0:00:05 > 0:00:09In the 20th century something strange happened to art.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13Traditions that had held good for centuries
0:00:13 > 0:00:15suddenly felt badly out of date.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22And a new breed of artists emerged to smash them to pieces.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24EXPLOSION
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Now they've gone right in the shadow, though.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33Come back over here!
0:00:33 > 0:00:37This new breed ripped apart the old categories of art.
0:00:39 > 0:00:41They embraced film and photography.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46And startling new materials.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50When the people ask me, "What does it mean?"
0:00:50 > 0:00:53Art is not there to be understand.
0:00:54 > 0:00:56And something else had changed.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00For the first time television allowed artists
0:01:00 > 0:01:02to talk about their work to a mass audience.
0:01:04 > 0:01:05What kept you going then?
0:01:05 > 0:01:08I can't say, just I kept going, something made me keep on going.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11I couldn't stop, I couldn't stop when I was young.
0:01:11 > 0:01:15In this series, we'll be digging deep into the BBC archives
0:01:15 > 0:01:19to hear the story of 20th century art first hand
0:01:19 > 0:01:21from the artists themselves.
0:01:23 > 0:01:26Why did you choose to live as artists?
0:01:26 > 0:01:29It was not our choice. We are driven to be artists.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33In this first episode,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37we'll meet the artists who came of age after the First World War.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42A generation who tore up the rule book of art
0:01:42 > 0:01:44and began a revolution.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Pablo Picasso, who reinvented painting.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00Salvador Dali, who stunned the world with surrealist fantasy.
0:02:00 > 0:02:05Dali is not crazy at all.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Rene Magritte laid bare dark areas of the psyche.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22While Man Ray dreamt up new possibilities for photography.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25I never think about art
0:02:25 > 0:02:29and I don't think the old masters ever thought they were creating art.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34In their wake art would never be the same.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37This is how they did it, in their own words.
0:02:53 > 0:02:56Paris - 1907.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59City of elegance, and capital of taste.
0:03:02 > 0:03:05Yet, in a street in a seedy part of town, a young man
0:03:05 > 0:03:10was about to subject good taste to a full frontal assault.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17Set in a brothel,
0:03:17 > 0:03:22Les Demoiselles d'Avignon slashed to shreds polite ideals of painting.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30Five prostitutes stare out from a canvas
0:03:30 > 0:03:35that deliberately sabotaged hallowed laws of decorum and beauty.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43Painted in a fever of creativity, mostly at night,
0:03:43 > 0:03:47it was the work of an extraordinary 25-year-old.
0:03:48 > 0:03:50Pablo Picasso.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55Born in Malaga in southern Spain in 1881,
0:03:55 > 0:03:59he was precocious and explosively talented.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06But it was with his arrival in Paris as a young man
0:04:06 > 0:04:11that Picasso began to redefine art for the 20th century.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14Picasso was amazingly prolific.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17This person, this kind of animal, that churns out ideas
0:04:17 > 0:04:22and feelings, and playfulness, and changes their style,
0:04:22 > 0:04:26and has loads of relationships and sits in cafes and talks
0:04:26 > 0:04:29about politics, and is constantly dabbling in all this stuff.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33He sort of set the standard about what it was
0:04:33 > 0:04:35to be a contemporary artist.
0:04:39 > 0:04:44Picasso's cubist paintings shattered the laws of perspective.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50His portraits reached new levels of intensity.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58While more than any other artist of his age,
0:04:58 > 0:05:00he revelled in the power of sex.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07Picasso understood Spanish painting, he understood Italian painting,
0:05:07 > 0:05:09he understood the French tradition
0:05:09 > 0:05:13and absorbed it all like this most fantastic kind of sponge
0:05:13 > 0:05:18and then spat it all out again in his own absolutely inimitable way.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23And then at the same time looked where nobody looked before,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27and managed to find, a kind of what we could almost say was,
0:05:27 > 0:05:30the equivalent of the fourth dimension.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36A born self-publicist with a flair for finding the spotlight,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40Picasso nonetheless rarely gave filmed interviews.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45On one occasion late in his career, a French film crew
0:05:45 > 0:05:47managed to speak to the great man.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50Yet instead of his art,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53Picasso seemed happier discussing other subjects.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27But if Picasso rarely spoke on camera, there was one occasion
0:06:27 > 0:06:31when he allowed a unique window onto his creative process.
0:06:32 > 0:06:38In 1956, legendary French director Henri-George Clouzot asked Picasso
0:06:38 > 0:06:41if he could film him at work.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44The artist would paint onto translucent paper
0:06:44 > 0:06:48so the camera could see his creativity unfold.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50Picasso agreed.
0:07:00 > 0:07:02- Attention. Tu es pret?- Oui.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08One of the things about Picasso was that he was quite a showman.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10He did like to present himself,
0:07:10 > 0:07:13He was very aware of his own image, I am Picasso, the great artist.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17And although he became more and more reclusive as he got older,
0:07:17 > 0:07:21I mean, he was never quite above, you know, a bit of showmanship.
0:07:21 > 0:07:24SPANISH GUITAR MUSIC
0:08:04 > 0:08:05Tres bien. C'est fini.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13But if Picasso set out to reshape art for the 20th century,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15he wasn't doing it alone.
0:08:17 > 0:08:18He had a rival.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25Far from the Parisian metropolis,
0:08:25 > 0:08:27on the sun-drenched south coast of France,
0:08:27 > 0:08:32another artist was pursuing his own revolutionary vision.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37But he was to prove even more controversial.
0:08:40 > 0:08:45Henri Matisse was born in French Flanders in 1869.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49The son of a seed merchant, Matisse was introduced to art
0:08:49 > 0:08:52when his mother brought him a box of paints while he was ill in hospital.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59His early paintings were conventional northern still lifes.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03But it was the 25-year-old Matisse's move to the south of France
0:09:03 > 0:09:06that truly unlocked his dazzling gifts.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27Matisse always said he was painting his emotion.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32And what he was painting was something that came
0:09:32 > 0:09:35from inside himself, it was an interior kind of painting.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43He was not at all interested in reproducing the surface of reality.
0:09:43 > 0:09:46He wanted to paint its inner reality.
0:09:49 > 0:09:53Matisse's new works were great hymns to harmony and tranquillity.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59But back in Paris they were anything but calmly received.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06He was rejected by the art schools, he was rejected by all the dealers,
0:10:06 > 0:10:09he was certainly rejected by the public.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12And people fell into the habit in Paris you would,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15for a Sunday outing, it was like going to the circus.
0:10:15 > 0:10:16Instead of going to the circus
0:10:16 > 0:10:18you'd go to the Salon des Independants
0:10:18 > 0:10:22and you'd take your girlfriend, and you'd tell her dress up,
0:10:22 > 0:10:24and when you got there and opened the door you could always tell
0:10:24 > 0:10:28where the Matisses were because the jeers and the cat calls,
0:10:28 > 0:10:30the screams and the howls, and the roaring of laughter
0:10:30 > 0:10:33were always loudest in front of the Matisse.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39Lacking Picasso's swagger, Matisse felt the abuse keenly
0:10:39 > 0:10:41and shrank from public exposure.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45But an exception occurred late in his career
0:10:45 > 0:10:48when, in 1946, he allowed a documentary film crew
0:10:48 > 0:10:51the privilege of watching him at work.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Matisse was asked when he'd been happiest in his career.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21Quelle est la periode de votre vie qui a ete pour vous la plus agreable?
0:11:47 > 0:11:51It's a good analogy and he used it quite often,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55that of a mother and her unfavoured and unfortunate child.
0:11:56 > 0:12:00Yes, that can create a very intense bond between mother and child,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03but it also causes very great suffering to the mother.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Matisse suffered a lot from this absolute rejection by everybody,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10including the people whom he most respected.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15The criticisms continued throughout Matisse's career,
0:12:15 > 0:12:20and by his 70s, ill health meant he was too frail to stand at an easel.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26But neither of these stopped him reinventing himself once again.
0:12:33 > 0:12:39By cutting out paper, Matisse made his final voyages into pure colour.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52This new way of seeing was a dazzling coda
0:12:52 > 0:12:55to the rebellion begun in the very first years of the century.
0:13:30 > 0:13:31But there was one young artist
0:13:31 > 0:13:35for whom Matisse and Picasso's revolutions hadn't gone far enough.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42In April 1917 a vast contemporary art exhibition
0:13:42 > 0:13:44opened in New York City.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50The show's open admissions policy meant of the 2,500 works submitted,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54every piece was accepted and put on display.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58Every piece, that is, except one.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06The work that got the thumbs down was a porcelain urinal, laid flat
0:14:06 > 0:14:10and signed with the mysterious name, R. Mutt.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13The title of the piece was Fountain.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16And it has become one of the most influential works of art
0:14:16 > 0:14:18ever created.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22The initial thing to a lot of people is that it is a urinal
0:14:22 > 0:14:25so, therefore, it is seen as quite transgressive
0:14:25 > 0:14:28and it is literally, you know, taking the piss.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33The artist behind the anonymous work was Marcel Duchamp,
0:14:33 > 0:14:35a young Frenchman living in the city.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40So, he had that sort of initial idea of,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43I'm going to take this thing I've just bought from a plumber's merchant
0:14:43 > 0:14:46and put it into the art gallery and challenge the art establishment
0:14:46 > 0:14:50of the day, to see how liberal and accepting they can really be.
0:14:50 > 0:14:56Also he's making reference to the ideas of what is sculptural.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01We can see the sculptural not just in things in an art gallery,
0:15:01 > 0:15:03but they're in everything.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10As well as his Fountain, Duchamp selected other ordinary objects,
0:15:10 > 0:15:14signed them, and declared them to be works of art.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18He called them the Readymades.
0:15:22 > 0:15:25And once this simple gesture had been made,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28the genie could never be put back in the bottle.
0:15:31 > 0:15:36Suddenly, the material of the world, virtually everything
0:15:36 > 0:15:41becomes expressively potential material for artists
0:15:41 > 0:15:45and that totally transforms the nature of human expression.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52Duchamp stunned his followers in the 1920s
0:15:52 > 0:15:55by apparently abandoning art altogether
0:15:55 > 0:15:57and turning his attention to chess.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03So who was this mysterious man, and what had been his intentions?
0:16:07 > 0:16:11In 1968, the BBC arts programme, Late Night Line-Up,
0:16:11 > 0:16:13was given the opportunity to find out.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20The task fell to their young presenter, Joan Bakewell.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24They'd dumped us in what had been the weather forecasting studio
0:16:24 > 0:16:27which was enormously tiny, very cramped,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30and you can see that he and I are knee to knee
0:16:30 > 0:16:33and that this work of art of his, the Bottle Rack,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36is standing close up next to him.
0:16:36 > 0:16:37Very often every day...
0:16:37 > 0:16:39I knew that he had given up art,
0:16:39 > 0:16:41so I thought he might be rather reluctant.
0:16:41 > 0:16:44I was delighted, in fact, that he was so voluble and talkative.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47What you were also attempting to do, as I understand it,
0:16:47 > 0:16:52was to devalue the art as an object simply by saying,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56"If I say it's a work of art that makes it a work of art".
0:16:56 > 0:17:01Yeah, but the word, work of art, you see is not so important for me.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05I don't care about the word 'art' because it's been so,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10you know, discredited and so forth.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12But you in fact contributed to the discrediting, didn't you,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14quite deliberately.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18Deliberately, yes, so I really want to get rid of it.
0:17:18 > 0:17:23Because the way many people today have done away with religion.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28'You can't make a statement about art, and remain within art.'
0:17:28 > 0:17:30There was a paradox about what he was doing.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33He was destroying it, and he was remaining within it
0:17:33 > 0:17:36and he knew that, and he knew that I knew, and so did the audience.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42His work may have seemed like a paradox,
0:17:42 > 0:17:44but to Duchamp it was very simple.
0:17:44 > 0:17:46The old art had been swept away,
0:17:46 > 0:17:50replaced by his idea that anyone could be an artist.
0:17:50 > 0:17:53You said in the '20s, you proclaimed - art is dead.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55It isn't, is it?
0:17:55 > 0:17:58Yes, but that's what I meant by that, you see.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01I meant that it's dead
0:18:01 > 0:18:04by the fact that instead of being singularised
0:18:04 > 0:18:09in a little box like that, so many artists in so many squares,
0:18:09 > 0:18:14it would be universal in anyone's life to be an artist
0:18:14 > 0:18:17but not noticed as an artist. You see what I mean, the difference?
0:18:17 > 0:18:21- Marcel Duchamp, thank you very much. - Well, I'm delighted.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27The democratic ticket that Duchamp offers us
0:18:27 > 0:18:30is that everything in the world that has been made by humans
0:18:30 > 0:18:32is interpretable.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37And that actually true value comes from the fact
0:18:37 > 0:18:42that we do half of the work and we have to continually interpret
0:18:42 > 0:18:46those objects that we have made around ourselves
0:18:46 > 0:18:47in order to derive that meaning.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52That's our job and that's what, in a way, art can give us to do.
0:18:55 > 0:18:56That's a beautiful thought.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58It's very generous.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04I think Duchamp was absolutely essential, you know,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08he literally kick-started a certain strand of thinking in art
0:19:08 > 0:19:10and kind of hovered there the whole time.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16We are all the children of Duchamp in many ways.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Duchamp's Fountain had begun a revolution that would become
0:19:20 > 0:19:23known as conceptual art.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27But this revolution was put on hold by an event that threatened
0:19:27 > 0:19:29to destroy art altogether.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36The First World War was tearing Europe apart.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46Could artists offer anything in the face of mechanised slaughter?
0:19:49 > 0:19:51The answer was to come from the darkest moments
0:19:51 > 0:19:53of the conflict itself.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58Max Ernst was a soldier in the German artillery.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02Born near Cologne in 1891,
0:20:02 > 0:20:05he served on both the Western and Eastern Fronts
0:20:05 > 0:20:07and was wounded in action.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Ernst had been a promising artist before the war.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14But the conflict changed everything.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22For Ernst, the art of the past was parlour decoration
0:20:22 > 0:20:26for the generation that had marched its children to war.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29He was to take things in a startling new direction.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41It's easy nowadays
0:20:41 > 0:20:44to not understand how original those pictures were,
0:20:44 > 0:20:46but when he made them in the early 1920s
0:20:46 > 0:20:49they were like nothing anyone had ever seen before.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56As a student, Ernst had become deeply influenced
0:20:56 > 0:20:58by the work of Sigmund Freud.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08When you look at Ernst he is accessing
0:21:08 > 0:21:12some kind of collective unconscious.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16A kind of primeval world of fear and anxiety
0:21:16 > 0:21:20dominated by sexuality and death
0:21:20 > 0:21:23by the classic Freudian drives.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33He's trying to address the viewer's psyche and summon up darkness
0:21:33 > 0:21:35in a very, very immediate way.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45Ernst's dramatic explorations of the unconscious
0:21:45 > 0:21:48helped lay the foundation for one of the most important
0:21:48 > 0:21:51artistic movements of the 20th century.
0:21:53 > 0:21:54Surrealism.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01But what had driven Ernst to paint the way he did?
0:22:05 > 0:22:07In 1961, Ernst was interviewed
0:22:07 > 0:22:10on the BBC's flagship arts programme, Monitor.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16The British painter Roland Penrose was keen to understand
0:22:16 > 0:22:19why Ernst made such apparently irrational art.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23Who made world history?
0:22:24 > 0:22:26Not the most reasonable people.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29- The mad men did. - Yes, that's very true.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33So if a painting is the mirror
0:22:35 > 0:22:37of a time,
0:22:39 > 0:22:43it must be mad to have the true image of what time is.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50When Ernst says that art needs to be mad
0:22:50 > 0:22:53you have to bear in mind the kind of period that he was living through
0:22:53 > 0:22:57and the kind of crucible of the interwar period in particular,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00where you had the rise of the Popular Front
0:23:00 > 0:23:03to counter the rise of Fascism.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13I think that the early to mid point of the 20th century
0:23:13 > 0:23:17is, in a sense, the kind of high watermark of seeming irrationality
0:23:17 > 0:23:22and collective insanity on the part of social and political development.
0:23:28 > 0:23:33And I think individual artists like Ernst very much felt
0:23:33 > 0:23:35they had to respond to that.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39So the irrational in art is an absolutely essential ingredient,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42- do you think?- It is essential.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46- Yes, that sounds a very dangerous... - Everything is dangerous.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50Because if art is to be mad as politicians are mad...
0:23:50 > 0:23:54- No, no, no, we are mad in a very different way.- Yes, I suppose so.
0:23:54 > 0:23:57- Exactly the opposite.- That is the great difference, isn't it?
0:23:57 > 0:24:00- To one madness we oppose another madness.- Yes.
0:24:00 > 0:24:02He didn't look like the average surrealist,
0:24:02 > 0:24:05he looked very respectable, and like an academic.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08He always wore a tie and a tweed jacket.
0:24:08 > 0:24:12And yet beneath that utterly respectable exterior,
0:24:12 > 0:24:14you know, a madness dwelled.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17I mean he was as mad as any surrealist.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20In fact, he said that his work was about exploring
0:24:20 > 0:24:23the borderland between sanity and insanity, and he spent a lot of time
0:24:23 > 0:24:26in mental asylums for this reason because he was so interested in it.
0:24:32 > 0:24:35So that there is something always of a game in it, is there?
0:24:35 > 0:24:38There is a very strong game in it, of course.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42The one big danger is that you lose your mind.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Madness is always in the background and menaces you.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51But that is a risk that is worth taking?
0:24:51 > 0:24:54That is a risk worth taking, yes, sure.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58What would life be only, a life without any risk?
0:25:01 > 0:25:05Ernst's surrealist painting and collage work
0:25:05 > 0:25:07had unlocked a new visual world.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12In his wake, other artists would push his discoveries
0:25:12 > 0:25:14well beyond the confines of traditional art.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25With films like Entr'acte, irrationality and dreams
0:25:25 > 0:25:29started to flood the newer media of film and photography.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46In one scene, Marcel Duchamp can be seen playing chess on a rooftop.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49His opponent was an artist who,
0:25:49 > 0:25:52more than any other figure in the 20th century,
0:25:52 > 0:25:57broke down the boundaries between visual art, photography and film.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59Man Ray.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890,
0:26:07 > 0:26:10Man Ray was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18As a teenager he found work as an atlas designer
0:26:18 > 0:26:20and engraver of umbrella handles.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25But his dream was to be an artist,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28and failing to find success at home,
0:26:28 > 0:26:33in 1921 Man Ray set sail for the capital of the avant garde world.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43By the early '20s, Paris was a magnet
0:26:43 > 0:26:46drawing in radical artists from across the world.
0:26:53 > 0:26:59Interviewed on the BBC in 1972, Man Ray recalled his arrival.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03What was Paris like when you arrived?
0:27:03 > 0:27:06Oh, for me it was a new world.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09I didn't speak a word of French when I came here in '21.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15And I felt like a newborn baby after my struggles in America
0:27:15 > 0:27:19and rejections from the galleries and collectors.
0:27:20 > 0:27:23But from the very first day, Duchamp was already in Paris,
0:27:23 > 0:27:27and he took me around, and we met everybody.
0:27:27 > 0:27:31Looking back, I always have the feeling that the '20s and the '30s
0:27:31 > 0:27:34and the Surrealist movement, it was a great deal of fun.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37No, not at the time.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40People look back to it and think it was a marvellous period,
0:27:40 > 0:27:44romantic and all that sort, but, no, it was very tense.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48It was very bitter and there was no humour in it.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53But what we did was really to upset things.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00Galvanised by his new surroundings,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03Man Ray began to work across many artistic forms.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09The objects he displayed combined simple items to unsettling effect.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18While his dazzling discoveries in exposure and light
0:28:18 > 0:28:20transformed the possibilities of photography.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27The idea to go back and forth between photography,
0:28:27 > 0:28:32sculpture and painting was entirely new in the early 20th century.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36Normally, when an artist used photography,
0:28:36 > 0:28:38as many artists did, many painters did,
0:28:38 > 0:28:41they would use it only from the point of view of studies.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44Man Ray didn't to it that way. He decided that photography
0:28:44 > 0:28:48would be one of his arts, and he very often would sign
0:28:48 > 0:28:52and present photographs as finished works in their own right.
0:28:56 > 0:28:58And there was one more area in which Man Ray's
0:28:58 > 0:29:02surreal artistic creativity and technical brilliance could combine.
0:29:03 > 0:29:04Cinema.
0:29:06 > 0:29:11With films like Emak Bakia, Man Ray brought his restless experimentation
0:29:11 > 0:29:15and visual brilliance to bear on this still young medium.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39His incredible versatility dazzled his contemporaries.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47One described him as, "the man with the head of a magic lantern".
0:29:49 > 0:29:52Were you ever conscious of creating art?
0:29:52 > 0:29:55No. I never think about art.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59I don't think the old masters ever thought that they were creating art.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03They had to express the spirit of their times.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09'I think Man Ray was one of the people who gave us an idea
0:30:09 > 0:30:13'that if you see what the orthodoxy is and you say no.'
0:30:13 > 0:30:15Duchamp does the same thing.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18These are people who are engaged in resistance.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20They want to attack art
0:30:20 > 0:30:24because of what they see as its unreasonable limitations.
0:30:25 > 0:30:29You said once that, fortunately, there is no progress in art.
0:30:29 > 0:30:30What did you mean by that?
0:30:32 > 0:30:34Well, the only thing I, my answer to that was,
0:30:34 > 0:30:38just as there's no progress in the manner of making love.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42There are only different ways of doing it.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46I cannot do anything better than the old masters did.
0:30:46 > 0:30:51My only justification is that I do something different.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54When they ask me, "Do you still like the old masters?"
0:30:54 > 0:30:56I say, "I think they're wonderful."
0:30:56 > 0:30:59But my only justification is that I do something different.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02You ask the old masters what they think of my things,
0:31:02 > 0:31:06it may be much more interesting to hear their opinion.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10Looking back at your life, what would you say satisfied you most?
0:31:13 > 0:31:15I think women.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22Man Ray's photographs, films and unsettling objects
0:31:22 > 0:31:26were part of a wave of extraordinary Parisian creativity.
0:31:28 > 0:31:30In a few short years, the avant garde
0:31:30 > 0:31:34had revolutionised ideas of what it meant to be an artist.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40But how would such ideas go down across the Channel?
0:31:47 > 0:31:53In the early 1930s, British tastes in art were deeply conservative.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56The public had only just got used to Impressionism.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00And the exploits of Duchamp and the Surrealists
0:32:00 > 0:32:02might have occurred in a different universe.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09But there was one artist who set his own unique course -
0:32:09 > 0:32:11in a very British way.
0:32:20 > 0:32:24This is a film about a man who became an artist because he missed a train.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26This happened many years ago.
0:32:26 > 0:32:28He left the station in a Manchester suburb
0:32:28 > 0:32:32and started to walk up the Bolton Road, wondering what to do.
0:32:32 > 0:32:37As he took in the scene, he was filled with the urge to paint it.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40And at that moment, he decided to become an artist.
0:32:40 > 0:32:43His name is Lawrence Stephen Lowry.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56LS Lowry was born in Manchester in 1887.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Although passionate about drawing as a child,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02he bowed to parental pressure and got a job as a rent collector.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09But for 15 years, Lowry studied art in evening classes.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12And by the 1930s, he had begun to paint
0:33:12 > 0:33:15some of the defining images of the British 20th century.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23In 1957, the BBC filmed Lowry in Manchester.
0:33:24 > 0:33:29I really don't know why I paint these streets. I just paint them.
0:33:29 > 0:33:31That's all. As far as I can see.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36There's something about them that attracts me. A pictorial sense.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40But I do feel that the pictures that I like the best are
0:33:40 > 0:33:43pictures done entirely from...
0:33:43 > 0:33:45Call it imagination if you like.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47Building up scenes from the blank canvas.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52I like to do that the best, and I think myself that's more me
0:33:52 > 0:33:55than the pictures painted from the drawings.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03A reclusive man, Lowry didn't want to speak on camera,
0:34:03 > 0:34:05but discussed his work in a sound interview.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11People call them matchsticks, matchstick figures,
0:34:11 > 0:34:12they may be, I don't mind,
0:34:12 > 0:34:15if they like to call them matchstick figures,
0:34:15 > 0:34:17well, let them do it, I don't mind at all.
0:34:18 > 0:34:22Quite right, they're probably quite right, but it doesn't concern me.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25All I do is to paint figures as I see them.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30Lowry's paintings of everyday life were popular with the public.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33But perhaps for that reason,
0:34:33 > 0:34:37many in the art establishment treated him with disdain.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41One thing that people often say about Lowry is that he was
0:34:41 > 0:34:44a naive painter, he was an amateur painter, he was a Sunday painter.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47That is absolutely not the case.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50He was trained, he went to art school,
0:34:50 > 0:34:52he knew what was going on in the art of his time,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55he knew about Surrealism and all these things,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58and he did not paint men like matchsticks
0:34:58 > 0:35:00because he didn't know how to paint men properly.
0:35:00 > 0:35:02He was trying to find his own voice,
0:35:02 > 0:35:06and a voice that expressed what he was trying to say about the world.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16Like his cityscapes, Lowry's work in other forms -
0:35:16 > 0:35:19such as his portraits - received little critical attention.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Also less publicised was the encouragement Lowry gave
0:35:29 > 0:35:32to young painters on his visits to art schools.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36Lowry was invited to come to the Slade
0:35:36 > 0:35:41and I was one of the chosen ones, which was lovely.
0:35:41 > 0:35:46I took all my pictures into the room, and he stood there,
0:35:46 > 0:35:50with his belly, and he said - I can't do the accent -
0:35:50 > 0:35:56"I can't do that. I can't do that. This is very good."
0:35:56 > 0:35:59I liked that he liked what I was doing,
0:35:59 > 0:36:03it doesn't matter that it isn't modern or whatever.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07And he was very helpful to me. The only one, really.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16Lowry rarely spoke publicly about his own early years as a painter.
0:36:18 > 0:36:24But in a recently rediscovered BBC interview, originally shown in 1967,
0:36:24 > 0:36:27he explained what it was that first drove him to paint.
0:36:28 > 0:36:30I started off with the intention -
0:36:30 > 0:36:34I went to the industrial scene in Manchester and area
0:36:34 > 0:36:35from a residential side
0:36:35 > 0:36:38and I got very obsessed by it.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43And I felt that I'd like... I found that nobody had done it before,
0:36:43 > 0:36:47that was important, so I'd try and put it on the map
0:36:47 > 0:36:51as a real subject matter, a real subject matter.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55And I think I did that by about 1948 or '51
0:36:55 > 0:36:57and I was going to get out and stop.
0:36:57 > 0:36:59But I kept on, unfortunately.
0:36:59 > 0:37:01What kept you going then?
0:37:01 > 0:37:03I can't say. Just, I kept going, something made me keep on going,
0:37:03 > 0:37:06I couldn't stop, I couldn't stop when I was young.
0:37:11 > 0:37:14Eventually, Lowry found some acceptance
0:37:14 > 0:37:16by the arts establishment.
0:37:16 > 0:37:20Yet in life and art, he always remained a solitary figure.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29Well, I spent the whole of my life wondering what it all means.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32I can't understand it, don't understand it at all.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36I don't see any point in it myself.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39Still, there it is, you still keep on working,
0:37:39 > 0:37:42and you still keep on wondering what it all means,
0:37:42 > 0:37:45and it goes on and on and on, and there you are.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52Lowry's paintings revealed a man trying to carve out
0:37:52 > 0:37:55a style on his own defiantly original terms.
0:37:59 > 0:38:01Back in the London of the '30s,
0:38:01 > 0:38:04another painter was about to make an equally original debut.
0:38:05 > 0:38:10But this particular avant garde artist came from unlikely origins.
0:38:10 > 0:38:12The London season is getting under way,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15a fact that's important to the debutantes if not to you.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17So here's the exclusive picture
0:38:17 > 0:38:20of the exclusive Debutantes' Ball at Grosvenor House.
0:38:20 > 0:38:25She was a debutante. Recently presented at court to King George V.
0:38:31 > 0:38:36Leonora Carrington was the daughter of wealthy textile manufacturers,
0:38:36 > 0:38:39destined for a life of gilded confinement.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42But something else caught her eye.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49With the opening of a major exhibition in 1936
0:38:49 > 0:38:52the strange visual world of Surrealism
0:38:52 > 0:38:56finally arrived in Britain.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58The world of dreams is a strange world,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01which most of us visit only in our sleep.
0:39:02 > 0:39:06The whole aim of Surrealism is to explore this world,
0:39:06 > 0:39:09and to bring it into relation with our daily life.
0:39:11 > 0:39:14The 19-year-old Carrington was one of the thousands
0:39:14 > 0:39:17who flocked to the show.
0:39:17 > 0:39:18Inspired by the movement,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21she began producing her own Surrealist paintings.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36It's said that Leonora Carrington didn't paint her pictures -
0:39:36 > 0:39:39she brewed them up in a cauldron at midnight.
0:39:39 > 0:39:42And there is something of the dark arts about those paintings.
0:39:43 > 0:39:46It's almost like stepping onto the stage set
0:39:46 > 0:39:48of an Alice in Wonderland adaptation.
0:39:56 > 0:40:01In 1992, the BBC's Omnibus travelled to Mexico, where Carrington
0:40:01 > 0:40:06had been living in self-imposed exile for almost five decades.
0:40:06 > 0:40:12They wanted me to conform to the life of horses and hunt balls
0:40:12 > 0:40:18and being well considered by the local gentry,
0:40:18 > 0:40:20I suppose, that sort of thing.
0:40:21 > 0:40:24And were you supposed to go out into society?
0:40:25 > 0:40:29Yes, well, we... Don't you have debutantes in England still?
0:40:31 > 0:40:34What a marvellous thing, I didn't know. They scrapped it, did they?
0:40:39 > 0:40:41But if the Surrealists of the 1930s
0:40:41 > 0:40:43had provided Carrington with inspiration,
0:40:43 > 0:40:46there was one among them who changed her life.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53At this time Max Ernst was the sage of Surrealism.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00Carrington became intoxicated with his art,
0:41:00 > 0:41:03and met Ernst at a dinner party in 1937.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09She fell instantly in love with him, he fell instantly in love with her.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11And a few days later she went to see her father
0:41:11 > 0:41:15and said, "I want to go to Paris and live with Max Ernst."
0:41:15 > 0:41:17Her father said, "If you do I'll disown you."
0:41:17 > 0:41:19So she did, and he disowned her,
0:41:19 > 0:41:22and they never spoke again for the rest of their lives.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24And in 1937 she went to Paris with Max Ernst.
0:41:26 > 0:41:30When I was with the Surrealists I didn't have to fit into anything.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33I was in love,
0:41:33 > 0:41:38I was with someone who was also an extremely interesting person.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44Ernst was equally smitten.
0:41:45 > 0:41:47His Robing of the Bride
0:41:47 > 0:41:50is believed to have been inspired by his new lover.
0:41:51 > 0:41:56But was the former debutante being cast as yet another male stereotype?
0:41:59 > 0:42:03There was a very strong feeling that people like Carrington
0:42:03 > 0:42:06were kind of these creatures who inspired desire.
0:42:06 > 0:42:10They were just there to serve men's greater faculties
0:42:10 > 0:42:12and powers of imagination.
0:42:15 > 0:42:19She was the incarnation of so much of their, now to us,
0:42:19 > 0:42:24rather perverted ideas of women, and women's place, women's inspiration,
0:42:24 > 0:42:28the idea that the child woman, the "femme-enfant",
0:42:28 > 0:42:33was a door through which men like Max Ernst could enter
0:42:33 > 0:42:34these realms of gold
0:42:34 > 0:42:38where there would be all this rich erotic symbolism.
0:42:42 > 0:42:46But despite the alpha male circles in which she moved,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49Carrington wasn't intimidated.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53There's a story that she had people to stay the night,
0:42:53 > 0:42:56and when they were asleep she snuck into their room, cut off their hair,
0:42:56 > 0:43:01and then fed it to them in the form of an omelette the next morning.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05So she really entered into the spirit of Surrealism in the 1930s,
0:43:05 > 0:43:07and she was as strong a character as any of them.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15Shortly after painting this portrait of Ernst,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18Carrington's relationship with her lover was ended
0:43:18 > 0:43:21by their separation during the Second World War.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26Surviving a breakdown,
0:43:26 > 0:43:30Carrington went on to produce a series of extraordinary paintings,
0:43:30 > 0:43:33fuelled by her two years with the Surrealists.
0:43:39 > 0:43:41She was a national treasure in Mexico.
0:43:41 > 0:43:44She was a superstar in the United States.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46Her pictures fetched fortunes.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50And yet here in Britain, in the country of her birth,
0:43:50 > 0:43:52she's been curiously neglected.
0:43:52 > 0:43:53And that is terrible
0:43:53 > 0:43:56because Carrington was one of the great Surrealists,
0:43:56 > 0:43:59and one of the great female artists of the century, without a doubt.
0:44:01 > 0:44:03In the Omnibus documentary,
0:44:03 > 0:44:06Carrington was asked what she'd learned from her life.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12I don't feel that I know anything.
0:44:14 > 0:44:19Be probably nice if I could sit back and say, "I know now."
0:44:19 > 0:44:20But I don't.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24I'm an old woman,
0:44:24 > 0:44:25human species,
0:44:26 > 0:44:28sitting in Mexico.
0:44:29 > 0:44:30Anything else?
0:44:31 > 0:44:33No, I can't think offhand
0:44:33 > 0:44:37of anything that I could really say was true.
0:44:38 > 0:44:43And I think that's true, I'm a female, old, sitting in Mexico.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45Do you think that's a good story?
0:44:48 > 0:44:50It gives one a lot to speculate on.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57Carrington's time in the Paris of the '30s
0:44:57 > 0:44:59set the course for her life.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02Another artist new to the city
0:45:02 > 0:45:06was also taking Surrealism into uncharted waters.
0:45:12 > 0:45:16He came not from the frenetic atmosphere of avant garde France,
0:45:16 > 0:45:19but the altogether calmer world of provincial Belgium.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29Rene Magritte was born in the town of Lessines in 1898.
0:45:29 > 0:45:31The son of a merchant and a hat maker,
0:45:31 > 0:45:34he was given a conventional bourgeois upbringing
0:45:34 > 0:45:37and went to art school in Brussels at the age of 17.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44Supporting himself with a job designing wallpaper,
0:45:44 > 0:45:47the young Magritte began to develop the visual style
0:45:47 > 0:45:50that would make him one of the most puzzling -
0:45:50 > 0:45:53and most famous - painters of the 20th century.
0:45:56 > 0:46:00Magritte's painting is essentially a game of mysteries.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05He recognises what we're going to anticipate
0:46:05 > 0:46:07when we see a particular scene
0:46:07 > 0:46:10and then he gives us something shockingly different.
0:46:16 > 0:46:20There's an interesting poetry of ideas that goes on in Magritte
0:46:20 > 0:46:21that I like a lot.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28They're incredibly simple ideas that somehow touch
0:46:28 > 0:46:31what it is like just to wake from a dream.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36Very familiar but just slightly wrong.
0:46:38 > 0:46:40Magritte spent much of his later life
0:46:40 > 0:46:42living in a quiet Brussels suburb.
0:46:44 > 0:46:46In 1965 the BBC's Monitor
0:46:46 > 0:46:51paid a visit on Magritte and his wife at their comfortable home.
0:46:54 > 0:46:59But true to his enigmatic nature, the artist didn't speak on camera.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07And yet, was this bowler-hatted bourgeois the real Rene Magritte?
0:47:09 > 0:47:11Magritte put on a bit of an act.
0:47:12 > 0:47:13He wore a trilby hat,
0:47:13 > 0:47:17but if he saw a photographer he put on a bowler hat.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20He would then walk down the street in his bowler hat.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26He played the game of being ultra orthodox in his dress
0:47:26 > 0:47:28and the way he lived.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31But inside his brain he was seething
0:47:31 > 0:47:35with rebellious, irrational thoughts.
0:47:36 > 0:47:41Although he never spoke to the BBC, in 1965 the master of mystery
0:47:41 > 0:47:44granted a rare interview to Belgian television.
0:48:28 > 0:48:30But if Magritte's work was unknowable,
0:48:30 > 0:48:35one of the dark sources of that work was revealed by the artist himself.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42When he was 13 his mother, who was mad,
0:48:42 > 0:48:48had been trying to kill herself on a regular basis.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50She even jumped into the water tank in the attic
0:48:50 > 0:48:52to try and drown herself, and it didn't work,
0:48:52 > 0:48:55so Magritte's father had locked her in her bedroom
0:48:55 > 0:48:58but she escaped one night, jumped in the river,
0:48:58 > 0:49:01and according to Magritte, she took off her night dress,
0:49:01 > 0:49:03wrapped it round her face and jumped into the river.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11It's now believed that this idea
0:49:11 > 0:49:14that the boy saw his mother's veiled face
0:49:14 > 0:49:17when she was drowned is a fantasy,
0:49:17 > 0:49:21that in fact the body wasn't discovered for 17 days,
0:49:21 > 0:49:24by which time her face would probably have rotted away.
0:49:27 > 0:49:29It's more likely that the boy was told
0:49:29 > 0:49:33that his mother had lost her face
0:49:33 > 0:49:34without knowing any details,
0:49:34 > 0:49:39but it would have been sufficient, no doubt, to have preyed on him
0:49:39 > 0:49:42and to have left him with a haunted mind.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23Like his paintings, Magritte remained impenetrable.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29But this most enigmatic of artists
0:50:29 > 0:50:33was about to be usurped by a new arrival on the Surrealist scene.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37And he was no shrinking violet.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39EXPLOSION
0:50:56 > 0:51:01From an early age, Salvador Dali had set his sights on global fame.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06Born in Figueres, Spain, in 1904,
0:51:06 > 0:51:08by his 20s, Dali was producing
0:51:08 > 0:51:11some of the most intriguing surreal paintings of all.
0:51:19 > 0:51:23His pin-sharp dreamscapes rapidly gripped the popular imagination.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32Their contorted forms conjured up
0:51:32 > 0:51:35by an exceptionally strange creative mind.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43In Paris, Dali befriended Surrealists like Ernst and Man Ray
0:51:43 > 0:51:46and quickly became the poster boy of the movement.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52But where Magritte had shied away from television interviews,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56for Dali, they were a chance to promote his favourite creation -
0:51:57 > 0:51:58himself.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12In 1955, the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge
0:52:12 > 0:52:16interviewed the painter for the BBC's Panorama.
0:52:16 > 0:52:18The first question I want to put you,
0:52:18 > 0:52:21it really ought to be about modern art but I can't help it,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24there's some delicious frivolity in you which makes me ask it,
0:52:24 > 0:52:28is, how did you manage to produce those marvellous moustaches?
0:52:28 > 0:52:32In the last moment of dinner, not clean my fingers,
0:52:32 > 0:52:34and put a little on my moustache,
0:52:34 > 0:52:39and remain for all afternoon very efficient...efficient...
0:52:39 > 0:52:41..efficiently.
0:52:41 > 0:52:42Mm.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45Do you have any trouble with it at night, do you have to peg it
0:52:45 > 0:52:48or anything like that, or does it stand up at night?
0:52:48 > 0:52:52No, in the night, clean every night, and becoming soft, sleep.
0:52:52 > 0:52:53So at night it droops down?
0:52:53 > 0:52:55Completely, completely.
0:52:55 > 0:52:57And then in the morning up she goes again?
0:52:57 > 0:52:59Three minutes. Only in three minutes, fix my moustache.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01And then you feel you can face the world
0:53:01 > 0:53:03with that wonderful moustache standing up?
0:53:03 > 0:53:08Yes, because every day, becoming much more practical for my inspiration.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14The global face of Surrealism
0:53:14 > 0:53:16courted the attention of celebrities.
0:53:25 > 0:53:27Dali was a great talent, there's no doubt about it,
0:53:27 > 0:53:33but ultimately, he was interested in fame and in fortune
0:53:33 > 0:53:34and he sold out.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37And, you know, his friends knew it, the Surrealists knew it,
0:53:37 > 0:53:39he knew that he'd sold out.
0:53:39 > 0:53:41But Dali didn't care.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44First it dissolves.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47Happy bubbles, but devoted bubbles.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51Then the Alka-Seltzer shoots into the stomach.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55Here it neutralizes that bad excess acid.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59Meantime this special aspirin is speeding into your bloodstream
0:53:59 > 0:54:00to all places of pain,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03so those beautiful places will feel beautiful again.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05Alka-Seltzer is a work of art.
0:54:05 > 0:54:07Truly one of a kind.
0:54:07 > 0:54:08Like Dali!
0:54:11 > 0:54:15Dali himself made no bones about his motivation,
0:54:15 > 0:54:19as he revealed later in his career in a BBC Arena documentary.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25Salvador Dali, myself, is very rich
0:54:25 > 0:54:32and Dali love tremendously money and gold.
0:54:32 > 0:54:36And Dali sleep the best
0:54:36 > 0:54:39after one day of work
0:54:39 > 0:54:42receive one tremendous quantity of cheques.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50But did Dali's slavish pursuit of celebrity and wealth
0:54:50 > 0:54:52finally damage his art?
0:54:54 > 0:54:56Opinions are still divided.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02Dali didn't waste the talent he had, he corrupted it.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07What went wrong with Dali was not that his hands
0:55:07 > 0:55:10couldn't do it any more. They always could.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14What went wrong with Dali was that his mind turned into the Dali mind.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21A beautiful, crisp apple has gone very, very rotten.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31I think Dali was much more important than most people realise.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36It's his own fault, he acted the buffoon
0:55:36 > 0:55:39and people remember that too much.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46But the fact is that Salvador Dali
0:55:46 > 0:55:49is one of the most important artists of the 20th century.
0:55:54 > 0:55:56And if people belittle him
0:55:56 > 0:56:00because of his weaknesses and his follies, it's a great mistake.
0:56:05 > 0:56:09Because Dali alone, in front of a canvas,
0:56:09 > 0:56:11could weave magic.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27But the magic of modern art had found some powerful enemies.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34The Nazis put so-called 'degenerate' modern artists
0:56:34 > 0:56:36on their wanted lists.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38And with the start of the Second World War,
0:56:38 > 0:56:42many were forced to flee for their lives.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45The first great wave of modern art was over.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51Yet the previous three decades had seen a total transformation
0:56:51 > 0:56:54in the possibilities of what art could be.
0:57:01 > 0:57:06There is an explosion of possibility and of diversity in art.
0:57:08 > 0:57:13The art today is a consequence of all those things
0:57:13 > 0:57:15that happened during that time.
0:57:18 > 0:57:23This was a ripping apart of art, this was a complete restart.
0:57:25 > 0:57:27Picasso comes along and he questions
0:57:27 > 0:57:29the fundamentals of the image.
0:57:31 > 0:57:35Duchamp comes along and he questions what an art object is.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41The Surrealists come along and they start exploring
0:57:41 > 0:57:43the inner mind of the human being.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46I mean, no-one's been down there before, you know,
0:57:46 > 0:57:48it's dark, it's horrible, it's spooky.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53So the whole of this early period was spent going places
0:57:53 > 0:57:56people hadn't been before in art.
0:58:00 > 0:58:02You can't look at this great art being made at that time
0:58:02 > 0:58:07and not sense the excitement of the change and the difference of it,
0:58:07 > 0:58:10all the avenues that were being opened up for the future.
0:58:14 > 0:58:16And as the artists dispersed,
0:58:16 > 0:58:20many travelled to the city that was to take over from Paris,
0:58:20 > 0:58:24and where the next chapter in the history of art would be written.
0:58:52 > 0:58:55Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd