path of discovery.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30'They had taken us on a journey from despair...
0:46:32 > 0:46:33'..to optimism.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38'It was a golden age of creativity.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42'But it was about to come to an end.'
0:46:49 > 0:46:54'In the late 1960s, students across Europe revolted.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00'America, the great hope of the west,
0:47:00 > 0:47:01'was mired in the Vietnam conflict
0:47:03 > 0:47:06'and Britain sank into economic depression.
0:47:09 > 0:47:14'The young wanted to revolutionise the entire cultural landscape.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21'They embraced the new trends of conceptual art...
0:47:25 > 0:47:28'..and declared painting officially dead.'
0:47:36 > 0:47:38'The crisis in painting
0:47:38 > 0:47:42'was captured in the tragic story of one man.
0:47:44 > 0:47:50'This fleeting fragment is the only film that exists
0:47:50 > 0:47:51'of Keith Vaughan.'
0:47:58 > 0:48:01Vaughan was one of the most respected artists of his day.
0:48:01 > 0:48:06Keeping company with Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13For Vaughan, painting was not old fashioned,
0:48:13 > 0:48:17it was fundamental to understanding human nature.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25Vaughan felt that painting the human figure again and again
0:48:25 > 0:48:29and again, would grant him an insight into the deepest truths
0:48:29 > 0:48:31of the human condition.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36Now he didn't exactly know how, but he did know that
0:48:36 > 0:48:38if he got it right, his paintings would not just be helpful and
0:48:38 > 0:48:42therapeutic to him, but they could potentially benefit the whole world.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59With his figure paintings, his manscapes...
0:49:02 > 0:49:06Um, yeah, I've always felt that he's got this group,
0:49:06 > 0:49:08and wanted to... He was exploring,
0:49:08 > 0:49:11looking for something that was missing in his life,
0:49:11 > 0:49:13I'm sure he was.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16You get that feeling with some of his paintings, don't you?
0:49:16 > 0:49:19That, you know, they obscure, the figures disappear,
0:49:19 > 0:49:23and...I don't understand them really.
0:49:23 > 0:49:25You just feel them.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29'Vaughan's most telling work
0:49:29 > 0:49:33'was a piece he called The Ninth Assembly of Figures.'
0:49:35 > 0:49:40This is actually a deeply ambitious painting, that intends
0:49:40 > 0:49:43to chronicle the whole cycle of human life,
0:49:43 > 0:49:45and at the same time draw on an incredibly rich tradition
0:49:45 > 0:49:48of European painting.
0:49:48 > 0:49:49It begins here with this figure
0:49:49 > 0:49:54who's said to be a self-portrait of Vaughan with a foetus pose,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56so this is the beginning of life.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59You then have these three figures who all represent different aspects
0:49:59 > 0:50:00of adult life.
0:50:00 > 0:50:04This figure here is based on the sort of active world,
0:50:04 > 0:50:07and is based on the ancient Greek javelin thrower.
0:50:07 > 0:50:11This figure represents sexuality, so this is the adult life.
0:50:11 > 0:50:13This is based on the crucifixion
0:50:13 > 0:50:17and of course it reminds us of Graham Sutherland and Francis Bacon.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22And here, most dark of all, a figure who's already died.
0:50:22 > 0:50:27So this picture shows a belief in the power of painting.
0:50:27 > 0:50:29He believed this kind of painting
0:50:29 > 0:50:32could not just reveal what life was all about,
0:50:32 > 0:50:35what its journeys were, what its hopes were, what its desires were.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37He believed that by looking at these paintings
0:50:37 > 0:50:39you could understand yourself,
0:50:39 > 0:50:42and he could understand himself better.
0:50:45 > 0:50:49It's a great testament to Keith Vaughan's ambition.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54But there is a little part of this painting
0:50:54 > 0:50:58that suggests that ambition may have been in vain.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01But that clue is not at the front of this painting.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03It's on the back.
0:51:08 > 0:51:13Vaughan has included an excerpt from one of Charles Baudelaire's poems.
0:51:13 > 0:51:15And it says here in French:
0:51:15 > 0:51:18"What is this sad and black island?
0:51:18 > 0:51:21"It's Cythera, someone tells us, the land of our songs,
0:51:21 > 0:51:26"the banal Eldorado of all the old boys.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29"Look, after all, it isn't much of a place."
0:51:33 > 0:51:38This little extract on the back, this little scribbling of writing
0:51:38 > 0:51:43that you might never see, for me reveals so much.
0:51:43 > 0:51:47Eldorado, of course, was one of those great legendary paradises,
0:51:47 > 0:51:53the kind of paradise that Hockney had found in California.
0:51:53 > 0:51:54But with this little excerpt,
0:51:54 > 0:51:59Vaughan tells us that paradise is non-existent,
0:51:59 > 0:52:02that happiness is impossible,
0:52:02 > 0:52:07and that his own grand ambitions of a universal humanistic painting,
0:52:07 > 0:52:11the kind of painting that's on the other side of this canvas,
0:52:11 > 0:52:13will always be unachievable.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21As new artists emerged, with fashionable new ideas,
0:52:21 > 0:52:26Vaughan felt hopelessly out of date.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30And all his anxieties are recorded in minute detail
0:52:30 > 0:52:37in his remarkable diaries, which he kept for his entire adult life.
0:52:38 > 0:52:43"I look at my work, the result of some 40 years' effort and hope,
0:52:43 > 0:52:47"and there's the result of five or six at the most,
0:52:47 > 0:52:51"and it's I who feel defeated. For it turns out that toffee papers,
0:52:51 > 0:52:54"cereal packages, and mass media wrappings and publicity
0:52:54 > 0:52:57"are the most vital, significant and fertile aspects
0:52:57 > 0:52:59"of the age we live in.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03"I live in it too, and I just don't feel that way.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06"I feel like a stranded dinosaur,
0:53:06 > 0:53:10"because all the values I've lived by now count for nothing.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16"If this is what it was all going to lead to, one need not have bothered."
0:53:20 > 0:53:23With his increasingly marginal place in the art world,
0:53:23 > 0:53:30failing health, and loneliness, Keith Vaughan became overwhelmed.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35On 4th November 1977,
0:53:35 > 0:53:40he sat down and wrote a truly extraordinary entry in his diary.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47"The capsules have been taken with some whisky.
0:53:47 > 0:53:50"What is striking is the unreality of the situation.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52"I feel no different,
0:53:52 > 0:53:55"but suddenly the decision came that it must be done.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00"It's a bright sunny morning, full of life,
0:54:00 > 0:54:04"such a morning as many people have died on.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08"I cannot believe I have committed suicide.
0:54:08 > 0:54:13"Since nothing has happened, no big bang, or cut wrists.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16"65 was long enough for me.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20"It wasn't a complete failure, I did some..."
0:54:20 > 0:54:25And it's at that point that his words taper off.
0:54:31 > 0:54:33His back was to us, he was at his table.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37I just remember that he was really neatly dressed,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40and his jacket was very soft, cos I touched it.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45And, um, the pen was still in his hand on that last entry of his diary,
0:54:45 > 0:54:48and he was dead.
0:54:51 > 0:54:54I mean, I really loved Keith, it was great. A very close...
0:55:02 > 0:55:06Vaughan, I think, had been defeated in his ambition to find meaning
0:55:06 > 0:55:08in his life through painting.
0:55:08 > 0:55:14But his suicide wasn't just a personal tragedy.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18I think it spelled the end of a great era of British painting
0:55:18 > 0:55:22that stretched all the way back to the early 20th century.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31It seems to me that today,
0:55:31 > 0:55:35the British painting tradition has been sidelined,
0:55:35 > 0:55:38consigned to the margins,
0:55:38 > 0:55:43while the often vapid creations of younger artists steal the limelight.
0:55:46 > 0:55:49Of the few that upheld that tradition,
0:55:49 > 0:55:51one towered above them all.
0:55:51 > 0:55:56He was the man who began this programme,
0:55:56 > 0:55:58and will now end it.
0:55:58 > 0:56:00Lucian Freud.
0:56:02 > 0:56:06In a career spanning 70 years, right up to his death,
0:56:06 > 0:56:12he shunned fame, disregarded money, and devoted himself unwaveringly
0:56:12 > 0:56:17to painting the reality and the beauty of the human body.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31This is probably my favourite of the many nudes that Lucian Freud
0:56:31 > 0:56:33painted in his career.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36It's so epic, it's so monumental.
0:56:36 > 0:56:40He somehow seems to make even cellulite seem heroic.
0:56:40 > 0:56:43And you know, standing here is really like standing
0:56:43 > 0:56:45in front of an Old Master painting.
0:56:45 > 0:56:50You know, it's difficult to believe this was painted in 1988.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55I like to think of it as a kind of defiant statement.
0:56:55 > 0:56:59I think Lucian Freud is telling us that in an age of celebrity gossip
0:56:59 > 0:57:03and popular entertainment, that the quiet,
0:57:03 > 0:57:09and the thoughtful and the understated still count.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11And I think he's trying to tell us
0:57:11 > 0:57:14that in an ever-changing and disorientating world,
0:57:14 > 0:57:19that the only thing that remains constant is us.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23And I think he's also saying that in a world in which pickled sharks
0:57:23 > 0:57:27and unmade beds count as art,
0:57:27 > 0:57:32that painting, good old-fashioned painting, is still standing.
0:57:40 > 0:57:45I don't know if our painting tradition will disappear forever,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47or be reborn.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55But whatever the future many be, we cannot forget the past.
0:57:55 > 0:58:01Because the 20th century was Britain's greatest artistic century.
0:58:03 > 0:58:11It was a time of inspiration, dedication, and daring.
0:58:14 > 0:58:17And I think it stands alongside
0:58:17 > 0:58:21some of Europe's greatest artistic achievements.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26There, for all future generations to admire.
0:58:47 > 0:58:50Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:50 > 0:58:52E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk