0:00:06 > 0:00:08The Netherlands.
0:00:08 > 0:00:14Has any small nation ever achieved so much in so short a space of time?
0:00:14 > 0:00:19For barely 100 years - a time now known as the Golden Age -
0:00:19 > 0:00:23this tiny country boasted the most powerful empire on earth.
0:00:26 > 0:00:32It was a new kind of society, ruled not by kings but by citizens,
0:00:32 > 0:00:37driven not by privilege but by naked market forces,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41and it gave birth to the first truly-free art market.
0:00:43 > 0:00:49Portraits, landscapes, still lives, sea paintings,
0:00:49 > 0:00:56drunken comedies, domestic idylls - what the people wanted, the people got.
0:00:57 > 0:01:03And all from geniuses like Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Vermeer.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07But how did it happen?
0:01:07 > 0:01:11And how do you begin to grasp such a revolution in culture?
0:01:12 > 0:01:18Well, I think the best place to start is with a curious tale of horticulture.
0:01:20 > 0:01:26In the early 1600s the tulip was an exotic import from Asia.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Then Dutch entrepreneurs learned how to cultivate ever more vivid
0:01:30 > 0:01:34shades and shapes, and Dutch consumers went mad for them.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39They called it tulip mania.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44The spiralling market in tulip bulbs drew in people from all
0:01:44 > 0:01:48walks of life. Holland was full of deluded paper millionaires -
0:01:48 > 0:01:52simple ship's carpenters, ordinary tailors having themselves
0:01:52 > 0:01:56shown around country estates with a view to buy.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01By 1637, it's said that the price of a single Semper Augustus
0:02:01 > 0:02:05tulip bulb was 10,000 guilders -
0:02:05 > 0:02:10enough money to feed and clothe an entire family for their whole lifetime.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17And then the bubble burst.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Someone suggested the bulbs were actually worthless.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25Everyone tried to sell. Thousands were ruined.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31But as always in Holland, there was an artist watching as the
0:02:31 > 0:02:37wheel of fortune turned, ready to cash in with a topical satire.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Jan Brueghel the Younger painted this picture.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46Basically, he's saying the Dutch have made
0:02:46 > 0:02:50monkeys of themselves in this affair of the tulips.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53Monkey celebrates, tulip bulb in the one hand,
0:02:53 > 0:02:54money bag in the other.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57Move over here and we see those who've
0:02:57 > 0:02:59lost in the game of speculation.
0:03:01 > 0:03:07And here in the corner, we see a monkey having a slash on a patch of tulips.
0:03:09 > 0:03:12I think it reminds us that the
0:03:12 > 0:03:16Dutch had indeed invented a brave new world of venture capitalism,
0:03:16 > 0:03:21but it was also inherently a deeply unstable world.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27And this cycle of boom and bust would be repeated throughout
0:03:27 > 0:03:31Holland during the Golden Age, both at the grandest scale,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35and also in the very lives of some of Holland's greatest artists.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05Modern Holland is such a visibly prosperous, easy-going place,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07that it's hard to imagine the bitterness
0:04:07 > 0:04:10and violence that first gave birth to this nation.
0:04:14 > 0:04:19500 years ago, the King of Spain inherited the Low Country region.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25The Dutch weren't keen on being a mere province of the global
0:04:25 > 0:04:28Spanish Empire.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31But what they REALLY objected to was tyranny
0:04:31 > 0:04:35and vicious repression at the hands of the Catholic Inquisition.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40There are churches in the Netherlands today that still
0:04:40 > 0:04:44bear the scars of a furious anti-Spanish backlash that
0:04:44 > 0:04:47began in the late 1560s.
0:04:52 > 0:04:56I think the natural instinct when you come into the cathedral church in Utrecht is to think
0:04:56 > 0:04:59what a beautiful space, what wonderful architecture,
0:04:59 > 0:05:03but it's important to remember that this place is actually a battlefield.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07And once you get your eye in, you can see how much has been lost,
0:05:07 > 0:05:08how much has been destroyed.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10If you'd come here before the Reformation,
0:05:10 > 0:05:14the whole cathedral would have been ablaze with colour and imagery.
0:05:14 > 0:05:16Now what do we see?
0:05:16 > 0:05:22White space, blank glass, empty plinths.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25Over here in this chapel, look at these little plinths that
0:05:25 > 0:05:29once would have supported statues that are no longer there.
0:05:32 > 0:05:37On the other side, you've got a little bit of fragmented sculpture.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40It's actually Golgotha, the place of the skull,
0:05:40 > 0:05:42upon which Christ was crucified.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45But the image of Christ himself has gone,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49ripped out by Protestant reformers.
0:05:52 > 0:05:58This was how Dutch Calvinists lashed out at their Spanish oppressors -
0:05:58 > 0:06:02by assaulting the fabric of their own churches in waves
0:06:02 > 0:06:06of violent protest known as the Iconoclastic Fury.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13They saw it as purification - statues,
0:06:13 > 0:06:18paintings and altarpieces were all symbols of Catholic corruption.
0:06:23 > 0:06:30But if you want to see the most, almost chilling reminder of the
0:06:30 > 0:06:35sheer rage of iconoclasm that swept through this city,
0:06:35 > 0:06:40swept through Holland, you have to come into this chapel, because
0:06:40 > 0:06:45this is an example of what I call Reminder Iconoclasm, because what
0:06:45 > 0:06:53the men with hammers and chisels have done in this case is leave the altarpiece in place,
0:06:53 > 0:06:57but defaced - and I mean literally de-faced.
0:06:57 > 0:07:02Look at it, you've got the image of God the father above,
0:07:02 > 0:07:07Mary with the Christ child surrounded by the saints.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10They're all there, and they've still got most of their original colour.
