0:00:23 > 0:00:27I once made a film with Leni Riefenstahl, the notorious
0:00:27 > 0:00:32German film director who made propaganda films for the Nazis.
0:00:32 > 0:00:37And she told me that Hitler told her that he'd decided to join
0:00:37 > 0:00:42the Nazi Party while looking down on the world from a mountain.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44Now, I don't know if that's true,
0:00:44 > 0:00:49but I do know that mountains have a powerful effect on people.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55Mountains cloud your judgment.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00They heighten your emotions and intoxicate you.
0:01:01 > 0:01:06And in Renaissance times, the times we're looking at,
0:01:06 > 0:01:12they intoxicated that especially disquieting Renaissance presence...
0:01:13 > 0:01:15..Leonardo da Vinci.
0:01:20 > 0:01:25When Leonardo pops up in Renaissance films, he's always presented as
0:01:25 > 0:01:30this gatherer of knowledge. Leonardo, artist and scientist!
0:01:30 > 0:01:33The leading genius of the Renaissance.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37And of course, he was very clever and all that,
0:01:37 > 0:01:43but he was also driven, unsettling, imbalanced.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46And that's the Leonardo we'll be looking at in this film.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38Personally, I can't see how Leonardo ever managed
0:02:38 > 0:02:42to pass for a scientific genius.
0:02:42 > 0:02:45One look at his paintings tells you there was something
0:02:45 > 0:02:49strange about him, something peculiar and visionary.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56So in this film, a film about the darkness that enveloped
0:02:56 > 0:03:01the Renaissance as it hurtled through the 16th century...
0:03:03 > 0:03:06..we'll be celebrating Leonardo the fiery visionary.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12And not Leonardo the brilliant scientist.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19And then, when we've done with Leonardo,
0:03:19 > 0:03:24we'll turn to all the other wild-eyed eccentrics
0:03:24 > 0:03:29who began popping up in the Renaissance in increasing numbers.
0:03:31 > 0:03:32Hieronymus Bosch.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36Arcimboldo.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40El Greco.
0:03:42 > 0:03:48The Renaissance is supposed to be the first modern Age of Reason.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54But look how packed it really was with unreason.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03We have to start here, of course,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06with the world's most famous painting.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16Painted in around 1504,
0:04:16 > 0:04:21the Mona Lisa has spent half a millennium confusing people.
0:04:23 > 0:04:28I must have seen her 100 times and I still can't tell you
0:04:28 > 0:04:33what that mysterious look on her face is trying to convey.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38It's all deliberate.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43Leonardo, the cunning so-and-so, is playing mind games with us.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47With most portraits, you look at the sitter.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52With this one, the sitter looks at you.
0:04:52 > 0:04:55Staring slowly into your thoughts,
0:04:55 > 0:04:58as if she knows what you're thinking.
0:05:01 > 0:05:06That's why she's got that irritating smirk on her face.
0:05:06 > 0:05:09The famous "Mona Lisa smile".
0:05:10 > 0:05:12Damn it! She knows everything.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Apart from the psychological games, which are brilliant
0:05:19 > 0:05:21and way ahead of their time,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24what I really admire about her
0:05:24 > 0:05:27is that she's not classically beautiful.
0:05:30 > 0:05:36This isn't a Renaissance dolly bird or a stand-in for Venus.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40This is a smart, older woman.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43Independent and strong.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49When you admire the Mona Lisa you admire her mystery,
0:05:49 > 0:05:51not her cuteness.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57And that's where the mountains come in.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00These fabulous Leonardo mountains.
0:06:02 > 0:06:06The landscape here is really important.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09Usually in art, the landscape helps to place the sitter
0:06:09 > 0:06:11so you know where you are.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16But with the Mona Lisa, the opposite happens.
0:06:19 > 0:06:26Leonardo's mountains echo her sense of mystery and amplify it.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33Smuggled into Renaissance art are timeless moods...
0:06:34 > 0:06:36..that belong in Lord Of The Rings.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43The same thing happens all over his art.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47The pictures play mind games with you.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50This is the Virgin Of The Rocks, also in the Louvre.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54And again what a puzzling picture
0:06:54 > 0:06:58with all this strange pointing going on
0:06:58 > 0:07:01and another stupendous
0:07:01 > 0:07:05and thoroughly mysterious mountain landscape.
0:07:07 > 0:07:12Like a clever whodunnit that we will never solve,
0:07:12 > 0:07:17the art of Leonardo da Vinci keeps us guessing,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20speculating and suspecting.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30It's true of so much of his art,
0:07:30 > 0:07:35as if he's deliberately stoking up the sense of mystery
0:07:35 > 0:07:37to keep us interested.
0:07:37 > 0:07:42And very often, it involves mountains.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51In Windsor Castle in the Royal Library,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55there is a remarkable set of drawings.
0:07:57 > 0:08:01The so-called Deluge Drawings.
0:08:03 > 0:08:09Made towards the end of his life in around 1514.
0:08:11 > 0:08:17And all of them have this turbulent apocalyptic power to them.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27When I first saw these Deluge pictures
0:08:27 > 0:08:31I assumed they were scientific drawings
0:08:31 > 0:08:35in which Leonardo was recording the effects
0:08:35 > 0:08:37of a particularly fierce storm.
0:08:37 > 0:08:43And we now know that in 1513 there really was a terrible
0:08:43 > 0:08:49landslide here in Bellinzona near the Swiss border with Italy
0:08:49 > 0:08:54and that Leonardo may have witnessed the damage as the mountain
0:08:54 > 0:08:57crumbled and slid into the valley.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00ITALIAN NEWS REPORT
0:09:04 > 0:09:06And guess what?
0:09:06 > 0:09:13Just recently, in 2012, it happened again in this same valley.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18You can see it on YouTube.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21The Bellinzona landslide.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23It's very dramatic.
0:09:31 > 0:09:33So this was something that actually happened.
0:09:33 > 0:09:36It looks imaginary but it wasn't.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41It's the same with another drawing in the Royal Library in Windsor
0:09:41 > 0:09:45called The Cloud Burst Of Material Possessions
0:09:45 > 0:09:49in which all sorts of garden implements
0:09:49 > 0:09:51are falling out of the sky.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53Rakes.
0:09:53 > 0:09:54Bottles.
0:09:54 > 0:09:55Umbrellas.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01You can see that on YouTube as well.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05A few months ago, it happened near Venice
0:10:05 > 0:10:09when a tornado struck the Veneto
0:10:09 > 0:10:13and all this stuff began falling out of the sky.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22So all this can really happen.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25Nature can tear the world apart and reorder it.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29It is scientifically observable and provable.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32But there is something else going on here.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34If you look at the top, see,
0:10:34 > 0:10:39Leonardo has written something in his famous mirror writing.
0:10:40 > 0:10:46It actually says, "On this side, Adam, on this, Eve."
0:10:49 > 0:10:55Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman in the Bible,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58who committed the first sin.
0:10:59 > 0:11:03What have they got to do with any of this?
0:11:05 > 0:11:07They've got everything to do with it
0:11:07 > 0:11:11because what we've really got in these tremendous Deluge Drawings
0:11:11 > 0:11:16is an intense and pessimistic religious vision
0:11:16 > 0:11:18disguised as science.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26Here's another of the Deluge Drawings.
0:11:27 > 0:11:33A hurricane sweeping across the sky uprooting the trees,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35drowning the horsemen.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42And look, up in the clouds, hidden in the billows,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46an angry God is driving the storm.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54Look over here in the corner.
0:11:54 > 0:12:00There is a cloud load of trumpeting angels, blowing the final chord.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07We have seen angels like this before in this series.
0:12:08 > 0:12:14Back in film two when we visited the Sistine Chapel
0:12:14 > 0:12:17and saw Michelangelo's last judgment...
0:12:18 > 0:12:22..where another cloud load of trumpeting angels
0:12:22 > 0:12:25is playing the final tune.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33These Deluge Drawings may look like accurate observations of nature,
0:12:33 > 0:12:37things that Leonardo actually saw, but what they really are
0:12:37 > 0:12:42are fantastical envisionings of the final apocalypse.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44The end of the world.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52This isn't the handiwork of a particularly clever scientist.
0:12:53 > 0:12:58It's the handiwork of a particularly pessimistic visionary.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04In the mind of Leonardo da Vinci...
0:13:05 > 0:13:11..exquisite knowledge had turned into exquisite despair.
0:13:21 > 0:13:26# He sendeth the springs into the rivers
0:13:26 > 0:13:30# Which run among the hills
0:13:30 > 0:13:34# All beasts of the field drink thereof. #
0:13:34 > 0:13:39Scratch the surface of the Renaissance just about anywhere
0:13:39 > 0:13:45and the pessimism comes bubbling up like Saudi crude.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51It's true of many Renaissance hotspots.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57But it's especially true of this one.
0:14:00 > 0:14:05When it comes to pessimism, even Leonardo has some way to go
0:14:05 > 0:14:10to match the despair of Hieronymus Bosch.
0:14:10 > 0:14:15# And green herb for the service of men. #
0:14:16 > 0:14:20Bosch was almost an exact contemporary of Leonardo's,
0:14:20 > 0:14:22just a couple of years older.
0:14:22 > 0:14:28He was born around 1450 and died 1516.
0:14:28 > 0:14:34So this pessimism they shared was the pessimism of their times.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43As the 15th century turned into the 16th,
0:14:43 > 0:14:47art, the truest evidence there is of these things...
0:14:48 > 0:14:50..got weirder and weirder.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53Darker and darker.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59This is supposed to be an age of enlightenment.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03So where did the enlightenment go?
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Bosch was born over there in 's-Hertogenbosch,
0:15:10 > 0:15:13or Den Bosch as they call it now in Holland.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17He was christened Hieronymus van Aken,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20but just as Veronese came from Verona
0:15:20 > 0:15:23and da Vinci came from Vinci,
0:15:23 > 0:15:25so Bosch came from Den Bosch.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31His most famous picture,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34The Garden Of Earthly Delights in the Prado,
0:15:34 > 0:15:39that extraordinary theme park of sin,
0:15:39 > 0:15:45is a triptych packed with so much bad news
0:15:45 > 0:15:48that I can't deal with it all at once.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54So I'm going to do the three panels separately.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00The one on the left shows us paradise,
0:16:00 > 0:16:04where God has just created Adam and Eve.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11So there they all are standing under a dragon tree.
0:16:13 > 0:16:19And because this is paradise Satan is there as well.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21But he's in disguise.
0:16:22 > 0:16:26He is usually shown as a snake,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30but Bosch reinvents him as an owl...
0:16:31 > 0:16:36..lurking in his cubbyhole at the centre of paradise.
0:16:41 > 0:16:47The owl, the dragon tree, they are all symbolic details
0:16:47 > 0:16:50and the picture is jam-packed with them.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54It took us three hours to film it in the Prado
0:16:54 > 0:16:56and we still didn't finish.
0:16:59 > 0:17:05Bosch was part of a large family of painters - the van Akens...
0:17:07 > 0:17:13..who worked communally in a house by the market in Den Bosch
0:17:13 > 0:17:15with everyone chipping in.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23They all lived and worked in a studio on the square here.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28That is where The Garden Of Earthly Delights would have been painted.
0:17:31 > 0:17:35While the left-hand panel shows us paradise...
0:17:36 > 0:17:41..the central panel is a picture of Disneyland.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45Whoops, sorry! No it isn't.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48It's just that it looks like it
0:17:48 > 0:17:54with its Cinderella castles and its Sleeping Beauty fountains.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59And all that romping and revelling in the grass.
0:18:04 > 0:18:08What it actually shows is paradise a bit later on as it were
0:18:08 > 0:18:12once the humans and the animals have settled in
0:18:12 > 0:18:17and spurred on by Satan begin doing what humans
0:18:17 > 0:18:22and animals always do when you let them off the leash.
0:18:24 > 0:18:28Show a man a woman and he will sin with her.
0:18:29 > 0:18:34Show a woman a man and she will tempt him.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Or so Bosch is telling us as he warns us
0:18:40 > 0:18:44in excruciating and marvellous detail
0:18:44 > 0:18:48of the unstoppable dangers of lust.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55Because Bosch's art is so strange,
0:18:55 > 0:18:59some very daft suggestions have been put forward to explain it.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02Particularly that middle panel.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10It's been claimed that he used hallucinogenic drugs
0:19:10 > 0:19:12to imagine this.
0:19:13 > 0:19:16Renaissance LSD, perhaps.
0:19:18 > 0:19:23And Freudians have outed him as a repressed sadomasochist.
0:19:28 > 0:19:34Another popular idea is that he was a member of a secret religious cult
0:19:34 > 0:19:39and that his art was smuggling wicked heretical ideas
0:19:39 > 0:19:41into the Renaissance.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44But of course, he wasn't any of those things.
0:19:44 > 0:19:51Bosch was a fierce and inventive Catholic, a religious pessimist
0:19:51 > 0:19:55who looked around at the world about him and didn't like what he saw.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59# He sendeth the springs into the rivers. #
0:20:00 > 0:20:08In Bosch's time, 's-Hertogenbosch had about 18,000 people living in it.
0:20:08 > 0:20:15And of those 18,000, 2,000 or so were religious folk.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20Monks, friars, nuns.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23# Their habitation
0:20:23 > 0:20:27# And sing among the branches... #
0:20:27 > 0:20:31So this was an unusually religious town.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37And these unusually religious moods are his moods.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39# For the cattle
0:20:39 > 0:20:44# And green herb for the service of men
0:20:44 > 0:20:48# That he may bring food out of the earth. #
0:20:48 > 0:20:52It's been suggested that a version of The Garden Of Earthly Delights
0:20:52 > 0:20:57used to hang here in the cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch,
0:20:57 > 0:21:02but the nudity was too much for later times.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05So it was replaced.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08# And the wild asses quench their thirst
0:21:08 > 0:21:15# Beside them shall the fowls of the air have their habitation. #
0:21:15 > 0:21:19Some of the strange architecture in the garden
0:21:19 > 0:21:25was inspired by this new font for baptising children,
0:21:25 > 0:21:30which arrived in the cathedral in 1492.
0:21:30 > 0:21:33# He watereth the hills from above... #
0:21:33 > 0:21:39Bosch converted it into an ungodly blue totem
0:21:39 > 0:21:44that the locals are worshipping in their religious Disneyland.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47# And green herb for the service of men... #
0:21:47 > 0:21:52Full of guilt and terror, set free in paradise,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56mankind gets straight down to the business
0:21:56 > 0:21:59of forgetting the true God.
0:22:00 > 0:22:05# The Lord shall rejoice in His works. #
0:22:05 > 0:22:09So the central panel is packed with sinners
0:22:09 > 0:22:13and all that sinning can only lead to one place.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15Hell.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19And that is what is depicted in the right-hand panel.
0:22:19 > 0:22:22# I will praise my God while I have my being... #
0:22:22 > 0:22:25Hell is Bosch's speciality.
0:22:25 > 0:22:31He painted the most imaginative and terrifying scenes of punishment
0:22:31 > 0:22:35and distortion to be found anywhere in art.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40# And the ungodly shall come to an end... #
0:22:40 > 0:22:43I don't need to describe them.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45You can see what they are.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50The only thing that needs pointing out perhaps
0:22:50 > 0:22:55is that this is Renaissance art as well.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58Just as Renaissance as the Mona Lisa.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02# World without end
0:23:02 > 0:23:05# Amen. #
0:23:14 > 0:23:18The darkness of Hieronymus Bosch,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21the sweaty guiltiness of his art,
0:23:21 > 0:23:25all that punishment and sin,
0:23:25 > 0:23:28isn't confined to Renaissance painting.
0:23:28 > 0:23:33It's a feature too of Renaissance ceramics.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38And particularly of the remarkable plates
0:23:38 > 0:23:42made in Renaissance France by Bernard Palissy.
0:23:48 > 0:23:50Palissy was a French Huguenot.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53A protestant.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56He was born in around 1510
0:23:56 > 0:24:00and died aged about 80 in the Bastille prison.
0:24:00 > 0:24:05They locked him up because he was fiercely religious
0:24:05 > 0:24:08and refused to denounce his protestant faith.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14We are not sure where Palissy learnt
0:24:14 > 0:24:18to make his remarkable Renaissance plates.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22He seems to have been largely self-taught.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28They say he was trying to recreate Chinese porcelain.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32But I don't think I buy that.
0:24:34 > 0:24:39It's obvious surely that Palissy's plates have a dark side.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48A typical Palissy will have a snake in the middle
0:24:48 > 0:24:53and all around will be lizards, snails, frogs,
0:24:53 > 0:24:58things that slither and creep and come out in the deep.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06They are spectacularly realistic and ahead of their times.
0:25:08 > 0:25:13He made them using plaster moulds taken from real snakes
0:25:13 > 0:25:16and lizards he had collected in the marshes.
0:25:18 > 0:25:25Why would anyone in Renaissance France be making plates like these?
0:25:29 > 0:25:35In art, snakes, lizards, frogs have a very dark history.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41They have been victimised, picked out of the animal kingdom
0:25:41 > 0:25:45and turned into symbols of death and evil.
0:25:49 > 0:25:54When Carpaccio painted his fabulous St George And The Dragon
0:25:54 > 0:25:58in the Scuola San Giorgio in Venice,
0:25:58 > 0:26:02he littered the ground around his hero
0:26:02 > 0:26:07with symbols of darkness, mutilation and mortality.
0:26:10 > 0:26:17Also in Venice, why is this young man, painted by Lorenzo Lotto,
0:26:17 > 0:26:22being examined so intently by a lizard?
0:26:24 > 0:26:27Because the lizard's job in the painting
0:26:27 > 0:26:31is to remind the man that youth is short
0:26:31 > 0:26:34and death is waiting.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41It all starts in the Bible,
0:26:41 > 0:26:47which is packed with prejudicial views of reptiles and amphibians.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52When a plague descends on God's chosen people in Exodus,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55it's a plague of frogs.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58And right at the start in Genesis
0:26:58 > 0:27:02when Satan tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05he does it disguised as a snake.
0:27:06 > 0:27:09So these aren't any old religious issues.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12These are the critical ones.
0:27:15 > 0:27:21The only reason we have to die at all according to the Bible
0:27:21 > 0:27:24is because we sinned in paradise.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28And why did we sin in paradise?
0:27:29 > 0:27:34Because a snake tempted Eve to commit the first sin.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39And Bernard Palissy,
0:27:39 > 0:27:44a religious extremist who died in the Bastille for his beliefs,
0:27:44 > 0:27:50would have known all about the terrible meaning of snakes,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53frogs and lizards.
0:27:54 > 0:27:59And that's why he put them into his revolutionary ceramics.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09It's a kind of Renaissance action art.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11What do you do with a plate?
0:28:11 > 0:28:14You put food on it. God's bounty.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16And you eat it.
0:28:17 > 0:28:19And as you eat it...
0:28:20 > 0:28:27..the lizards, the frogs, the snakes begin popping up
0:28:27 > 0:28:33and reminding you that earthly pleasures don't last for long
0:28:33 > 0:28:38and that the devil is always there.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40Always ready.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44Always lurking.
0:28:47 > 0:28:52In the marvellous Renaissance action art of Bernard Palissy,
0:28:52 > 0:28:56something new appeared in the world.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59Ceramics that pack a punch.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And the pessimism of the Renaissance
0:29:03 > 0:29:07found one of its most inventive outlets.
0:29:24 > 0:29:29The deeper you go in the late Renaissance, the weirder it gets.
0:29:31 > 0:29:37Especially if you stray into Renaissance Prague,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40the unlikely bailiwick
0:29:40 > 0:29:45of this notoriously peculiar Habsburg emperor.
0:29:49 > 0:29:50Oh, OK then.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53This isn't really Rudolph II
0:29:53 > 0:29:57and he didn't really have an edible chestnut for a chin
0:29:57 > 0:29:59or a pear for a nose.
0:29:59 > 0:30:02But this is a portrait of him,
0:30:02 > 0:30:08painted by his remarkable court painter, Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Even in this strange stretch of creativity
0:30:15 > 0:30:19that is late Renaissance art,
0:30:19 > 0:30:22Arcimboldo stands out.
0:30:23 > 0:30:30The Renaissance always liked puzzles, tricks, complexities.
0:30:31 > 0:30:34But with Arcimboldo,
0:30:34 > 0:30:39this taste for conundrums reached a startling climax.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46Although he was Italian, from Milan originally,
0:30:46 > 0:30:51Arcimboldo came into his own, if that's what this can be called,
0:30:51 > 0:30:55in Prague where he found himself at the end of the 16th century
0:30:55 > 0:30:58working for Rudolph II.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03Plenty of people have plenty of views
0:31:03 > 0:31:07on what Arcimboldo was trying to do.
0:31:08 > 0:31:10He's an alchemist, say some.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13A magician, say others.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17Or perhaps an occultist.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23It was actually simpler than all that.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26He was just a man of his times.
0:31:26 > 0:31:31If you poke about in the recesses of late Renaissance art,
0:31:31 > 0:31:36step just a little bit off the beaten track, you will find lots
0:31:36 > 0:31:42of signs of an appetite that had arisen for mutation and strangeness.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46Look at this thing,
0:31:46 > 0:31:52commissioned by Rudolph II from his favourite jeweller,
0:31:52 > 0:31:54Abraham Jamnitzer.
0:31:55 > 0:32:01It's the beautiful Daphne turning into a tree made of coral...
0:32:02 > 0:32:07..as the laws of nature are usurped by the laws of art.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12And speaking of nature,
0:32:12 > 0:32:16what about this unexpected Renaissance plate
0:32:16 > 0:32:19at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford?
0:32:21 > 0:32:24It's another disguised portrait,
0:32:24 > 0:32:28made up this time of interlocking penises.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33That caption actually reads,
0:32:33 > 0:32:37"Everyone looks at me as if I were a dickhead."
0:32:39 > 0:32:42Oh, yes. The Renaissance.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44Rebirth of civilisation(!)
0:32:50 > 0:32:54So Arcimboldo wasn't going against the Renaissance grain
0:32:54 > 0:32:58when he began painting these extraordinary heads.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01He was continuing a Renaissance tradition.
0:33:01 > 0:33:07And while he was at it, he was throwing in some sneaky satire.
0:33:10 > 0:33:16This librarian made completely of books is having a little dig
0:33:16 > 0:33:22at all the showy Renaissance book collectors who pretended they
0:33:22 > 0:33:29were learned because their shelves were heavy with unopened books.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36His beard is made out of the fur tails
0:33:36 > 0:33:40that these learned Renaissance types used as dust whisks.
0:33:40 > 0:33:46And the curtain, that's the curtain that sealed off the reading area
0:33:46 > 0:33:49in the great man's private library.
0:33:50 > 0:33:55"Sh," it seems to say, "scholar at work".
0:33:58 > 0:34:04There is so much clever pictorial invention going on in Arcimboldo.
0:34:05 > 0:34:11See this plate here for instance, full of excellent kitchen produce.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16Look what happens when, through the magic of television,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19we turn it upside down.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29So Arcimboldo was brilliant and inventive
0:34:29 > 0:34:33and you have to wonder how he managed to get as good as he did
0:34:33 > 0:34:37while working for the impossible Rudolph II.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45All of the Habsburgs were problematic.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49Centuries of inbreeding had seen to that.
0:34:51 > 0:34:54But when it came to eccentricity,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58Rudolph II was in a league of his own.
0:35:03 > 0:35:08In art, he developed an uncontrollable appetite
0:35:08 > 0:35:12for the erotic and filled his castle walls
0:35:12 > 0:35:16with the paintings of Bartholomeus Spranger,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19a sly eroticist from Antwerp
0:35:19 > 0:35:23who knew exactly where to press Rudolph's buttons.
0:35:29 > 0:35:34Rudolph would arrange his pictures on chairs so he could transport them
0:35:34 > 0:35:39around the castle and look at them wherever he wanted.
0:35:39 > 0:35:44The other unusual place he put them was up on the ceiling
0:35:44 > 0:35:48and he would lie down on the ground and look up at his art.
0:35:52 > 0:35:59And there he would rest, gazing up at Spranger's Venus tempting Adonis.
0:35:59 > 0:36:05A Renaissance moment so naughty that even the dog knows what's going on.
0:36:08 > 0:36:13And here is his Venus In Vulcan's Forge.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15I hear it gets hot in there.
0:36:16 > 0:36:18Very hot.
0:36:24 > 0:36:30His other great passion, apart from erotic art, was alchemy.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35He invited most of the notable alchemists in Europe
0:36:35 > 0:36:40here to Prague with instructions to search for...
0:36:46 > 0:36:47..the Philosopher's Stone.
0:36:52 > 0:36:58This legendary substance was said to turn lead into gold.
0:36:59 > 0:37:04And it brought you what Rudolph II most desired.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07Immortality.
0:37:12 > 0:37:16He had his own private alchemy laboratory where he conducted
0:37:16 > 0:37:21increasingly dangerous experiments in this desperate search...
0:37:23 > 0:37:24..for eternal youth.
0:37:29 > 0:37:34To this day, Prague enjoys a regrettable reputation
0:37:34 > 0:37:39for alchemical experiment and occult tinkering.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46It's the European capital of hocus-pocus.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50And it has Rudolph II to thank for that.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58Another of Rudolph's eccentricities
0:37:58 > 0:38:02was to lead his life entirely by the horoscope.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06The stars ruled his every move.
0:38:11 > 0:38:17And to mark his commitment to the cosmos, Rudolph commissioned
0:38:17 > 0:38:22this painting from the great Tintoretto in Venice.
0:38:23 > 0:38:25The Origin Of The Milky Way.
0:38:28 > 0:38:32So sure was he that the stars governed everything,
0:38:32 > 0:38:37that anyone seeking an audience with him,
0:38:37 > 0:38:43be they pope or emperor, had to have their horoscope done first...
0:38:45 > 0:38:47..to make sure they were suitable.
0:38:50 > 0:38:55And to prove that his immortality was written in the stars,
0:38:55 > 0:39:01Rudolph commissioned his own personal horoscope from Nostradamus.
0:39:01 > 0:39:06Unfortunately, Nostradamus came back with bad news.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11The stars were not predicting immortality.
0:39:11 > 0:39:17So Rudolph did what any sensible, all-powerful Renaissance despot
0:39:17 > 0:39:21obsessed with magic and alchemy would do.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24He changed his birthday.
0:39:26 > 0:39:31Having been born in the realm of Cancer, Rudolph tinkered with
0:39:31 > 0:39:37the cosmos and announced that his sign was now Taurus.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41But the stars weren't fooled.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47Nostradamus predicted that Rudolph would live to 73.
0:39:47 > 0:39:52Unfortunately, he only made it to 60.
0:39:52 > 0:39:57But in his weird Renaissance way, he certainly left his mark.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03For a brief but exciting moment,
0:40:03 > 0:40:09Prague became the epicentre of a wild wing of the Renaissance.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14And to this day, the strange things done here
0:40:14 > 0:40:19in the name of Rudolph II have not been forgotten.
0:40:21 > 0:40:27So perhaps he did achieve some immortality after all.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46All the way through this series I've been arguing
0:40:46 > 0:40:52that the Renaissance was a wilder epoch than we are usually told.
0:40:54 > 0:41:00And to make this point, I have sometimes had to deal with nuances.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06But other times, the wildness stares you in the face
0:41:06 > 0:41:10and you just can't miss it.
0:41:16 > 0:41:22This is the creation of Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael,
0:41:22 > 0:41:25who came here to Mantua
0:41:25 > 0:41:33and produced this preposterous Chamber Of The Giants in 1532.
0:41:36 > 0:41:42The entire room tells the story of some uppity giants
0:41:42 > 0:41:48who are being thrown out of Mount Olympus by Jupiter and the gods.
0:41:49 > 0:41:56The uppity giants had tried to overthrow the divine Olympians.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58But they failed.
0:41:58 > 0:42:00And this is what happened to them.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09So that's actually Mount Olympus up there.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13And there's Jupiter, the king of the gods, with his thunderbolts.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18And on the right, in the low-cut tunic,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21that's Juno, the queen of the gods.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25And all the other gods are up there as well.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28There's Apollo with his lyre.
0:42:29 > 0:42:34And on the other side of the mountain, Kronos with his scythe.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39And next to him with the two faces, there's Janus.
0:42:41 > 0:42:44What a fine name that is. Janus.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53Now this kind of painting is called Mannerism.
0:42:53 > 0:42:55At least, that's what we call it now.
0:42:55 > 0:42:59For centuries it didn't really have a name.
0:42:59 > 0:43:02Nobody knew what to make of it.
0:43:06 > 0:43:11Mannerism has always been a tough ism to grasp.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15Its defining characteristics
0:43:15 > 0:43:19don't seem to define anything sensible or rational.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25Outrageous anatomies and weird poses.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30Mad colours and mysterious meanings.
0:43:32 > 0:43:36Peculiar storylines and twisty moods.
0:43:38 > 0:43:43Why would Renaissance art start doing this?
0:43:49 > 0:43:54In here for instance, to make a potty experience even pottier,
0:43:54 > 0:44:00the entire floor was originally covered in river pebbles
0:44:00 > 0:44:02and that's what you walked on.
0:44:05 > 0:44:10It's as if common sense has been thrown out of the window
0:44:10 > 0:44:17and everything has grown illogical, distorted and strange.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28And it wasn't just painting that was affected.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31It hit all the arts.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37This is the famous Apennine Giant by Giambologna.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42And how about that for a garden ornament?
0:44:42 > 0:44:46So unexpected and gargantuan.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49And so clearly not influenced by the Greeks.
0:44:53 > 0:44:56You get Mannerist metalwork as well.
0:44:56 > 0:45:00Mad creations in silver and gold.
0:45:00 > 0:45:07Like the famous salt cellar made by Benvenuto Cellini in 1543,
0:45:07 > 0:45:12which lives these days in a bulletproof box in Vienna.
0:45:14 > 0:45:15He's the salt.
0:45:15 > 0:45:17She's the pepper.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37Everybody loves Cellini's salt cellar of course,
0:45:37 > 0:45:42with its exciting mix, skill and surrealism.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44But they don't generally love Mannerism.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50Purists tend to look down on it as a decline,
0:45:50 > 0:45:53a sign of the Renaissance going wrong.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56But that's not how I see it.
0:45:57 > 0:45:59Not at all.
0:46:02 > 0:46:08This is by Pontormo, one of Mannerism's acknowledged giants.
0:46:10 > 0:46:12It's his Visitation.
0:46:12 > 0:46:14The moment in the Bible
0:46:14 > 0:46:21when the pregnant Virgin Mary visits her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28Elizabeth, on the right, is pregnant with John the Baptist.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32Mary, on the left, is pregnant with Jesus.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37So this is a moment of momentous sanctity.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41A collision of divine pregnancies.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46And Pontormo has imagined it for us so unusually.
0:46:48 > 0:46:54There are actually two Marys in the picture and two Elizabeths.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59One from the front and one from the side.
0:47:00 > 0:47:06And all four of them are floating in a frozen religious dance.
0:47:07 > 0:47:10A dance in a distant dimension.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16It's true of all his art.
0:47:17 > 0:47:23Pontormo's eerie religious pictures tinker with the logic in the world.
0:47:25 > 0:47:27Stretch it, recolour it.
0:47:28 > 0:47:34It's as if Renaissance art has given up on realism
0:47:34 > 0:47:39and embraced the strange, the twisted, the heightened.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44These are not everyday moments.
0:47:45 > 0:47:50So why should they be painted in an everyday manner?
0:47:54 > 0:47:57What we shouldn't do is see Pontormo
0:47:57 > 0:48:02as a betrayer of Renaissance values or an aberration.
0:48:02 > 0:48:07All the way through this series I've been banging on about how the
0:48:07 > 0:48:13Renaissance was never as ordered or as stable as we've been told.
0:48:13 > 0:48:19It was always full of passion, idiosyncrasy and darkness.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22You just had to look at it the right way.
0:48:27 > 0:48:33Walk into the Sistine Chapel, look up at Michelangelo
0:48:33 > 0:48:37and you will see Mannerism already happening.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43The twisting figures, the Opal Fruit colours.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48It's all there in fledgling form.
0:48:51 > 0:48:56Or peer into the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci
0:48:56 > 0:48:59and you'll find all the weirdness you could ask for.
0:49:01 > 0:49:08Spooky smiles, cryptic darknesses, obscure meanings.
0:49:13 > 0:49:20Mannerism wasn't a reaction, it was a continuation, an enlargement.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23Instead of looking down on it as a decline,
0:49:23 > 0:49:28we should be looking up at it as a fabulous climax.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49Do you know how many landscape painters
0:49:49 > 0:49:52we have looked at so far in this series?
0:49:55 > 0:49:58None. Not a single one.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05That's partly because landscape painting
0:50:05 > 0:50:08was looked down on in the Renaissance,
0:50:08 > 0:50:12but also because the Catholic Church banned it at the Council of Trent,
0:50:12 > 0:50:17where all profane subjects were deemed unsuitable for art.
0:50:17 > 0:50:22So you had to be a real rebel to paint landscapes in the Renaissance
0:50:22 > 0:50:25and that's what we've got here in Toledo.
0:50:25 > 0:50:30One of the fiercest rebels ever to pick up a paintbrush.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38In Spain, they called him El Greco, the Greek.
0:50:40 > 0:50:42He looks ordinary, doesn't he?
0:50:42 > 0:50:44But he wasn't.
0:50:46 > 0:50:48El Greco was actually born in Crete,
0:50:48 > 0:50:51which was a colony of Venice at the time,
0:50:51 > 0:50:56and the first paintings we know by him are Byzantine icons,
0:50:56 > 0:50:58so stylised and orthodox
0:50:58 > 0:51:03they could have been painted in the 10th century and not the 16th,
0:51:03 > 0:51:09which is when El Greco was actually born, in 1541.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17At some point in his 20s, he left Crete
0:51:17 > 0:51:23and moved to Venice where he worked briefly in Titian's studio,
0:51:23 > 0:51:29absorbing the big colourific lessons of Venetian art
0:51:29 > 0:51:32and changing his style into something more Western
0:51:32 > 0:51:36with a twist of Byzantium in it.
0:51:43 > 0:51:48By 1577 he had fetched up here in Toledo,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51which was so far off the beaten track
0:51:51 > 0:51:55that the usual Renaissance rules didn't apply.
0:51:56 > 0:52:01But, and it was a big but, there was lots of money here.
0:52:01 > 0:52:07All that silver and gold that was being shipped over from the Americas
0:52:07 > 0:52:12and which the Catholic Church was busily spending on art.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Here, in the cathedral in Toledo,
0:52:20 > 0:52:25El Greco painted a sensational disrobing of Christ.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31Christ is about to be tortured and crucified.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36So the crowd is pressing in around him,
0:52:36 > 0:52:43eager to strip off his clothes and expose him fully to the pain.
0:52:46 > 0:52:52I think El Greco was one of the most exciting of all the old masters.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56When I was a kid, I used to cut out pictures of paintings
0:52:56 > 0:52:59from a magazine called Knowledge and hang them on my wall.
0:53:00 > 0:53:06One of the first ones I cut out was El Greco's St Martin And The Beggar.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08I couldn't stop looking at it.
0:53:11 > 0:53:17St Martin, who is rich, meets a beggar while he's out riding.
0:53:18 > 0:53:24The beggar is cold so Martin cuts his cloak in two
0:53:24 > 0:53:27and shares it with him.
0:53:30 > 0:53:35It's such a haunting picture with two figures stretched out,
0:53:35 > 0:53:38flickering like candles against the sky.
0:53:41 > 0:53:46The Renaissance hadn't seen art like this before.
0:53:46 > 0:53:48No-one had.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51This is more than Mannerism.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56This is Mannerism plus.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00Extreme moods.
0:54:00 > 0:54:02Unusual colours.
0:54:02 > 0:54:04Wired poses.
0:54:09 > 0:54:13Here in Toledo they have recently been commemorating
0:54:13 > 0:54:19the 400th anniversary of El Greco's death in 1614.
0:54:19 > 0:54:23So they cleaned up all his pictures
0:54:23 > 0:54:27and we can finally see his colours as they were meant to be seen.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38Yellows that sing like canaries.
0:54:39 > 0:54:45Greens so vibrant and tangy you can taste them on your tongue.
0:54:46 > 0:54:52Purples so vivid, Titian himself would have been proud of them.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01This is the Hospital of St John the Baptist, the Hospital Tavera.
0:55:02 > 0:55:07And that is El Greco's Baptism Of Christ.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12Look at all these figures who have turned up to watch,
0:55:12 > 0:55:17twisting, pushing, bending to get a better look.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21All except God himself,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25who is sitting up there on a cloud with his crystal ball.
0:55:26 > 0:55:31So he knows what's going to happen and he's not celebrating.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39El Greco was so remarkable and different
0:55:39 > 0:55:44that art history took 300 years to understand him.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that he was plucked out
0:55:49 > 0:55:55of obscurity and recognised at last as a fabulously inventive genius.
0:55:58 > 0:56:04One of the pioneers of this new understanding of El Greco
0:56:04 > 0:56:11was Picasso, who borrowed so much from his distant master.
0:56:15 > 0:56:19There is a painting in New York at the Met
0:56:19 > 0:56:22called The Opening Of The Fifth Seal
0:56:22 > 0:56:26and it shows that moment in St John's Revelations
0:56:26 > 0:56:30when the Fifth Seal is opened just before the end of the world.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36And the Christian martyrs call up to God
0:56:36 > 0:56:39to avenge them for their tortures.
0:56:39 > 0:56:44And up in the sky the heavens crack open
0:56:44 > 0:56:47as if someone has thrown a brick at them.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57The Opening Of The Fifth Seal
0:56:57 > 0:57:00used to hang around the corner from Picasso in Paris
0:57:00 > 0:57:06and it inspired his most famous painting, The Demoiselles d'Avignon.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09The picture that started Cubism.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16Fractured planes, thrusting bodies.
0:57:18 > 0:57:25El Greco's spiky disruption was such an inspirational gift to the future.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33What I've tried to do in this series is challenge the idea
0:57:33 > 0:57:36that the Renaissance was neat and ordered.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39That the knowledge of the ancients was rediscovered
0:57:39 > 0:57:43and the civilisation of the Greeks reborn.
0:57:43 > 0:57:45A bit of that went on,
0:57:45 > 0:57:49but most of the time in most corners of the Renaissance,
0:57:49 > 0:57:54art wasn't pursuing knowledge or remembering the Greeks.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58It was doing what art always does.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04Imagining the unimaginable.
0:58:04 > 0:58:06And inventing things.
0:58:08 > 0:58:11Expressing its emotions.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14And describing its fears.
0:58:15 > 0:58:17Enjoying itself.
0:58:18 > 0:58:20And breaking the rules.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26So if anyone tells you the Renaissance
0:58:26 > 0:58:29was a period of civilised calm,
0:58:29 > 0:58:33go out there and argue with them.