0:00:08 > 0:00:10This is the last film in the series.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14It's where we explore some complex technical issues
0:00:14 > 0:00:17about colour wheels and optics, so I'm just testing all the equipment,
0:00:17 > 0:00:20making sure it's working.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26The magic wheel of light...
0:00:26 > 0:00:28Yep, that's working perfectly.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33Monet's glasses are perfect.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Can't see a thing.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46Good! That's all working. So we're ready to go
0:00:46 > 0:00:49with the final film in the story of Impressionism.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54SONG: L'Ogre featuring 70 Million by Hold Your Horses!
0:01:01 > 0:01:04# Though it hardly looked like a novel at all
0:01:04 > 0:01:06# And the city treats me, it treats me to you
0:01:06 > 0:01:09# And a cup of coffee for you
0:01:09 > 0:01:11# I should learn its language and speak it to you
0:01:11 > 0:01:14# And 70 million should be in the know
0:01:14 > 0:01:17# And 70 million don't go out at all
0:01:17 > 0:01:19# And 70 million wouldn't walk this street
0:01:19 > 0:01:22# And 70 million would run to a hole
0:01:22 > 0:01:24# And 70 million would be wrong, wrong, wrong
0:01:24 > 0:01:27# And 70 million never see it at all
0:01:27 > 0:01:31# And 70 million haven't tasted snow #
0:01:49 > 0:01:52This is the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55France's most prestigious art school.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00It was established in 1648 by Louis XIV,
0:02:00 > 0:02:04so this is one of the most historic locations
0:02:04 > 0:02:06in the story of art.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13'Usually I wouldn't bring you anywhere near here
0:02:13 > 0:02:15'in a film about the Impressionists.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18'Impressionism was modern,
0:02:18 > 0:02:21'and this place isn't.'
0:02:23 > 0:02:26Perversely, though, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
0:02:26 > 0:02:29played a huge role in the story of Impressionism,
0:02:29 > 0:02:35because this grandest of art schools is where Georges Seurat studied.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42Ah, yes - Seurat, king of the dots!
0:02:42 > 0:02:45He painted some of the best-known pictures
0:02:45 > 0:02:48in the chronicles of Impressionism.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51But the man himself was a mystery.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58The only photograph you'll ever see of him is this one.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03And the only real evidence of his thinking is his art,
0:03:03 > 0:03:06with its strange stiffness,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09and those puzzling dots.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17This is a film about the final days of Impressionism,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19how it ended and what it became,
0:03:19 > 0:03:22so of course Seurat has to feature.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31Seurat was invited to show with the Impressionists by Pissarro.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35He was completely unknown then.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42But when this famous picture, A Sunday Afternoon On La Grand Jatte,
0:03:42 > 0:03:47popped up in the last Impressionist exhibition of 1886,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50everybody noticed it.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56Impressionism was obviously on to something new here.
0:03:56 > 0:04:01But what the hell was it? If you ask ten art critics about Seurat,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03you'll get ten different opinions.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06He was such a private and elusive painter,
0:04:06 > 0:04:10kept it all locked away, stored in here.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15'Until Seurat arrived,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19'Impressionism had been happy to capture the moment,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21'and to live for the present.
0:04:21 > 0:04:26'Remember all that joie de vivre you saw in the earlier films -
0:04:26 > 0:04:30'Renoir's boating parties,
0:04:30 > 0:04:33'Monet's beautiful days.'
0:04:33 > 0:04:37Suddenly none of it seemed enough any more.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Seurat's pictures are looking for something deeper,
0:04:42 > 0:04:44less fidgety,
0:04:44 > 0:04:46more permanent.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58'Seurat was a student here at the posh Ecole des Beaux-Arts
0:04:58 > 0:05:00'from 1878.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03'He was here for two years,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06'surrounded by the past.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12His parents were very well off, so he never had to work,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14and by rights, he should have become
0:05:14 > 0:05:17a very traditional and conservative painter,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20the kind of artist who does this.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27But he didn't. Instead, Seurat became this sort of artist,
0:05:27 > 0:05:29and this.
0:05:30 > 0:05:36These were, are, and always will be strange pictures.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40And the first of them, The Bathers At Asnieres,
0:05:40 > 0:05:44was begun when he was just 23 -
0:05:44 > 0:05:50his first masterpiece, and already so puzzling.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52WATER SPLASHING
0:05:54 > 0:05:58I reckon it was painted about here. See that bridge there?
0:05:58 > 0:06:00That's the railway bridge at Asnieres,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04and you can just about make it out way in the distance
0:06:04 > 0:06:06in Seurat's Bathers.
0:06:08 > 0:06:09# La fille du roi
0:06:09 > 0:06:12# Etait a sa fenetre
0:06:12 > 0:06:14# La fille du roi...
0:06:14 > 0:06:17It's a sunny day by the river, probably a Sunday.
0:06:20 > 0:06:25That was when working men in Paris generally had their day off,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29and all the bathers at Asnieres are working men.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36You can tell from their overalls and their battered bowler hats.
0:06:38 > 0:06:40Perhaps they're workmen from the factories
0:06:40 > 0:06:43you can see in the distance at Clichy.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46Clichy had become a busy factory district,
0:06:46 > 0:06:49so all the chaps by the river here could be workmen
0:06:49 > 0:06:53taking time off together in a bloke-ish fashion,
0:06:53 > 0:06:56as blokes do.
0:06:59 > 0:07:04Bathing was traditionally a feminine subject in art,
0:07:04 > 0:07:07an excuse for naughty Old Masters
0:07:07 > 0:07:12to paint beautiful young women naked and wet.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17So Seurat, by confining his picture to men,
0:07:17 > 0:07:21is already being revolutionary and confrontational.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27One of the boys in the water, the one with his back turned to us,
0:07:27 > 0:07:31is clearly based on a famous painting by Ingres
0:07:31 > 0:07:34that hangs in the Louvre - the Valpincon Bather,
0:07:34 > 0:07:38a mysterious Oriental odalisque
0:07:38 > 0:07:41whose naked back would drive men wild.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45# Joli tambour, tu n'es pas assez riche
0:07:45 > 0:07:48# Joli tambour, tu n'es pas assez riche...
0:07:48 > 0:07:52'Actually hanging in the chapel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
0:07:52 > 0:07:57'where Seurat studied, was a set of copies of Piero della Francesca,
0:07:57 > 0:08:01'the calmest and most luminous of Renaissance Old Masters.'
0:08:06 > 0:08:09They were hung there to inspire the students,
0:08:09 > 0:08:12and they obviously did, because Seurat took the pose
0:08:12 > 0:08:17of the man sitting on the riverbank directly from Piero.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21If you've been watching the rest of this series,
0:08:21 > 0:08:23you'll have seen painter after painter
0:08:23 > 0:08:26deliberately taking on the Old Masters.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31Renoir did it, Degas, and now Seurat.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35All of them set out to prove
0:08:35 > 0:08:38that the modern world can be just as monumental,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42just as heroic and beautiful, as the ancient world.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46'In the end, it's probably the most important
0:08:46 > 0:08:50'of all Impressionism's revolutionary messages -
0:08:50 > 0:08:54'the present is just as precious as the past.'
0:08:56 > 0:09:00# Il y en a de plus jolies
0:09:00 > 0:09:04# Il y en a de plus jolies #
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Seurat was so secretive
0:09:11 > 0:09:14that he only told his parents he had a mistress and a son
0:09:14 > 0:09:16the day before he died.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Till then, no-one had known
0:09:20 > 0:09:24that the bosomy Madeleine Knobloch was Seurat's lover
0:09:24 > 0:09:26and the mother of his child.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30With a man as secretive as this,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34you need to dig deep to break the code.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39So Seurat wasn't a student at the Ecole for very long, was he?
0:09:39 > 0:09:42No. He had been a student for two years only.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48He was admitted with bad marks, and his marks were worse and worse,
0:09:48 > 0:09:52because he was not a conventional student.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55The other thing that was very important for Seurat
0:09:55 > 0:09:57when he was here at the Ecole
0:09:57 > 0:10:00was his exposure to lots of scientific books.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03I mean, there's a famous book called The Grammar Of Art
0:10:03 > 0:10:06by Charles Blanc, who was actually director here at the time.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10Yes. Charles Blanc wrote this book,
0:10:10 > 0:10:12Grammar Of The Art Of Drawing.
0:10:12 > 0:10:18It means that Charles Blanc discovered laws for colours
0:10:18 > 0:10:21and for lines - warm colours,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24and lines going up,
0:10:24 > 0:10:29convey a feeling of joy, of pleasure.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31- Happiness.- Of happiness.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35Of course, with cold colours and dark colours,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37it's an impression of sadness.
0:10:37 > 0:10:42You've got here the actual books that Seurat could have looked at
0:10:42 > 0:10:45in the library. This is, I know, one of the most important for him.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48This is Chevreul, with his theories of colour.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51The first thing, of course, you see about it
0:10:51 > 0:10:56is that most of the illustrations are these beautiful arrays of dots.
0:10:56 > 0:11:02Yes. There are lots of experiences about colours
0:11:02 > 0:11:06in those books. Of course it's rather scientific,
0:11:06 > 0:11:11but it was meant to help the painters.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14Mm. Well, it certainly helped Seurat, didn't it,
0:11:14 > 0:11:17because, if you're looking for the origin of Seurat's dots,
0:11:17 > 0:11:21I think you don't need to look much further than here, do you?
0:11:21 > 0:11:23Er...
0:11:23 > 0:11:25It's complicated.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36Why did Seurat paint dots? It's the first thing we need to clear up.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38What were the dots supposed to do?
0:11:38 > 0:11:41To find out, I've transformed the old chapel
0:11:41 > 0:11:45at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts into a Seurat laboratory,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48where we're going to carry out some experiments...
0:11:50 > 0:11:52..with colour.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57OK, it's not state-of-the-art,
0:11:57 > 0:12:01but, then, I'm not sure that Seurat or his dots ever were
0:12:01 > 0:12:06quite as dauntingly scientific as he made out.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12What's certain is that this is the great period of colour exploration.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16Various theories were being proposed to explain the behaviour of colour,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19and the first thing to grasp here
0:12:19 > 0:12:22is the difference between colour as a pigment...
0:12:24 > 0:12:27..and colour as light.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Pigment and light have different properties.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37If I mix blue, red and green as pigment,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40I end up with a dark-brown mess.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43But if I mix them as light...
0:12:44 > 0:12:46..the opposite happens.
0:12:46 > 0:12:50Blue, red and green become white,
0:12:50 > 0:12:53or, at least, a luminous grey.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01What Seurat decided to do was to put down his pigments
0:13:01 > 0:13:06in blobs or dots, so that instead of mixing on the canvas,
0:13:06 > 0:13:08they would mix in your eye,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12in a manner that was luminous and full of light.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35The culmination of Seurat's investigations into dotty-ism,
0:13:35 > 0:13:40his masterpiece, was this unmistakably mysterious scene
0:13:40 > 0:13:43of A Sunday Afternoon On The Grande Jatte.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49It's such a strange, strange picture.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54I've come here to Chicago to see it maybe a dozen times now,
0:13:54 > 0:13:56and I still don't really get it.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00What a thing to come up with in 1884!
0:14:03 > 0:14:05Here in America,
0:14:05 > 0:14:09Buffalo Bill was still shooting at Chief Sitting Bull.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15But in Montmartre, in his mysterious scientific studio,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18Seurat was concocting this.
0:14:20 > 0:14:23It reminds me of those frescoes in Pompeii
0:14:23 > 0:14:26that were trapped under the ashes of Vesuvius.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28History has been frozen.
0:14:28 > 0:14:33A moment in time has been turned into something eternal.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40La Grande Jatte was a tiny island on the Seine,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44upon which Parisian leisure-seekers would descend in droves
0:14:44 > 0:14:48on a Sunday to stroll about, parade and flirt.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54These days it's a dump, frankly.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57Fashionable society doesn't come down here any more.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00They've left the banks of La Grande Jatte
0:15:00 > 0:15:03to the junkies and the joggers.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10But in Seurat's day, in the 1880s,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12this was THE place to go,
0:15:12 > 0:15:16particularly if you were a fashionable chap
0:15:16 > 0:15:18looking for an unattached girl -
0:15:18 > 0:15:22because La Grande Jatte was full of them.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It was known as the island of love,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30and a good many of the fashionable ladies
0:15:30 > 0:15:34strolling around La Grande Jatte in their Sunday best
0:15:34 > 0:15:38were working girls fishing for clients.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45Everyone looking at this picture in the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition
0:15:45 > 0:15:50of 1886 would have known immediately what Seurat was implying.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53I mean, this girl over here,
0:15:53 > 0:15:56the one fishing on the riverbank -
0:15:56 > 0:15:59she doesn't look like an angler to me.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02What's she really fishing for?
0:16:02 > 0:16:05And the big couple over here...
0:16:05 > 0:16:08To us they seem terribly respectable,
0:16:08 > 0:16:12so tall and stately.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15But Seurat's audience would have known at once
0:16:15 > 0:16:17that he was a client
0:16:17 > 0:16:20and she was a prostitute.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29In the middle of the picture, so central and important-looking,
0:16:29 > 0:16:33Seurat has placed a mother and her angelic daughter,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36dressed all in white.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40They seem to be looking straight at us,
0:16:40 > 0:16:43straight at the future, as it were.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48What does that future hold for them, Seurat seems to be asking.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52What does it hold for all the little girls
0:16:52 > 0:16:55running around La Grande Jatte so innocently?
0:16:59 > 0:17:03La Grande Jatte was inspired by another painting
0:17:03 > 0:17:05that's also here in Chicago -
0:17:05 > 0:17:08The Sacred Grove,
0:17:08 > 0:17:11by Puvis de Chavannes.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17Puvis was the elder statesman of French art.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21His pale, mysterious symbolism was much admired
0:17:21 > 0:17:25by various Impressionists, especially Seurat.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31That sense of being frozen in time
0:17:31 > 0:17:35is something that Seurat definitely took from Puvis.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39But Puvis' picture isn't set in the modern world.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43It's set somewhere way back in time,
0:17:43 > 0:17:47on an idyllic mythological island,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49where the nine muses of art
0:17:49 > 0:17:54have gathered to stroll and think and look lovely.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59So what Seurat has done...
0:17:59 > 0:18:03is to update the sacred grove,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05to show us what such a place might look like
0:18:05 > 0:18:11in 1884 AD rather than BC.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18La Grande Jatte shows us what the modern world has become,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23and niggles us to compare it with what it used to be.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33There's something else that's important.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36I'm absolutely certain that La Grande Jatte here
0:18:36 > 0:18:39was painted as a deliberate parallel...
0:18:41 > 0:18:43..to the bathers at Asnieres.
0:18:43 > 0:18:47The two pictures were meant to work together,
0:18:47 > 0:18:50a deliberate call and response...
0:18:52 > 0:18:56..between posh Parisian society on the Right Bank,
0:18:56 > 0:19:00with its parasols and its smart folk,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04and the world of the workers on the Left Bank
0:19:04 > 0:19:09with the belching factories and the smoking chimneys.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18Look at the way the boy here, the one in the water,
0:19:18 > 0:19:21is calling over to the other side of the river...
0:19:22 > 0:19:27..where the people on the opposite bank watch him so silently
0:19:27 > 0:19:30and glumly. On this side of the river,
0:19:30 > 0:19:35something massive and threatening has cast a huge shadow
0:19:35 > 0:19:38across La Grande Jatte.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41But not on the other side,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44even though the sun is in the same place.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48On this side of the river, people take their shirts off
0:19:48 > 0:19:51and sit in the sun.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56On the other side, everyone hides under their parasols
0:19:56 > 0:19:58and keeps their tops on.
0:20:00 > 0:20:06So Seurat has produced a stereo image of modern Paris,
0:20:06 > 0:20:08a heads and a tails...
0:20:10 > 0:20:14..two sides of the modern world confronting each other
0:20:14 > 0:20:16across the river.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27Right. This is another crucial aspect of Seurat's optical theory,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31about the importance of the afterimage.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35In a moment, the screen you're watching is going to go blank,
0:20:35 > 0:20:37completely white.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40But please don't turn over to another channel.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44Keep watching. If you want to understand Seurat's colour theory,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47you need to keep looking at this screen.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51So, are you ready? Here we go.
0:20:52 > 0:20:56Right. See the red rectangle? Just keep staring at it.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58Don't look away. Keep looking at it.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00One, two,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03three... Don't look away.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05Four... Keep staring. Five...
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Now look. What do you see?
0:21:10 > 0:21:13A green shape, right?
0:21:14 > 0:21:17Did you see it - the green afterimage?
0:21:17 > 0:21:21That wasn't really there. That was just a retinal memory
0:21:21 > 0:21:23in your eye, and Seurat, with his dots,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26was trying to control that sensation.
0:21:26 > 0:21:29He knew that when he put down a colour,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32you would also see its complementary,
0:21:32 > 0:21:38so when he put down red, you would also see green next to it.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41And if in his painting he actually put green next to red,
0:21:41 > 0:21:45he knew that the green would seem greener there
0:21:45 > 0:21:48and the red would seem redder.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54In theory, he was trying to turn painting into science,
0:21:54 > 0:21:58to control your vision. But he never quite pulled it off.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02In reality, there were just too many things to juggle with,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06too many optical issues, too many dots.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11SEAGULLS CRYING
0:22:11 > 0:22:14WIND BLOWING SOFTLY
0:22:19 > 0:22:24Working on these giant masterpieces was exhausting and demanding.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26So when La Grande Jatte was finished,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31Seurat began a set of smaller views of the sea...
0:22:32 > 0:22:35..his marine landscapes.
0:22:35 > 0:22:38SEAGULLS CRYING
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Every summer, he'd head for the French coast,
0:22:45 > 0:22:50book himself into a small hotel or lodgings,
0:22:50 > 0:22:54and embark upon a meticulous campaign
0:22:54 > 0:22:57of sea paintings.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07Seurat's marine views are among his most accessible
0:23:07 > 0:23:09and delightful achievements.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12Every summer from 1885,
0:23:12 > 0:23:15he went somewhere else and did some more.
0:23:16 > 0:23:22"Let's go and get drunk on light," he wrote of his journeys to the sea.
0:23:30 > 0:23:32Interestingly, though, and typically,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36Seurat didn't go south to the Mediterranean
0:23:36 > 0:23:38like the other Impressionists.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42He went north to the Channel coast,
0:23:42 > 0:23:46where the sea can be bleak and austere...
0:23:47 > 0:23:52..and where these long, low dune-scapes
0:23:52 > 0:23:56alternate with rocky and craggy headlands.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04SEAGULLS CRYING
0:24:04 > 0:24:07WAVES MURMURING
0:24:11 > 0:24:15In 1890, he spent the summer here at Gravelines.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19It's near Dunkirk and Calais, almost on the Belgian border,
0:24:19 > 0:24:26and beaches don't get much longer or bare than they are here.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40The most intriguing of the Gravelines paintings
0:24:40 > 0:24:43were done from here, the quay in front of the lighthouse,
0:24:43 > 0:24:46looking out across the water
0:24:46 > 0:24:48to where the old signal mast used to stand,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51showing how high the tides were.
0:24:53 > 0:24:54In one of his views from here,
0:24:54 > 0:24:59Seurat captures so masterfully the pale tonality
0:24:59 > 0:25:02of the sunny days you get around here.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04There's hardly anything there.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06It's so white, so watery,
0:25:06 > 0:25:10like the tenth cup of tea from the same teabag.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17Then, from more or less the same place on the same quay,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21he painted the same view in the evening,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26so same place, but completely different mood.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32This time it's twilight.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36The coast is glowing darkly.
0:25:36 > 0:25:38Night is at hand.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43One reality, two viewpoints.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48This is Impressionism becoming something else.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54Impressionism is breaching the fourth dimension.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33In that influential book by Charles Blanc
0:26:33 > 0:26:36on the grammar of art that Seurat read as a student,
0:26:36 > 0:26:38there's a picture of a set of faces
0:26:38 > 0:26:41drawn by Humbert de Superville,
0:26:41 > 0:26:45another of these wacky pseudo-scientists
0:26:45 > 0:26:47who were publishing their theories at the time,
0:26:47 > 0:26:55and de Superville's faces illustrate the emotional power of lines.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57So this face here...
0:27:01 > 0:27:03..is happy, joyous...
0:27:04 > 0:27:08..while this one is glum and down.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13And the one in the middle, well, that's...
0:27:15 > 0:27:18..calm, contented,
0:27:18 > 0:27:20composed.
0:27:22 > 0:27:25All done with simple lines.
0:27:29 > 0:27:35This idea that horizontal lines create sensations of calmness
0:27:35 > 0:27:39is one of the reasons why Seurat came to this coast.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45France doesn't get much flatter or more exactly divided
0:27:45 > 0:27:47than it does here.
0:27:50 > 0:27:52In his day scene from here,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56Seurat's gone for an impression of immense calmness,
0:27:56 > 0:27:59with these clear verticals above the horizon,
0:27:59 > 0:28:03and a stretch of sandy emptiness below.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09But the evening scene goes for the opposite effect.
0:28:12 > 0:28:17In the evening scene, Gravelines puts on its sad face.
0:28:17 > 0:28:20The boats are scowling.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22The anchors are downcast.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27Gravelines at sunset is glum.
0:28:31 > 0:28:37So here's an artist treating emotion as a scientific challenge,
0:28:37 > 0:28:39manipulating your moods
0:28:39 > 0:28:43with carefully considered painting strategies,
0:28:43 > 0:28:47as if he were a scientist and you were the guinea pig.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50LIVELY ACCORDION MUSIC
0:28:56 > 0:28:59CAN-CAN MUSIC
0:28:59 > 0:29:01MEN WHISTLING AND HOOTING
0:29:03 > 0:29:06Seurat died when he was just 31 -
0:29:06 > 0:29:11such an early departure for such a big talent...
0:29:12 > 0:29:16..particularly since his work was getting stranger and stranger.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19I mean, the marine paintings are beautiful enough,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23but everything else he was doing in Paris was increasingly eccentric.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26CAN-CAN MUSIC CONTINUES
0:29:26 > 0:29:31Seurat had developed a taste for theatres and circuses,
0:29:31 > 0:29:34and in a set of strikingly unusual pictures,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38had taken to recording the nocturnal pleasures
0:29:38 > 0:29:41of the Parisian bourgeois.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE
0:29:47 > 0:29:49CAN-CAN MUSIC CONTINUES
0:29:49 > 0:29:54'His final painting, Seurat's last masterpiece,
0:29:54 > 0:29:59'was, of all things, a painting of some can-can dancers.'
0:30:04 > 0:30:07The can-can, or chahut as it was known,
0:30:07 > 0:30:09wasn't really a dance at all.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12It was a bit of late-night Parisian naughtiness,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16in which provocative women would throw up their skirts,
0:30:16 > 0:30:20- expose a bit of leg, and whoop. - DANCER WHOOPS
0:30:20 > 0:30:22CAN-CAN MUSIC
0:30:22 > 0:30:27Seurat's painting is usually seen as one of his brainy attempts
0:30:27 > 0:30:30to put theory into action.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32All these dizzy diagonals
0:30:32 > 0:30:35are supposed to create a sense of gaiety.
0:30:35 > 0:30:39It's the lessons of Humbert de Superville again.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45But if Seurat really was trying to paint a gay and happy picture,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49he hasn't exactly succeeded, has he?
0:30:50 > 0:30:54There's a stiff and forced air to Seurat's Chahut.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56If this is a fun night out,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59I think I'd rather stay at home.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05But I don't think it was meant to be a fun night out.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09I think Seurat's motives were deeper and darker.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13These days we think of the can-can as a seedy tourist attraction,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16something to go and watch in the Place Pigalle.
0:31:16 > 0:31:21But in Seurat's time, it was genuinely dangerous and decadent -
0:31:21 > 0:31:25so decadent that the anarchists actually blew up
0:31:25 > 0:31:28a notorious can-can club in Lyons,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32because they saw it as the embodiment of bourgeois decay.
0:31:35 > 0:31:40For me, all of Seurat's paintings have this niggling, insistent sense
0:31:40 > 0:31:43of politics about them,
0:31:43 > 0:31:46as if they're trying to comment in secret
0:31:46 > 0:31:49on the world around them,
0:31:49 > 0:31:53its phoniness and silliness and hypocrisy.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59The more I look at Seurat's art, the more firmly I'm convinced
0:31:59 > 0:32:01that under this cloak of colour theory
0:32:01 > 0:32:04and the lines of emotion, what we really have here
0:32:04 > 0:32:09is a very pessimistic observer of modern life.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11CAN-CAN MUSIC
0:32:11 > 0:32:13Impressionism had grown cynical,
0:32:13 > 0:32:15disillusioned with the illusions.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Having set out to see the modern world properly,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22it was now seeing it all too well.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25Art was changing moods.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40There's an old Dutch proverb that says,
0:32:40 > 0:32:45"If the sky is blue, it'll be grey tomorrow."
0:32:45 > 0:32:49The Dutch, alas, are not a cheery bunch.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00Amazingly, though, Holland and the Dutch
0:33:00 > 0:33:03played a big role in the story of Impressionism.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07Monet came here on several productive visits,
0:33:07 > 0:33:10and painted glorious flower scenes
0:33:10 > 0:33:15of the tulip paradise in miraculous bloom.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22But Holland's greatest gift to Impressionism
0:33:22 > 0:33:26was a redhead, small and wiry,
0:33:26 > 0:33:29beady-eyed and grumpy.
0:33:30 > 0:33:35It's that brilliant little Dutch gnome, Vincent van Gogh,
0:33:35 > 0:33:40or, as his own people call him, "FAN GOFF!"
0:33:43 > 0:33:47If you think Van Gogh was cuddly, think again.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51He was dark, driven, obsessive.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54His father was a Dutch pastor,
0:33:54 > 0:33:59and a gloomy world view was Van Gogh's inheritance.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03As another gloomy Dutch proverb puts it,
0:34:03 > 0:34:08"A frog will always jump back into the pool,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11even if it sits on a golden throne."
0:34:12 > 0:34:14You can never escape your past.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18A frog will always be a frog.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26'Van Gogh's energetic attempts to escape the pond
0:34:26 > 0:34:30'took him to England, then Belgium,
0:34:30 > 0:34:32'and finally to Paris,
0:34:32 > 0:34:36'where he arrived in 1886,
0:34:36 > 0:34:41'just in time to see the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition.'
0:34:47 > 0:34:52Van Gogh's younger brother, Theo, was an art dealer in Paris,
0:34:52 > 0:34:54who'd been supporting the Impressionists.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57So when Vincent suddenly turned up here,
0:34:57 > 0:35:01the good news was that he could get up to speed quickly
0:35:01 > 0:35:03on the latest developments in art.
0:35:03 > 0:35:06The bad news was that he had nowhere to live,
0:35:06 > 0:35:10and was moving in with Theo.
0:35:12 > 0:35:18'These days we think of Van Gogh as a soulful, warm-hearted genius,
0:35:18 > 0:35:22'a fragile soul too brittle for the modern world.'
0:35:24 > 0:35:28He was a genius, all right, but he was also the last person on Earth
0:35:28 > 0:35:31you'd want moving into your flat.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37Disruptive, decrepit, difficult,
0:35:37 > 0:35:41Van Gogh had no personal hygiene whatsoever,
0:35:41 > 0:35:43and drank like a fish.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46After a couple of absinthes,
0:35:46 > 0:35:49he could start a fight with a Buddhist monk.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55His health was shot, too. When he arrived in Paris,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57he was already suffering from syphilis,
0:35:57 > 0:36:01and in Belgium, where he'd just dropped out of art school again,
0:36:01 > 0:36:04his teeth had rotted so badly
0:36:04 > 0:36:07he had to have ten of them taken out in one go.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14That's why you never see Vincent smiling
0:36:14 > 0:36:17in any of the fierce and brooding self-portraits
0:36:17 > 0:36:20he began churning out in Paris.
0:36:22 > 0:36:24In his troubled vision of himself,
0:36:24 > 0:36:28Van Gogh always kept his mouth shut.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31In real life, it never was,
0:36:31 > 0:36:34particularly after a drink or two.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45Vincent and Theo lived just here at the bottom of Montmartre,
0:36:45 > 0:36:48at 54 Rue Lepic,
0:36:48 > 0:36:50up on the third floor,
0:36:50 > 0:36:54where Vincent soon made sure the rooms were so squalid
0:36:54 > 0:36:57that Theo was embarrassed to invite anyone round.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04The Rue Lepic was just a stone's throw away
0:37:04 > 0:37:06from the Moulin de la Galette -
0:37:06 > 0:37:11once a windmill, now a can-can joint.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18By the time Vincent arrived in Montmartre,
0:37:18 > 0:37:22most of the old windmills had been turned into bars and cabarets.
0:37:22 > 0:37:27But from the outside at least, this still looked like home.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33If anyone was ever handing out prizes
0:37:33 > 0:37:38for the least familiar views of Impressionist Paris,
0:37:38 > 0:37:42then, Van Gogh's gloomy cityscapes would surely win.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49With all these rickety windmills dotted about,
0:37:49 > 0:37:52Van Gogh's Paris looks more like Holland than France.
0:37:52 > 0:37:57In those days, Montmartre was still a messy scrubland
0:37:57 > 0:38:00of working gardens and scruffy allotments.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07Exiled in this pretend Holland,
0:38:07 > 0:38:11a lonely Dutch frog was missing its pond.
0:38:16 > 0:38:20Apart from walking, painting and arguing,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Vincent's other great hobby was drinking.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26He did a lot of that - some of it in here.
0:38:26 > 0:38:28CHATTERING AND LAUGHTER
0:38:30 > 0:38:33The Lapin Agile, or Agile Rabbit,
0:38:33 > 0:38:36is the only bar in Montmartre
0:38:36 > 0:38:39that remains more or less as Vincent would have known it...
0:38:39 > 0:38:42ACCORDION MUSIC
0:38:42 > 0:38:45..small, dark and shabby.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49- Une cerise, s'il vous plait.- Oui.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51To get Vincent out of the house,
0:38:51 > 0:38:55Theo enrolled him in an art school on the Boulevard de Clichy,
0:38:55 > 0:39:00the Atelier Cormon, where the head boy was a small chap
0:39:00 > 0:39:02called Toulouse Lautrec. Merci.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10Vincent wasn't the art-school type.
0:39:10 > 0:39:14He was studying mostly at the bar,
0:39:14 > 0:39:17and it wasn't for a law degree.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22One of Vincent's most striking Paris pictures
0:39:22 > 0:39:26is actually a portrait of a glass of absinthe
0:39:26 > 0:39:29sitting daintily on a cafe table.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36They called it "the green fairy",
0:39:36 > 0:39:39because when you poured in the water,
0:39:39 > 0:39:43absinthe would go milky green - pretty and dangerous.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48And that's what Vincent's painted - a glass of absinthe
0:39:48 > 0:39:51sitting on its own in a bar,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54like a pretty girl waiting to be chatted up.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59It was about now that he got himself involved
0:39:59 > 0:40:01in a grubby little love affair
0:40:01 > 0:40:05with a local bar-owner called Agostina Segatori.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Agostina was in her mid-40s when she met Van Gogh.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14She was from Naples originally,
0:40:14 > 0:40:18and had come to Paris, like so many Italian girls,
0:40:18 > 0:40:20to pose for artists.
0:40:22 > 0:40:27She was dark and fiery, and much in demand among those salon painters
0:40:27 > 0:40:31who specialised in Middle Eastern slave scenes.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34By taking her clothes off, Agostina saved enough money
0:40:34 > 0:40:38to open a small restaurant on the Boulevard de Clichy
0:40:38 > 0:40:41- called Le Tambourin... - HE JINGLES TAMBOURINE
0:40:41 > 0:40:45..because the tables there were all shaped like tambourines.
0:40:47 > 0:40:51Her affair with Vincent was short-lived and unhappy,
0:40:51 > 0:40:54one of those grim urban collisions you get in the modern city,
0:40:54 > 0:40:57joyless and lonely.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02But it did at least inspire some fascinating art.
0:41:04 > 0:41:07The only nudes that Vincent ever painted
0:41:07 > 0:41:10are pictures of Agostina.
0:41:11 > 0:41:17Most nudes in art pretend they have some higher purpose,
0:41:17 > 0:41:20but not these. They're shockingly direct,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23and very physical.
0:41:37 > 0:41:41Agostina was notoriously hard-headed.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45She let Vincent swap some of his paintings for meals,
0:41:45 > 0:41:47but they had to be flower paintings,
0:41:47 > 0:41:51the only pictures of his she thought she could sell.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58If you look carefully at his glum portrait
0:41:58 > 0:42:03of Agostina looking tough and alienated at Le Tambourin,
0:42:03 > 0:42:07you can make out some fuzzy shapes on the wall behind.
0:42:09 > 0:42:14They're Japanese prints, a new passion of Van Gogh's.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18Agostina let him put on a show of them at Le Tambourin,
0:42:18 > 0:42:22and he's painted her sitting in front of it.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30These Japanese prints changed Vincent's art dramatically.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33It was as if someone suddenly threw open a door
0:42:33 > 0:42:35and let in colour.
0:42:37 > 0:42:42His final portrait of Agostina, before their squalid city romance
0:42:42 > 0:42:46disintegrated into arguments and name-calling,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49is a full-colour revelation...
0:42:51 > 0:42:55..Agostina, in her Italian folk costume,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00as sun-drenched and yellow as a sunflower in August.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05Van Gogh was only in Paris for two years
0:43:05 > 0:43:08before he suddenly decided to leave for the South of France,
0:43:08 > 0:43:11just as abruptly as he had arrived.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15So this Impressionist phase of his was really short,
0:43:15 > 0:43:19but the change in his work was momentous.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25This is Van Gogh at the beginning of his stay in Paris.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29And here he is 18 months later,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33once Impressionism and Japanese prints had got to him.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37This isn't progress.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40This is an identity swap.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48The Eighth Impressionist Exhibition of 1886,
0:43:48 > 0:43:52which unleashed Seurat on the world
0:43:52 > 0:43:54and transformed Van Gogh,
0:43:54 > 0:43:57turned out to be the last.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02Impressionism had opened its final door,
0:44:02 > 0:44:05and all sorts of art was rushing through it.
0:44:07 > 0:44:10Among the original Impressionists,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13the hard-core founding members,
0:44:13 > 0:44:17Pissarro had a bash at Seurat's new style,
0:44:17 > 0:44:19but he wasn't much good at it.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23In the end, he went back to his first ambition
0:44:23 > 0:44:28of capturing the busy rhythms of modern Paris.
0:44:34 > 0:44:39Renoir, alas, turned into something ghastly -
0:44:39 > 0:44:42a peddler of plump and greasy nudes
0:44:42 > 0:44:47which he churned out like a string of pork sausages.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55The true hero among the original Impressionists,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59the ones who started it all, was Monet.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02The second half of Monet's career
0:45:02 > 0:45:05was even more radical than the first.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18RIPPLING CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC
0:45:23 > 0:45:26This is Giverny, of course,
0:45:26 > 0:45:29where he spent the last 40-odd years of his life,
0:45:29 > 0:45:32and where he planted this famous garden.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40And one of the reasons he created this garden
0:45:40 > 0:45:43was to make life easier for himself,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46so he wouldn't have to travel so far...
0:45:49 > 0:45:52..to find his subjects.
0:45:59 > 0:46:04The Haystacks, that unprecedented series of outdoor picturings
0:46:04 > 0:46:07that Monet embarked upon in the 1890s
0:46:07 > 0:46:12were painted out here, in the fields just behind the garden.
0:46:14 > 0:46:19He'd load up a wheelbarrow with canvasses, paints, easels,
0:46:19 > 0:46:21get a lackey from the house to help him push it,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24and park himself in a nearby field,
0:46:24 > 0:46:29where he'd set up a row of easels and dart from canvas to canvas,
0:46:29 > 0:46:34painting the different light effects as the day changed.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42It was a simple idea, but something no-one had ever done before -
0:46:42 > 0:46:46a completely new way of painting.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55Apparently the local peasants, who didn't like Monet or modern art,
0:46:55 > 0:46:59would demolish their haystacks early on purpose,
0:46:59 > 0:47:01just to annoy him.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14Although he first came to Giverny in 1883,
0:47:14 > 0:47:18he actually waited a couple of decades
0:47:18 > 0:47:22before he began painting the most famous bit of his famous garden -
0:47:22 > 0:47:24the pond.
0:47:30 > 0:47:35These are the first water-lily paintings that Monet did.
0:47:36 > 0:47:40They were started in 1899,
0:47:40 > 0:47:45so these are the last Monets of the 19th century,
0:47:45 > 0:47:49and the first Monets of the 20th.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09Down at the bottom here, between the house and the lily pond,
0:48:09 > 0:48:12there used to be a railway track...
0:48:14 > 0:48:17..and a cheery little train would puff up and down here
0:48:17 > 0:48:20six times a day, and lift his spirits.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23TRAIN HORN HOOTING
0:48:25 > 0:48:27Monet loved trains.
0:48:27 > 0:48:32They kept popping up in his art all through his career.
0:48:33 > 0:48:37Their smoke was an exciting challenge to paint,
0:48:37 > 0:48:41and their symbolism seemed to trigger hope in him.
0:48:41 > 0:48:43TRAIN HORN HOOTING
0:48:43 > 0:48:48All that changed in 1914, when the Great War broke out,
0:48:48 > 0:48:51and the army began ferrying wounded soldiers
0:48:51 > 0:48:53from the front line up and down here,
0:48:53 > 0:48:58and the cheery little train became an insistent reminder
0:48:58 > 0:49:01of war and death.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13'What could he do? How could he help?
0:49:14 > 0:49:19'He was in his 80s now. The days for practical action had long gone.'
0:49:20 > 0:49:23But the war had come to his doorstep,
0:49:23 > 0:49:26and he had to do something.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33The answer came to him on Armistice Day itself,
0:49:33 > 0:49:37November the 11th, 1918, the last day of the war,
0:49:37 > 0:49:42when Monet wrote a letter to his old friend Georges Clemenceau,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46who had now become prime minister of France.
0:49:49 > 0:49:53Clemenceau had been an inspirational wartime leader,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56the French Winston Churchill.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01And unlike most politicians before and since,
0:50:01 > 0:50:04he also understood the power of art.
0:50:09 > 0:50:13Before he became prime minister, Clemenceau had been a journalist,
0:50:13 > 0:50:18and he'd actually written with great insight about Monet's art.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20They were old friends,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23so it was to Clemenceau,
0:50:23 > 0:50:25on Armistice Day...
0:50:26 > 0:50:30..that Monet made his great offer.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34To commemorate the end of the war,
0:50:34 > 0:50:38he would give the French state a set of his pictures.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42"It's not much," he wrote poignantly at the time,
0:50:42 > 0:50:47"but it's the only way I have of taking part in the victory."
0:50:49 > 0:50:54He'd been dreaming for some time of something momentous,
0:50:54 > 0:50:56unprecedented...
0:50:57 > 0:51:00..and already, in 1914...
0:51:03 > 0:51:08..he'd built himself this massive new studio.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18These days it's mostly used as the Giverny gift shop,
0:51:18 > 0:51:23but Monet built it to realise a dream.
0:51:24 > 0:51:28He wanted to paint a set of giant water lilies,
0:51:28 > 0:51:30and to hang them
0:51:30 > 0:51:34in a large, round space
0:51:34 > 0:51:37so that they completely encircled you.
0:51:38 > 0:51:41But there was a problem - a big one.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46For some time now, he'd been having trouble with his eyesight.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50Monet had developed cataracts in both of his eyes.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57There's three types of cataract, two of which he didn't get,
0:51:57 > 0:52:00but he did get the normal age-related cataract,
0:52:00 > 0:52:03which is called nuclear sclerosis.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06In that, the crystalline structure of the natural lens
0:52:06 > 0:52:10gradually changes, and it happens to all of us, in actual fact,
0:52:10 > 0:52:14and it yellows with age, and it kind of gets like paper,
0:52:14 > 0:52:18yellows with age. The lens yellows with age.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20Now, we've brought along some filters for the camera
0:52:20 > 0:52:24on your advice, which approximate some of the effects
0:52:24 > 0:52:26that Monet would have seen.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29I mean, we can put on this filter now,
0:52:29 > 0:52:31and I think what people watching will see
0:52:31 > 0:52:35is that it's not so much blurring - it's also the colour change.
0:52:35 > 0:52:38Absolutely, and what yellow filters do is,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42they take out blue light, so the blues tend to go.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45So just as your blue tie looks sort of grey now,
0:52:45 > 0:52:48all the blues would have looked greyish to Monet.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51They'd have morphed into one sort of splodge.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54And as the cataracts grew worse...
0:52:54 > 0:52:58We've brought along another filter to show what might have happened.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00It's quite a huge difference, isn't it,
0:53:00 > 0:53:03because the eyesight actually starts going.
0:53:03 > 0:53:06What happens then is, the eyesight begins to blur, as well,
0:53:06 > 0:53:09which of course is an added frustration,
0:53:09 > 0:53:11because you can get quite a lot of cataract
0:53:11 > 0:53:13before the eyesight starts blurring.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16But eventually, of course, it does blur,
0:53:16 > 0:53:18and it blurred in his case significantly.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22He ended up having to just rely on the labels on his paints,
0:53:22 > 0:53:24because he couldn't really tell the blues, greens
0:53:24 > 0:53:27and the purples and that. He couldn't really tell them,
0:53:27 > 0:53:29so he had to rely on the labels.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33So Monet attempted to solve his problems
0:53:33 > 0:53:36by resorting to surgery, didn't he?
0:53:36 > 0:53:41He did. The surgery had advanced enormously by then,
0:53:41 > 0:53:45but it consisted of taking the lens out of the eye,
0:53:45 > 0:53:48so you had to open the eye, get the lens out,
0:53:48 > 0:53:51and then, obviously, you have to have spectacles
0:53:51 > 0:53:53to correct for vision,
0:53:53 > 0:53:56which we can simulate for you, if you like.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59So when I put these on, I will see the world
0:53:59 > 0:54:02in the way, or nearly in the way, that Monet saw it
0:54:02 > 0:54:04- after his operation. - You just need a yellow filter
0:54:04 > 0:54:08just to make it absolutely right. Have a look at your thumb.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12- Good Lord!- Look at your thumb. - I can't see anything.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14My thumb... Agh!
0:54:14 > 0:54:18The thumb is not one thumb but two thumbs.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21There's a big thumb in one eye,
0:54:21 > 0:54:24and a sort of little thumb in the other.
0:54:24 > 0:54:27- And that is... - And the brain is incapable
0:54:27 > 0:54:30of putting the large image with the small image
0:54:30 > 0:54:32and giving you binocular vision.
0:54:32 > 0:54:34I would have said that was impossible,
0:54:34 > 0:54:36to paint with eyesight like that.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39Absolutely impossible.
0:54:42 > 0:54:46In fact, Monet's appalling eyesight
0:54:46 > 0:54:49had a positive impact on his art.
0:54:51 > 0:54:53It freed his vision,
0:54:53 > 0:54:57and forced him to trust his imagination.
0:55:02 > 0:55:05The French government found a superb location
0:55:05 > 0:55:07for those water lilies he'd promised -
0:55:07 > 0:55:11a former greenhouse on the Tuileries,
0:55:11 > 0:55:16set magnificently on the Place de la Concorde -
0:55:16 > 0:55:18the Orangerie.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25The Orangerie is long and thin rather than round,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28so Monet changed his plans.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33Instead of one huge circular room,
0:55:33 > 0:55:37he designed an even more ambitious scheme
0:55:37 > 0:55:42for two interconnected ovals.
0:55:48 > 0:55:52The Surrealist painter Andre Masson once described this
0:55:52 > 0:55:56as the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59But it's actually two Sistine Chapels
0:55:59 > 0:56:01laid end to end.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07A good thing to notice about the water lilies
0:56:07 > 0:56:11is how few water lilies there are in here.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13There are some, of course.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18Couple here, perhaps.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21A clump here.
0:56:21 > 0:56:24But there's not that many,
0:56:24 > 0:56:28and in some places there are none at all.
0:56:30 > 0:56:35Because Monet's great enfolding mural is concerned not with flowers,
0:56:35 > 0:56:41but the shimmering, reflective, endlessly fascinating presence
0:56:41 > 0:56:43of water...
0:56:45 > 0:56:47..the darknesses it harbours,
0:56:47 > 0:56:53the shifting reality in which it lurks and lives.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57He's put us on an island in the middle of a lake,
0:56:57 > 0:57:02so that the water surrounds us in every direction.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05And when Clemenceau first saw this,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08he suggested they should build a lift
0:57:08 > 0:57:10right here in the middle,
0:57:10 > 0:57:15so that visitors would be deposited at the centre of the experience
0:57:15 > 0:57:19rather than coming in through a door at the side.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24The job of the water lilies you do see in here
0:57:24 > 0:57:28is to give your eyes something tangible to grasp,
0:57:28 > 0:57:30a sense of where you are.
0:57:32 > 0:57:34They're like coloured drawing pins
0:57:34 > 0:57:41holding in place this shimmering, endless, sublime twilight.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44RIPPLING CLASSICAL MUSIC
0:57:51 > 0:57:54Monet never saw this finished.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57He died in 1926,
0:57:57 > 0:58:01the last of the surviving Impressionists.
0:58:01 > 0:58:06But he'd saved his most revolutionary moment till the end.
0:58:12 > 0:58:17I set out in this series to take Impressionism off the chocolate box,
0:58:17 > 0:58:22to put it back into the furnace, and remind us again
0:58:22 > 0:58:26of how brave it was, how fiery and inventive.
0:58:29 > 0:58:32But to be honest, I've spent all this time
0:58:32 > 0:58:34making four huge films
0:58:34 > 0:58:40trying to convince you of how revolutionary Impressionism was,
0:58:40 > 0:58:43when all I really had to do was to bring you in here
0:58:43 > 0:58:47and show you that.
0:58:48 > 0:58:53An 86-year-old Impressionist granddad did that.
0:58:53 > 0:58:57It was wild art then, and it's wild art now.
0:58:57 > 0:59:00This art will never be tamed.
0:59:01 > 0:59:06If you want, you can see it as the end of Impressionism.
0:59:06 > 0:59:12But how can the end of something be so full of possibilities?
0:59:19 > 0:59:23Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:23 > 0:59:27E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
0:59:27 > 0:59:27.