0:07:10 > 0:07:15But what's missing? The faces. They've literally been sliced off.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19It's as if the men who came in here and did this, they wanted people
0:07:19 > 0:07:24to remember forever that they had once made images, they had once,
0:07:24 > 0:07:30in Protestant terms, worshipped images, and it was never to happen again.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42In 1576, the Low Countries effectively split in two.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46Seven northern provinces broke away and declared themselves
0:07:46 > 0:07:51an independent Dutch republic, purged of monarchy and tyranny.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00Though war with Spain would drag on for decades,
0:08:00 > 0:08:04it launched the meteoric rise of a new kind of state,
0:08:04 > 0:08:10free of the religious and political paraphernalia of the past.
0:08:10 > 0:08:15But how to build a new state from nothing?
0:08:15 > 0:08:17How to fill that void?
0:08:21 > 0:08:24Well, you could begin by painting the void itself.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32Pieter Saenredam, working in the 1600s,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35celebrated the unadorned architecture of the Dutch
0:08:35 > 0:08:41Reformed Church with a purity that foreshadows Modernism by 300 years.
0:08:43 > 0:08:50He takes us to the spiritual heart of the new republic.
0:08:50 > 0:08:56The old order is gone, and what remains is man, standing
0:08:56 > 0:09:02in the naked truth of God's word, ready to go forth...
0:09:02 > 0:09:04and do business!
0:09:16 > 0:09:20Why didn't the Dutch Republic turn into an extremist,
0:09:20 > 0:09:25Taliban-style state like Puritan England under Cromwell?
0:09:27 > 0:09:30The answer is - market forces.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Tiny Holland didn't have the resources to survive without
0:09:35 > 0:09:41trade, so its Calvinist leaders pursued a policy of half-reluctant
0:09:41 > 0:09:47tolerance towards those of other faiths, as long as they worked hard.
0:09:47 > 0:09:51This new society was forged first of all in the crucible
0:09:51 > 0:09:54of bustling Haarlem, in the heart of Holland.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05By the start of the 17th century, Haarlem was on its way to
0:10:05 > 0:10:08becoming one of the great melting pots of Europe.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12It was a city known for trade and commerce,
0:10:12 > 0:10:17and for religious tolerance, the so called Satisfaction of Haarlem
0:10:17 > 0:10:21was a statute passed that guaranteed anyone, whether they be Protestant
0:10:21 > 0:10:25or Catholic, could come here and they could practice their trade in peace.
0:10:25 > 0:10:30Now this new type of city, filled with merchants,
0:10:30 > 0:10:34a new kind of middle class, brought into being a new kind of art,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37untethered from the religious traditions of old.
0:10:37 > 0:10:42An art dedicated to the depiction of daily life - portraits,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46genre scenes, paintings of people drinking,
0:10:46 > 0:10:48paintings of peasants, paintings of the countryside,
0:10:48 > 0:10:54and its first great star was an artist called Frans Hals.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05Like nearly a quarter of Haarlem's residents, Frans Hals and his
0:11:05 > 0:11:11family came as refugees from the Spanish-occupied southern states.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16By his twenties, Hals had already made his name capturing
0:11:16 > 0:11:18the city's bourgeoisie in paint.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32Hals' most famous portrait, the so-called Laughing Cavalier, takes
0:11:32 > 0:11:35us straight to the beating heart of Haarlem.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40We don't know who the sitter was, but we can work out why he wanted to be painted.
0:11:44 > 0:11:49The picture was a Valentine's card, this man's gift to the woman
0:11:49 > 0:11:50he wanted to marry.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Hence his amorous look, and he's
0:11:55 > 0:12:01literally wearing his heart - lots of them, in fact - on his sleeve.
0:12:01 > 0:12:07"Have me," it says. "Buy into me and I'll make it worth your while."
0:12:11 > 0:12:15Hals could make anyone look a million guilders,
0:12:15 > 0:12:20and he was just as impressive when working on a grander scale.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23At his peak he cornered the market in a particularly
0:12:23 > 0:12:28lucrative form of group painting - the civic guard portrait.
0:12:30 > 0:12:35Prosperous burghers generally depicted round a lavish banqueting table,
0:12:35 > 0:12:40itself slightly eccentrically recreated here at the Frans Hals Museum.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45I think of Frans Hals as the first great painter
0:12:45 > 0:12:53of the 17th century Dutch male face - slightly florid,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55slightly jowly, extremely substantial,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00almost formidably self-satisfied.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05But I think he's also the first great painter of the Dutch
0:13:05 > 0:13:09sense of civic and political identity.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14These men are members of the Company of St George.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18They see themselves as the guardians of Haarlem's new-found wealth
0:13:18 > 0:13:20and prosperity.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22They're seated at their annual banquet
0:13:22 > 0:13:26and I think that table stands for Haarlem
0:13:26 > 0:13:32and how well it's doing, positively laden with meat, cheese, bread.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34They have all they want.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37But Hals has done a rather remarkable
0:13:37 > 0:13:40and revolutionary thing in painting this picture,
0:13:40 > 0:13:45because what he's done is he's taken the international
0:13:45 > 0:13:51language of court portraiture, the notion of aristocratic swagger -
0:13:51 > 0:13:56look at this gentleman on the right - his elbow is outthrust.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00And if you read the deportment books of the 17th century you'll
0:14:00 > 0:14:05know that the outthrust elbow is the mark of the gentleman. It symbolises
0:14:05 > 0:14:11his right to elbow his way through the crowd of ordinary people.
0:14:11 > 0:14:16So he's taken this very grand language, a language that was meant,
0:14:16 > 0:14:21that had been invented to be applied to kings, queens
0:14:21 > 0:14:28and courtiers, and yet these people are not kings,
0:14:28 > 0:14:30princes, aristocrats -
0:14:30 > 0:14:36they're merchants. They've made their money through trade.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40What this picture proclaims is that we don't need the old regime,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44the old apparatus of absolutist monarchy
0:14:44 > 0:14:47to function as a society - we don't need it.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51We're doing perfectly well without it, thank you very much.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00But Hals mania, like tulip mania, didn't last.
0:15:09 > 0:15:13The new money that made Hals rich came with new temptations.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19He had a weakness for drink.
0:15:19 > 0:15:26You can see it in the bags under his eyes and the disenchanted gaze.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30Business slipped away, and his painting became less fluent, but more profound.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41Near the end, he produced this -
0:15:41 > 0:15:46the Regentesses of the Old Men's Almshouse.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54These women, the board of Hals' local poorhouse, are painted
0:15:54 > 0:16:00in a much more sombre mood, mirroring his own change of fortune.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10Commissioning the picture from Frans Hals may itself have been
0:16:10 > 0:16:15an act of charity, because his later years were much more troubled.
0:16:15 > 0:16:20He fell out of fashion, his fortunes fell.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24Now 1664, he was granted poor relief
0:16:24 > 0:16:30and three cartloads of peat to keep himself warm.
0:16:30 > 0:16:36And it's hard not to think that as he looked into the compassionate, serious faces
0:16:36 > 0:16:41of these women, he was moved to reflect himself on the transience of life,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45the fragility of life, perhaps the fragility of his own life.
0:16:45 > 0:16:51Darkness encroaches from all sides. The picture's 90% shadow,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56with just these beautifully poignant faces,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58almost the faces of ghosts staring out at us.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09I think the picture is very clever, I think it puts you
0:17:09 > 0:17:16in the place of someone appealing to these women for charity.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20They look at you, they consider your petition. Will they help you?
0:17:20 > 0:17:24Won't they help you?
0:17:24 > 0:17:28Will you be greeted by the hand that gives,
0:17:28 > 0:17:35or will you be refused by the hand that withholds?
0:17:35 > 0:17:39I think it's Hals's way of reflecting on
0:17:39 > 0:17:44the wheel of fortune that he himself had experienced in his own life,
0:17:44 > 0:17:48that no matter how high you rise, in the end,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51you do always have to head for the exit.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00Just two years after painting this picture, Hals died
0:18:00 > 0:18:02virtually penniless.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17Boom and bust - it was the Dutch way.
0:18:17 > 0:18:22You could even say it was a Dutch invention.
0:18:22 > 0:18:30In 1609, Amsterdam's new Wisselbank introduced the world to stocks and shares.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34Suddenly, everything was a commodity, especially art.
0:18:38 > 0:18:43In 1640, English writer Peter Mundy observed with amazement that
0:18:43 > 0:18:47butchers, bakers, even cobblers, eagerly bought paintings to
0:18:47 > 0:18:51cover their walls, hoping to sell them again for a profit.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58It fuelled a huge boom in secular painting,
0:18:58 > 0:19:03every artist specialising in a particular subject.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09But all reflected what the Dutch wanted to see - their own world.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17Whether it was life in the kitchen,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20the sick room,
0:19:20 > 0:19:26or the classroom, the national obsession with painting injected
0:19:26 > 0:19:31a whole new range of subject matter into the bloodstream of Western art.
0:19:31 > 0:19:36But why were images so important to the Dutch?
0:19:36 > 0:19:41Because they were attempting to build a new kind of society,
0:19:41 > 0:19:46built on the Calvinist work ethic, communal effort.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50A society every bit as new as Soviet Russia
0:19:50 > 0:19:51was in the early 20th century.
0:19:55 > 0:20:01The Dutch needed art to prove that their experiment was working.
0:20:01 > 0:20:06And it was the artist's task to fill his blank canvas with
0:20:06 > 0:20:08the values of the Republic.
0:20:08 > 0:20:14That's why Dutch art was so often just a step away from propaganda.
0:20:14 > 0:20:19Even when approaching the most apparently innocent subject matter of all.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27The Dutch landscape was itself a work of art, a man-made creation of
0:20:27 > 0:20:32immense ingenuity with its polders as they're called, vast expanses
0:20:32 > 0:20:38of meadow, fertile meadow irrigated by complex networks of canals.
0:20:38 > 0:20:43This is the Beemster Polder, and believe it or not this whole
0:20:43 > 0:20:47area was nothing but one vast lake until the 17th century.
0:20:47 > 0:20:52In fact, as I cycle through this landscape, I feel very much as if
0:20:52 > 0:20:56I'm cycling through a Dutch painting, and there's a good reason for that.
0:20:56 > 0:20:59Landscape was one of the great subjects of Dutch art.
0:21:07 > 0:21:13When a Dutch painter saw his land, he didn't just see trees,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16fields, cloud-filled skies.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19He saw symbols of his country's achievements,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23and the dangers it faced.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28Yes, Hobbema's tonal landscapes are hymns to natural beauty,
0:21:28 > 0:21:33but they're also celebrations of fertility and symmetry,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36a painter's reminder to his fellow citizens
0:21:36 > 0:21:39always to remain on the straight and narrow.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53Ruisdael's towering windmills forever draining, irrigating,
0:21:53 > 0:21:57stand for the sheer hard work needed to keep Holland
0:21:57 > 0:22:01above water, and to safeguard the future of the nation's children.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10And Avercamp's skating scenes - what do they say?
0:22:13 > 0:22:18Well, you might as well enjoy life, but never forget,
0:22:18 > 0:22:19you're always on thin ice.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30It's as if the Dutch couldn't help prodding away at their world,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32searching everywhere for meaning.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43Paulus Potter's The Bull.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47It's one of the great wonders of Dutch art.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51If you want to understand Dutch pride in their land,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55this is the picture that absolutely encapsulates it.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59It's painted on the scale of an altarpiece.
0:22:59 > 0:23:04We're meant, in a sense, to worship at the image of Dutch prosperity,
0:23:04 > 0:23:10Dutch genius. It shows us livestock.
0:23:10 > 0:23:16A sheep with her udder pushed into the ground, baby lamb by her side.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20Meek cow, flies buzzing - bzzz! - in the air.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24You can almost feel the heat of this summer's day.
0:23:24 > 0:23:29On the ground - ribbit! - a frog.
0:23:29 > 0:23:35But at the centre of it all, this huge, virile bull.
0:23:35 > 0:23:41There he stands with his testicles the size of church bells,
0:23:41 > 0:23:48his prominent cock standing astride a wonderfully luxuriant patch of vegetation -
0:23:48 > 0:23:50this picture's all about fertility.
0:23:50 > 0:23:57He's blessed the soil with a humungous turd. Look at that cowpat!
0:23:57 > 0:24:02Have you ever seen a more vividly rendered cowpat than that?
0:24:02 > 0:24:05In fact, have you ever seen a cowpat in art?
0:24:05 > 0:24:09What's most extraordinary about the picture is just the sheer scale of it.
0:24:09 > 0:24:15And what that scale expresses, I think, is the magnitude
0:24:15 > 0:24:22of Dutch pride in the achievement of having created this land of theirs.
0:24:22 > 0:24:29As Descartes said, God made the earth, but the Dutch made Holland.
0:24:29 > 0:24:30And boy, did they know it!
0:24:41 > 0:24:47The fatted calf - the lamb for slaughter.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51Dutch passion for the symbols of plenty was not abstract,
0:24:51 > 0:24:52but entirely practical.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00The fruits of the earth were not just for looking at,
0:25:00 > 0:25:01but for eating too.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07The pleasures of food are everywhere in Dutch art,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14and you can actually chart the rise of Republican
0:25:14 > 0:25:18self-confidence through changing tastes in still-life painting.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Dutch painters rendered the textures of food
0:25:23 > 0:25:26and drink with astonishing vividness.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32The sparkle of light through water.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36The citric glint of lemon peel.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41But to begin with at least, it was simple bread and shellfish on
0:25:41 > 0:25:45plain white cloth an arrangement of relative modesty and restraint.
0:25:48 > 0:25:53By the end of the 1640s, the Republic's 80-year war with
0:25:53 > 0:25:59Spain was finally over, and Dutch prosperity was at its height.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Now there's a definite loosening of the belt -
0:26:02 > 0:26:08more luxurious food and more of it, exotic props.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12The earlier sense of propriety has given way to naked aspiration.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21It opened a kind of fault-line in the Dutch sense of civic responsibility.
0:26:21 > 0:26:26How rich was it reasonable for a God-fearing merchant to become?
0:26:33 > 0:26:37From the start there was a tension between the egalitarian ideals of
0:26:37 > 0:26:42the young Republic, and the way this free-market economy actually worked.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49Inevitably some people did much better than others.
0:26:49 > 0:26:54Living in fine canalside homes, owning fabulous art,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57and monopolising the mechanisms of civic power.
0:27:00 > 0:27:05'You can still touch that reality in modern Amsterdam
0:27:05 > 0:27:10'in a splendid mansion that dates back to the Golden Age.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14'What was once new money is now very old.'
0:27:14 > 0:27:17So when did your family first come to Amsterdam?
0:27:17 > 0:27:20In 1583.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24'Owner Baron Jan Six van Hillegom X is the scion
0:27:24 > 0:27:28'of one of Amsterdam's longest-established families.'
0:27:28 > 0:27:30This is spectacular.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33I feel like I've stepped straight into the Golden Age.
0:27:35 > 0:27:40'This 46-room house contains one of the most impressive private
0:27:40 > 0:27:42'art collections in the world.'
0:27:42 > 0:27:43- Is this a Saenredam?- Yes.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46- A real genuine Saenredam! - Yes, it is.
0:27:46 > 0:27:47That's beautiful!
0:27:47 > 0:27:51And serenity and the icy colours, they will stick to your eyes.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53I like that!
0:27:53 > 0:27:56So where do we go next?
0:27:56 > 0:27:58Well, whatever you find interesting.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00It's sensational.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04'Many of the greatest artists of the Dutch Golden Age
0:28:04 > 0:28:06'are represented here.'
0:28:06 > 0:28:08Wow! What a picture!
0:28:08 > 0:28:11The room was created for the painting.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14So this is Paul Potter who painted the famous picture of The Bull?
0:28:14 > 0:28:15Exactly.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20It goes on and on, this house. It's an art gallery.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24Ruisdael. This is a Frans Hals.
0:28:24 > 0:28:25That's wonderful.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30But what does it mean to you, though, emotionally, this collection?
0:28:30 > 0:28:34Because you've worked very hard to keep this house together,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37to keep it as a kind of microcosm of the Golden Age.
0:28:37 > 0:28:42I am Jan Six number ten. So Jan Six number one collected a part...
0:28:42 > 0:28:45Jan Six number two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
0:28:45 > 0:28:48and myself, and I used to say,
0:28:48 > 0:28:51"You can't be anxious enough in choosing your parents."
0:28:51 > 0:28:54I was born and this was gifted, and a lot of pleasure,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58but also a lot of taking care of.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04'The undisputed jewel in the collection is
0:29:04 > 0:29:09'a portrait of the very first Jan Six, painted by his good friend
0:29:09 > 0:29:13'one of the greatest of all Golden Age painters - Rembrandt.'
0:29:14 > 0:29:17There he is. My goodness.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22And there, you see - the painting.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26Wow! That is just...it's almost impossible to believe that
0:29:26 > 0:29:30a painting can conjure up a human being to such an extent that
0:29:30 > 0:29:32you feel that they're THERE.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34It's the man almost alive.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38What do you think the story of the painting is? What do you think's happening?
0:29:38 > 0:29:42I think that he went to Rembrandt's place, they had food, drink - whatever,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45and then he leaves.
0:29:45 > 0:29:50And then he thinks to himself, "Oh, didn't I forget to say something to Rembrandt?"
0:29:50 > 0:29:53And probably that's the moment that Rembrandt was,
0:29:53 > 0:29:58"That's the thing, the situation I like to fix on canvas."
0:29:58 > 0:30:01It looks like it's painted wet-in-wet, when you paint on...
0:30:01 > 0:30:03Sprezzatura.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06- Sprezzatura. - You find it here, and here.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10But if you see, the brush thickness here, then Rembrandt took his thumb
0:30:10 > 0:30:12and put his thumb here.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15- Those are actually thumb prints? - To make it completed...yes.
0:30:15 > 0:30:18There! Yeah, you can see it.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21- And that coat...- He's turned it into almost like an abstract painting.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23It's perfect, isn't it? You can see the paint.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26But that is so bold and daring.
0:30:26 > 0:30:30- Absolutely.- And yet it isn't abstract, because I think what it conveys, as you say,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33it's a man on the move, a man who's about to leave,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36- a man who's been in thought for a second.- In thought, in thought...
0:30:36 > 0:30:39- He's thinking.- Yeah, yeah. That makes it also a little mystic.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44- Yes, it's got that enigma quality. - But it's very good.- It draws you in, it's a bit like the Mona Lisa.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48Nobody knows what the Mona Lisa's thinking, nobody knows what that smile is, and he's not smiling.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51And it has an extra...an extra part.
0:30:51 > 0:30:54Yeah. I mean, do you think there's a greater Dutch portrait than this?
0:30:54 > 0:30:58- Do you think there is one? - I don't know, but I advise you one thing, take a chair,
0:30:58 > 0:31:03sit down and have a good clear look to it!
0:31:09 > 0:31:14No Dutch painter pushed his originality as far as this,
0:31:14 > 0:31:19blurring the line between finished work and improvised sketch.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25"Avant garde" is a later phrase, but a good one for Rembrandt.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35Rembrandt had been an original right from the start,
0:31:35 > 0:31:40when he arrived in Amsterdam to make his fortune in 1632.
0:31:40 > 0:31:46He understood how the art market worked in this thriving city.
0:31:46 > 0:31:50He saw that the key to being successful was to be different -
0:31:50 > 0:31:52to innovate.
0:31:54 > 0:32:00At just 26, he painted this arrestingly visceral depiction of
0:32:00 > 0:32:06Doctor Tulp, Holland's first great anatomist. Blood, guts and all.
0:32:08 > 0:32:15A brilliantly gory advertisement for Dutch science - Tulp was delighted.
0:32:15 > 0:32:21And an even more effective advertisement for Rembrandt.
0:32:21 > 0:32:25Yet sometimes his art would cut so deep into the tissues of Dutch
0:32:25 > 0:32:32society, that he'd risk alienating the very market that sustained him.
0:32:32 > 0:32:38And rarely did he walk a finer line than when painting his best-known work.
0:32:41 > 0:32:46So here it is, Holland's most famous painting, The Night Watch.
0:32:46 > 0:32:52Although like many famous paintings, it's actually deeply ambiguous
0:32:52 > 0:32:54and endlessly fascinating.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58Even its title turns out to be a fiction.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01It should actually be called the Day Watch,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04because Rembrandt has set the scene during daytime,
0:33:04 > 0:33:08in a rather dark corner of Amsterdam, with sunlight
0:33:08 > 0:33:11streaming in and catching these figures in its beams.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18It represents a militia company,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22one of many such organisations that had sprung up during the wars
0:33:22 > 0:33:27of independence to defend, city by city, against foreign invaders.
0:33:27 > 0:33:33Now, what Rembrandt has done with the convention of the militiamen group portrait
0:33:33 > 0:33:37is he's suddenly invested it with a new kind of drama, a new kind of energy.
0:33:37 > 0:33:43He's turned it into a history painting, almost. It tells a story.
0:33:43 > 0:33:48This is the moment when the militia company is about to advance,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52and prepares to do battle.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57But as is so often the case with Rembrandt, all is not quite
0:33:57 > 0:34:02as it seems, because by the time he painted this picture, militia
0:34:02 > 0:34:07companies such as these had in effect become a kind of gentleman's
0:34:07 > 0:34:11drinking club, more noted for their carousing than their fighting.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15And I think Rembrandt has quite a bit of fun with his own
0:34:15 > 0:34:18knowledge that they're not actually fighters at all.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20Look at their finery.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23And there's also this sense running through the whole painting
0:34:23 > 0:34:28like a rather subversive current of electricity that they're
0:34:28 > 0:34:31not quite sure of what they're doing - look at this musketeer.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35He's pouring that gunpowder into his musket
0:34:35 > 0:34:40as if he's a bit worried that he might blow his own hand off.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44And this chap with his rather unconvincing helmet
0:34:44 > 0:34:47gazing at the flintlock mechanism of his gun as
0:34:47 > 0:34:50if he can't quite remember how it all works.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54And right at the centre of the picture, look how disaster nearly strikes.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58A little boy's got his musket out - he's actually fired the thing.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02And he's fired it so close to the captain's hat that it looks
0:35:02 > 0:35:07almost as if the plumes are about to burst into flames.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12Look at the chap behind saying, "Cor, crikey, that was close!"
0:35:12 > 0:35:18So yes, this is the great company of Amsterdam's militiamen but at the
0:35:18 > 0:35:25same time, Rembrandt's just slightly verging on taking the mickey out
0:35:25 > 0:35:31of them. Is he perhaps suggesting that they're a bit of a dad's army?
0:35:35 > 0:35:40The militiamen adored the picture, paid Rembrandt a fortune for it,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43oblivious to the cutting edge of his wit.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50He'd got away with it.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53For now, he was Holland's number one painter.
0:36:00 > 0:36:06In 1639, he mortgaged himself to the hilt to buy this
0:36:06 > 0:36:10house in central Amsterdam now restored as a museum.
0:36:14 > 0:36:19Rembrandt knew he'd made it - a five-storey family home
0:36:19 > 0:36:24replete with servants and a spacious, well-lit painting studio.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34But fortune's wheel turned, and Rembrandt's patrons
0:36:34 > 0:36:41began to see that his work wasn't in tune with the great Dutch project.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46Especially when he was asked to paint a hero from the nation's ancient past.
0:36:50 > 0:36:58In 69AD, Claudius Civilis handled a rebellion against occupying Roman forces.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02In Dutch eyes, he was the very first militiaman.
0:37:02 > 0:37:08This painting was intended for Amsterdam's elegant new Town Hall,
0:37:08 > 0:37:15but the governors couldn't stomach this all-too-human depiction of a half-blind, coarse Barbarian chief.
0:37:18 > 0:37:24The picture was turned down - Rembrandt's originality rejected.
0:37:27 > 0:37:31It marked a terminal downturn in business
0:37:31 > 0:37:34and lifestyle for Rembrandt.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38Yet he continued to search the souls of the people he painted
0:37:38 > 0:37:43and to ask awkward questions.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46In this revolutionary new republic,
0:37:46 > 0:37:51the freest society in the world, what did freedom mean?
0:37:54 > 0:37:56If you can choose who you want to be,
0:37:56 > 0:37:59how do you know which is the real you?
0:38:03 > 0:38:08Rembrandt studied humanity. But most of all, he studied himself.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15He painted more self-portraits than any previous artist.
0:38:19 > 0:38:24He portrayed himself in different costumes,
0:38:24 > 0:38:27different moods,
0:38:27 > 0:38:28with different expressions.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35These pictures form a chronicle of the many faces
0:38:35 > 0:38:40and ages of a single life.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43And the later pictures reflect, unmistakeably,
0:38:43 > 0:38:47the fact that Rembrandt's luck was running out.
0:38:56 > 0:39:01By the 1660s, Rembrandt's life was very much on the slide.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04He'd been a millionaire,
0:39:04 > 0:39:09he lived in a grand house on Amsterdam's main canal.
0:39:09 > 0:39:13He'd had a wonderful studio, possessions, riches,
0:39:13 > 0:39:16a beautiful wife.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19By now, he'd lost nearly everything.
0:39:19 > 0:39:24This is one of the great pictures of the Golden Age but there's nothing very golden about it.
0:39:24 > 0:39:30It's painted in the colours of flesh, of earth, of penitence.
0:39:30 > 0:39:37He's depicted himself in a turban holding a holy book
0:39:37 > 0:39:40as the apostle St Paul.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42Very much a prophet in the wilderness.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48Perhaps Rembrandt himself felt at this time like a prophet in the wilderness.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53Certainly, his art for me runs shockingly counter
0:39:53 > 0:39:57to most other art of the Dutch Golden Age.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00When I think of portraits of the period,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03I think that in almost every case,
0:40:03 > 0:40:08their function was somehow to create and cement
0:40:08 > 0:40:15for the enterprising, yet also rather nervous Dutch,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18a sense of their own identity.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22But in these late self-portraits,
0:40:22 > 0:40:27Rembrandt seems to be questioning the very notion of identity itself.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31He's not just reflecting on the slings
0:40:31 > 0:40:34and arrows of outrageous fortune.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38I think he's reflecting on the fiction of selfhood.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43"What is a man?" he asks himself. "Who am I?"
0:40:47 > 0:40:53And he has the guts to admit that he really doesn't know.
0:40:53 > 0:40:55These pictures are great
0:40:55 > 0:41:01because they dare to suggest that a man can be many things.
0:41:01 > 0:41:06When I look at them, I'm reminded of the words of the great French philosopher,
0:41:06 > 0:41:08Rembrandt's contemporary, Montaigne.
0:41:12 > 0:41:19"Every sort of contradiction can be found in me, depending upon some twist.
0:41:19 > 0:41:25"Timid, insolent, chaste, lecherous, talkative, taciturn, tough, sickly,
0:41:25 > 0:41:31"clever, dull, brooding, affable, lying, truthful, learned, ignorant.
0:41:31 > 0:41:39"I can see something of all that in myself, depending on how I gyrate".
0:41:47 > 0:41:49Boom and bust again.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57Like Hals the drinker, Rembrandt the great innovator died a pauper
0:41:57 > 0:42:02aged 63, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11Holland hardly blinked. And why should it?
0:42:15 > 0:42:19By the mid 17th century, the Dutch Republic was quite simply
0:42:19 > 0:42:24the most powerful nation on earth.
0:42:24 > 0:42:28The intrepid agents of the Dutch East India Company
0:42:28 > 0:42:31established trading posts at the southern tip of Africa,
0:42:31 > 0:42:39round the coast of India and Ceylon, and in the Moluccan Spice Islands.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42Meanwhile, merchants of the West India Company had crossed
0:42:42 > 0:42:45the Atlantic to colonise parts of the Caribbean
0:42:45 > 0:42:49and the coasts of South and North America
0:42:49 > 0:42:54including Manhattan Island which they christened New Amsterdam.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01The extremes of the Dutch maritime adventure were
0:43:01 > 0:43:06mirrored in Dutch maritime art.
0:43:06 > 0:43:13More propaganda - Dutch men-of-war vanquishing their foreign foe
0:43:13 > 0:43:16in a fusillade of cannon fire.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22But there were other, more uneasy pictures too.
0:43:22 > 0:43:27Scenes of impending disaster - stormy skies, treacherous rocks.
0:43:29 > 0:43:32How hard it was to steer the correct course.
0:43:41 > 0:43:46Where Dutch traders went, Dutch artists followed, giving us a
0:43:46 > 0:43:51fascinating window into worlds seen by Western eyes for the first time.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00Some of the most intriguing colonial paintings were made at Pernambuco,
0:44:00 > 0:44:03in the northeast of modern-day Brazil.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07Artist Frans Post recorded the tropical landscape
0:44:07 > 0:44:11and its exotic plants.
0:44:11 > 0:44:19Albert Eckhout painted studies of the local tribespeople, the Tupi.
0:44:19 > 0:44:25His portraits are naturalistic, even tinged with sympathy, when so
0:44:25 > 0:44:29many other European artists demonised the "foreign savage".
0:44:40 > 0:44:44Back home, the Dutch reaped the dividends of Empire.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47For a time they were Europe's chief importers of exotic luxury goods -
0:44:47 > 0:44:52tobacco, spices, coffee, fine Chinese porcelain.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55They also capitalised by making their own cheaper versions
0:44:55 > 0:44:59of some of those goods such as the famous Delftware tiles and pottery.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03The standard of living in Holland was now higher than in any other
0:45:03 > 0:45:07country in the world - they really had never had it so good.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22The Dutch embraced the good life - just rewards for hard work.
0:45:24 > 0:45:30But still the old Calvinist conscience nagged away at them.
0:45:30 > 0:45:36If you have TOO much fun, it might all be snatched away from you.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40Even as the party went on, they feared it might be their last.
0:45:40 > 0:45:41Let's wait and see.
0:45:43 > 0:45:47It's a tension crystallised in the work of a publican turned
0:45:47 > 0:45:50painter called Jan Steen.
0:45:52 > 0:45:54As an innkeeper,
0:45:54 > 0:46:01Steen was no stranger to the sight of people indulging in pleasure.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04No surprise, then, that he's famous for painting witty
0:46:04 > 0:46:07scenes of domestic chaos.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11So much so that even today the Dutch talk disparagingly of a
0:46:11 > 0:46:17"Jan Steen household" meaning a particularly anarchic home.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21But is there more to Steen's anarchy than meets the eye?
0:46:26 > 0:46:28HE CHORTLES
0:46:28 > 0:46:32Meet the Dutch neighbours from hell.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35Het vrolijke huisgezin - the merry household -
0:46:35 > 0:46:39is the name of perhaps Jan Steen's most famous picture,
0:46:39 > 0:46:45certainly one of the rowdiest pictures of the Dutch Golden Age.
0:46:45 > 0:46:50What I love about it is it's a kind of assembly of human gargoyles.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54Look at this gurning head of the family,
0:46:54 > 0:47:00grinning his boozy delight at the pleasures of the bottle.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03Look at the wizened crone singing a tune.
0:47:03 > 0:47:10And there, at the centre of the picture, a kind of profane Madonna,
0:47:10 > 0:47:16the mother of the household with her distinctly un-Christlike child.
0:47:16 > 0:47:21She's certainly got the cleavage to end all cleavages.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26And if you know how to look at these pictures, they're full of warnings
0:47:26 > 0:47:29about the moral danger of excess.
0:47:30 > 0:47:36The broken egg - symbol of fractured virtue,
0:47:36 > 0:47:41the smoke that curls up from the pipe being smoked by the little boy.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45That symbolises the transience of pleasure.
0:47:45 > 0:47:51And to underscore that moral, there's a piece of paper
0:47:51 > 0:47:57pinned above the fireplace which tells us that as the old sing,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00so they young will chirrup. In other words,
0:48:00 > 0:48:05set a bad example to your children and they will surely follow it.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10And yet there's something about the picture that makes you wonder
0:48:10 > 0:48:15whether the moral isn't actually just an alibi for having a good old laugh.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18Jan Steen was himself, after all, a publican.
0:48:18 > 0:48:24He was hardly the enemy of those who sought to overindulge.
0:48:24 > 0:48:29And I'm not sure if ultimately he wasn't actually on the same
0:48:29 > 0:48:35side as the merry family, laughing along with them
0:48:35 > 0:48:38rather than poking fun AT them.
0:48:46 > 0:48:49There's a polar opposite to Jan Steen's scenes of mayhem -
0:48:59 > 0:49:04Pieter de Hooch's serene, zen-like depictions of Dutch domesticity.
0:49:13 > 0:49:15And there's no ambiguity in this art.
0:49:22 > 0:49:27Clean house, clean soul is the message.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30Everything spotless, nothing out of place.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40If you're troubled by the pitfalls of consumer society,
0:49:40 > 0:49:45this is somewhere you can control, can keep pure.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48Home sweet home.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57De Hooch's gentle celebration of an ideal Dutch home is
0:49:57 > 0:49:59the microcosm of an entire world.
0:49:59 > 0:50:03There was a huge popular vogue at the time for household manuals
0:50:03 > 0:50:09such as this. It's a book called The Skilled And Responsible Housekeeper,
0:50:09 > 0:50:14And it's a kind of secular book of hours telling the person
0:50:14 > 0:50:17exactly what and when to clean.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays for example, we learn that you have to clean the reception
0:50:22 > 0:50:25area. On Wednesdays it's the path leading up to the front door.
0:50:25 > 0:50:30And at the centre of it all lay one great tenet.
0:50:30 > 0:50:36It's written here, "Zindelijkheid is een groot Cieraadt" -
0:50:36 > 0:50:38cleanliness is the great gem.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48The obsession with cleanliness is a lasting national characteristic.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52In Holland you're still expected to keep
0:50:52 > 0:50:56the pavement in front of your house spick and span.
0:50:56 > 0:51:00And a common aversion to curtains shows you've got nothing to hide.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13In the Dutch Golden Age, the house was a symbol not
0:51:13 > 0:51:18only of your own moral fibre, but the state of the Republic itself.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23After all, what was the Republic but an edifice -
0:51:23 > 0:51:25a house where each brick,
0:51:25 > 0:51:33each fine, upstanding citizen helped ensure the whole would not collapse.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38And it would produce one last, truly great artist who would try to
0:51:38 > 0:51:40grasp that dream.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46If de Hooch was the great painter of Dutch bricks and mortar,
0:51:46 > 0:51:50I think it was Johannes Vermeer who most memorably, most
0:51:50 > 0:51:55hauntingly depicted the interior spaces of the Dutch household.
0:51:55 > 0:52:01He paints a serving girl pouring milk into a bowl in a humble kitchen.
0:52:01 > 0:52:06And yet the whole space is suffused with light that falls on her
0:52:06 > 0:52:09almost like a form of benediction.
0:52:09 > 0:52:13Your eye is caught by the bread on the table, which inevitably
0:52:13 > 0:52:19brings to mind the bread on the altar at the moment of Mass.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24She's the high priestess of the home.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29Then he paints a woman in blue receiving a letter,
0:52:29 > 0:52:31reading it for the first time.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36There's a look of anticipation on her face.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39The map behind her suggests distance.
0:52:39 > 0:52:44Is she receiving news from her beloved, her husband?
0:52:46 > 0:52:50Her swollen belly suggests that she's pregnant,
0:52:50 > 0:52:55the whole scene has the aura of a secular Annunciation.
0:52:55 > 0:52:57She is the Madonna of the house.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01And then perhaps most memorably of all,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05he paints The Girl With A Pearl Earring.
0:53:05 > 0:53:11It's the look of love caught forever on a human face.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15You can see the moistness in the corner of her lip,
0:53:15 > 0:53:17the wetness in her eye.
0:53:17 > 0:53:18It's an utterly beguiling picture.
0:53:18 > 0:53:26I think for Vermeer she represents almost the sanctity of love.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30She's a person, but she's also a kind of saint.
0:53:45 > 0:53:49You'd hardly guess from the hallowed serenity of his art that
0:53:49 > 0:53:53Vermeer struggled to make ends meet and lived in a somewhat
0:53:53 > 0:53:59troubled home, often plagued by obnoxious relatives.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03Perhaps his paintings reflect a longing, not a reality -
0:54:03 > 0:54:06a peace he wished he had.
0:54:17 > 0:54:22Vermeer was the last truly great artist of the Dutch Golden Age.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24Its downfall was his downfall.
0:54:29 > 0:54:321672, when Vermeer turned 40,
0:54:32 > 0:54:35was the Republic's great Year of Disaster.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41English, French and German forces tried to invade simultaneously
0:54:41 > 0:54:45from different directions.
0:54:45 > 0:54:50The Dutch had to break the dykes and flood the land to repel invaders.
0:54:52 > 0:54:55It broke Dutch global supremacy.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00They survived, but their power would never be the same again.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04And it broke Johannes Vermeer.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08He lost everything in the economic crisis that followed,
0:55:08 > 0:55:13and died, aged 43, a destroyed man.
0:55:15 > 0:55:21For me, it's one of his paintings that stands for ever as an elegy
0:55:21 > 0:55:26to the extraordinary time and place that was Holland in the Golden Age.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40This is Vermeer's View Of Delft.
0:55:40 > 0:55:43Marcel Proust, the French writer, said it was the most beautiful
0:55:43 > 0:55:47painting in the world, and I wouldn't contradict him.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51What a picture it is - it's beguiling, entrancing.
0:55:51 > 0:55:58It's Vermeer's hometown painted from a vantage point that never was.
0:55:58 > 0:56:02And idealised to a great extent, I think.
0:56:02 > 0:56:05Look at the way he's tidied everything up.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08He's given a kind of geometrical order to the outline
0:56:08 > 0:56:11of these buildings in the centre of Delft.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18I think it's a picture that encapsulates the great dream
0:56:18 > 0:56:23of Holland in the 17th century, the dream of a perfect world,
0:56:23 > 0:56:30a place where all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds.
0:56:30 > 0:56:35The sun is shining, people are going about their business, peace,
0:56:35 > 0:56:39tranquillity, prosperity, order.
0:56:43 > 0:56:49And yet, if you look more closely at the picture, I think Vermeer's
0:56:49 > 0:56:54also absolutely encapsulated that sense that the Dutch always
0:56:54 > 0:56:59had throughout their greatest hour, throughout the 17th century,
0:56:59 > 0:57:02that whatever they gain, whatever they made, whatever they profited,
0:57:02 > 0:57:09it was always profoundly at risk, it was always vulnerable.
0:57:09 > 0:57:14And Vermeer's painted that sense of vulnerability into his idyll
0:57:14 > 0:57:20by placing a huge amount of emphasis on transience, on change.
0:57:20 > 0:57:25Look at the weather, the sky, that...you can almost feel it moving above you.
0:57:28 > 0:57:33And look at the way he's depicted that wonderfully subtle expanse of water.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37These lines of white that run across it.
0:57:37 > 0:57:41They are they are waves created in the water by the whipping of the wind.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44You can feel that wind moving towards you.
0:57:44 > 0:57:47There's a wonderful little detail over here on the left where
0:57:47 > 0:57:50Vermeer's had the paint ground in a slightly crystalline,
0:57:50 > 0:57:54granular way, so that those roofs sparkle. Why do they sparkle?
0:57:54 > 0:57:57To show us that it has been raining.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00That cloud has dumped its load on those roofs.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04But that rain has passed.
0:58:04 > 0:58:09This is a moment of perfection, a moment of sunshine.
0:58:09 > 0:58:15The storm's passed, but another storm might be on the way.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20Vermeer's painted a golden moment
0:58:20 > 0:58:27and I think he's, in a sense, painted the Dutch Golden Age itself,
0:58:27 > 0:58:30something beautiful, something full of wonder, something extraordinary
0:58:30 > 0:58:34but something also destined inevitably to pass and to fade.
0:59:03 > 0:59:06Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd