0:00:24 > 0:00:26My father, Alexander Goudie,
0:00:26 > 0:00:27was possessed by a witch.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31As an artist, he was well-known for his portraits and landscapes,
0:00:31 > 0:00:35but there was one subject he returned to more than any other.
0:00:35 > 0:00:38And that was a witch called Nannie Dee.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44Nannie is the terrifying figurehead
0:00:44 > 0:00:48of Robert Burns's iconic poem Tam o'Shanter.
0:00:48 > 0:00:50But she also became my father's muse,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52consuming his life as an artist
0:00:52 > 0:00:55and driving him to crazed fits of painting.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58I remember as a child finding him in his studio,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02repeatedly portraying this demon on canvas -
0:01:02 > 0:01:05a toxic seductress, supple and strong...
0:01:05 > 0:01:07and naked most of the time.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19My father's obsession with his witch
0:01:19 > 0:01:21has left me curious as to why the supernatural
0:01:21 > 0:01:24has so often fuelled artists' imaginations.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32To help me understand this fascination,
0:01:32 > 0:01:33I'm going to explore the work
0:01:33 > 0:01:36of some of the greatest artists in history.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43All of them haunted and hypnotised by the idea of the witch.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54Because from the dangerous young seductresses of the ancient world
0:01:54 > 0:01:57to the hideous old hags of the Middle Ages,
0:01:57 > 0:02:03it's artists who have conjured up our fantastical visions of witches,
0:02:03 > 0:02:06often with dangerous consequences in the real world,
0:02:06 > 0:02:10as their images stoked the flames of hysteria
0:02:10 > 0:02:12that led thousands of victims to their deaths.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16This is a story of obsession,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19sensationalism and sex.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21The dark art of unsettling images
0:02:21 > 0:02:24that still have the power to haunt us today.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27I hope you've had your tea.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44In order to start my exploration of the love affair
0:02:44 > 0:02:46artists have with witchcraft,
0:02:46 > 0:02:48I've come here to reacquaint myself
0:02:48 > 0:02:51with the sorceress that obsessed my father.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55So this room is crammed with some of the paintings
0:02:55 > 0:02:57my father created over his lifetime.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59And, er...
0:02:59 > 0:03:02this is one of the easels he laboured at,
0:03:02 > 0:03:06still encrusted with paint.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13When my father died,
0:03:13 > 0:03:15the contents of his studio were placed in storage.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19In this room, amidst all these canvases and folders,
0:03:19 > 0:03:21I can still feel his presence.
0:03:23 > 0:03:25His energy is in here.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27His imagination...
0:03:27 > 0:03:29the inside of his head, his thoughts.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31They're all here.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33And, um...
0:03:33 > 0:03:36You know, it's a great companion to have.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45Dad's witch became a familiar part of my childhood.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Nannie is one of the central characters
0:03:48 > 0:03:51in Robert Burns's classic poem, Tam o'Shanter.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Its description of witches and warlocks
0:03:54 > 0:03:56terrorising the unfortunate Tam
0:03:56 > 0:03:58always fascinated my father.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01And for the last 20 years of his life,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04Nannie Dee had a powerful fix on him.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08And here's Nannie.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11He could never exorcise this witch as a muse.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13Right up until his death,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17he insisted on painting her time and time again.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20It was so extreme, even we thought he was mad.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23MUSIC: Elijah: Chorus by Mendelssohn
0:04:27 > 0:04:29I can still see him in his studio,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31a large glass of whisky in his hand,
0:04:31 > 0:04:33loud classical music playing,
0:04:33 > 0:04:37uttering lines from the poem, while sketching out his vision of her.
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Pale skin, ruby lips, and a tormented look to her eyes.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48And on the floor, all around him,
0:04:48 > 0:04:51would be his books, which he treasured
0:04:51 > 0:04:56and leafed through every evening in order to find gruesome inspiration.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58He'd have monographs on Durer
0:04:58 > 0:05:00and Goya -
0:05:00 > 0:05:02all the great witch painters.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06And into his own riotous, over-the-top cacophony of images,
0:05:06 > 0:05:09he'd insert a detail or two,
0:05:09 > 0:05:13virtually transcribed from his artistic heroes.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23My father populated his hellish legion
0:05:23 > 0:05:27with characters, caricatures that we recognise from Goya -
0:05:27 > 0:05:32hooded figures, and here's Nannie, leaping out with seductive elan
0:05:32 > 0:05:34from out of their grasp.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40To help me discover more about the great artists
0:05:40 > 0:05:43who've created some of history's most memorable witches,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47I've come to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49where a major new exhibition
0:05:49 > 0:05:53traces the depiction of the witch in art over the past 500 years
0:05:53 > 0:05:56and gives me a rare opportunity to meet the other artists
0:05:56 > 0:05:58in my dad's coven.
0:06:00 > 0:06:01This exhibition reminds us
0:06:01 > 0:06:05how artists have been entranced by witches for thousands of years,
0:06:05 > 0:06:08right back to the earliest enchantresses of Greek mythology.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15But, for me, the most menacing works
0:06:15 > 0:06:18emerge in the woodcuts of the 15th and 16th centuries.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20Many were created in Germany,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23home to much of the original witch folklore.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27And the greatest of those early witch artists was Albrecht Durer.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32Albrecht Durer's witch
0:06:32 > 0:06:34was an evocation of the world turned upside down.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37This leathery old hag
0:06:37 > 0:06:40is transported across 500 years of history
0:06:40 > 0:06:41and slaps you right in the face.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50She's a messenger from a time when the witch was real,
0:06:50 > 0:06:52when across Europe, people believed
0:06:52 > 0:06:56their communities were peppered with cunning women like this one.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58Women whose evil powers were expressed
0:06:58 > 0:07:01not only through magical potions and incantations...
0:07:03 > 0:07:06..but by an unnatural sexual hunger.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09She's definitely not here to entertain the kids.
0:07:11 > 0:07:14The sinister clues are all there.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16Durer depicts his hag
0:07:16 > 0:07:20riding to her Witches' Sabbath backwards upon a goat,
0:07:20 > 0:07:22because this animal symbolised lust
0:07:22 > 0:07:25and was the form most commonly assumed by the Devil.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27Her hair is loose,
0:07:27 > 0:07:31straggling behind her to indicate unbridled sexuality,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34and she grasps the goat's horn with a provocative firmness,
0:07:34 > 0:07:39to let you know that she'll make you a cuckold, emasculated and impotent.
0:07:40 > 0:07:41It's nasty stuff.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51Durer's early woodcuts
0:07:51 > 0:07:54reflected the dominant belief that women were inherently weak,
0:07:54 > 0:07:58vulnerable to sexual temptation and the Devil.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01This was a theme
0:08:01 > 0:08:03Durer's contemporaries were happy to expand on.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10Let me introduce you to Hans Baldung Grien, the king of crude.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14He made a career out of designing and depicting the witch.
0:08:20 > 0:08:23Baldung Grien came from a highly educated family
0:08:23 > 0:08:26and his father was the Bishop of Strasbourg's councillor,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29so I can't imagine they were too impressed
0:08:29 > 0:08:33by his enthusiasm for creating such provocative sexual imagery.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41Baldung adapts and brings a new twist
0:08:41 > 0:08:44to the motifs we saw in Durer's engravings.
0:08:46 > 0:08:47Why have one naked hag
0:08:47 > 0:08:51when you can invite along a gaggle of lithe-limbed seductresses
0:08:51 > 0:08:53to join in the devilry?
0:08:57 > 0:08:59From this point onwards,
0:08:59 > 0:09:01witches were cast as a group of cackling women
0:09:01 > 0:09:03gathered around a cauldron.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06And although nudity was the Devil's dress code,
0:09:06 > 0:09:07there is no doubt that,
0:09:07 > 0:09:09at a point in time when the female form
0:09:09 > 0:09:11was only ever idealised in painting,
0:09:11 > 0:09:13the depiction of witches allowed artists
0:09:13 > 0:09:16to push at the boundaries of what had been deemed acceptable.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22Nothing in these images has been arrived at by accident.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25Everything that you see has been carefully adapted
0:09:25 > 0:09:28from two texts which were a 15th-century publishing phenomenon.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32Ulrich Molitor's On Female Witches And Seers
0:09:32 > 0:09:36and the Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer Of The Witches.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39These volumes were veritable handbooks
0:09:39 > 0:09:40for identifying witches.
0:09:40 > 0:09:45The Malleus particularly projected a disturbingly misogynist message,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47one which the imagery of Durer and Grien
0:09:47 > 0:09:50helped cement in the public imagination.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53Listen to this, from the Malleus -
0:09:53 > 0:09:56"Witches, to satisfy their obscene lust,
0:09:56 > 0:09:59"burn with ardour to become adulteresses,
0:09:59 > 0:10:02"prostitutes and concubines to powerful men."
0:10:04 > 0:10:06The 15th-century revolution in printing
0:10:06 > 0:10:10led to the Malleus Maleficarum being repeatedly republished.
0:10:11 > 0:10:13And over the next two centuries,
0:10:13 > 0:10:15images became more powerful than ever.
0:10:17 > 0:10:19News could now spread with unprecedented speed
0:10:19 > 0:10:23and the headline read, "Witches are real and dangerous".
0:10:25 > 0:10:28The engravers of the 15th century were shrewd businessmen.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31They realised that combination of horror and titillation
0:10:31 > 0:10:33would up the circulation figures.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36Witchcraft stories were a sure-fire hit
0:10:36 > 0:10:38and the accompanying engravings proved vital
0:10:38 > 0:10:41in cultivating a largely illiterate audience
0:10:41 > 0:10:44and giving the sorceress a particular visual shape.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54In these images, we see for the first time
0:10:54 > 0:10:56the deadly stereotype of the witch.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58In the late Middle Ages,
0:10:58 > 0:10:59people genuinely worried
0:10:59 > 0:11:02that the world was under threat from Satanic forces.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08The men who dominated church and state
0:11:08 > 0:11:10exploited these fears of demonic influence,
0:11:10 > 0:11:15which, combined with deep-seated traditional suspicions about women,
0:11:15 > 0:11:19turned the witch into a powerful weapon of propaganda.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27These crude depictions of lustful women revealed
0:11:27 > 0:11:31not just disapproval, but fear of female sexuality.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Step by step,
0:11:33 > 0:11:36a dreadful visual code was itemised,
0:11:36 > 0:11:38one which appeared to legitimise the persecution
0:11:38 > 0:11:41of a whole disempowered section of society.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Witches are female. Watch out for them.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47They gather in groups. Watch out for that.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51They congregate around cooking pots, the implements of the hearth,
0:11:51 > 0:11:54and brew up all manner of debased sexual nefariousness.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57You'd better keep an eye out.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04In the 16th century,
0:12:04 > 0:12:07there was a climate of fear and panic surrounding the idea of magic.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11Many of the legends and scandal emanated from Germany,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14but some of the most traumatic witch-hunts and trials
0:12:14 > 0:12:17took place here, in Scotland.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22Between the mid-16th and 18th centuries,
0:12:22 > 0:12:27nearly 4,000 people in Scotland were accused and tried for witchcraft.
0:12:30 > 0:12:35These witch-hunts were propelled by the sermons of Protestant ministers
0:12:35 > 0:12:37determined to stamp out any remains
0:12:37 > 0:12:39of Catholic belief in their communities.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43For the 16th-century Scottish crofter,
0:12:43 > 0:12:45magic was real.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47It was the undercurrent to everyday life,
0:12:47 > 0:12:49written into the wild landscape,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53where the wind in the trees and the running of the stream
0:12:53 > 0:12:55symbolised the presence of folkloric beings,
0:12:55 > 0:12:58like the fairies, the kelpie, the bogle.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07For them, magic was not necessarily an evil force.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09The local charmers and cunning women
0:13:09 > 0:13:11were people who you approached for assistance
0:13:11 > 0:13:13with your recurring back pain,
0:13:13 > 0:13:15to help locate that misplaced purse
0:13:15 > 0:13:19or to divine whether this year's drought was going to persist.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21A bit like consulting a medieval Google.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33But the church was determined to do away with heretical beliefs,
0:13:33 > 0:13:35so they demonised them.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39And the pursuit of witches soon gained a powerful ally.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43James VI of Scotland and later I of England,
0:13:43 > 0:13:45whose palace stood here at Holyrood,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49had a personal and passionate hatred of witches.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52When en route to meet his new bride in Norway,
0:13:52 > 0:13:55James's ship was caught in a terrible storm.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59It was decreed that the deranged weather event was so extreme,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03it could only have been caused by a conspiracy of witches.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07This attack on his divine person
0:14:07 > 0:14:10amounted to nothing less than an assault on God himself.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13The presses went into overdrive,
0:14:13 > 0:14:15and this is a copy of the news from Scotland,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18showing the witches' coven brewing up a storm
0:14:18 > 0:14:20and supervised by Satan.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26The hysteria culminated in Scotland's first mass witch trial,
0:14:26 > 0:14:29overseen personally by the King.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31The trials lasted two years
0:14:31 > 0:14:34and hundreds were arrested, many gruesomely tortured.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39The religious fundamentalists who had a grip on the country
0:14:39 > 0:14:41pressed home their advantage.
0:14:41 > 0:14:42If you believed the hype,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45Scotland was under assault from Satan
0:14:45 > 0:14:48and his greatest adversary was the King himself.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52Over the next 200 years,
0:14:52 > 0:14:54the nation became a crucible for witch-hunting.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58In the villages scattered across the Caledonian wilderness,
0:14:58 > 0:15:01people lived under a heightened threat
0:15:01 > 0:15:04and many unfortunate women paid a terrible price
0:15:04 > 0:15:06for the hysteria the artists had helped ignite.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11One of the victims of this national paranoia
0:15:11 > 0:15:13was my namesake, Gowdie. Isobel Gowdie.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17My father's obsession with witches wasn't sparked by Tam o'Shanter,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20but by family lore.
0:15:20 > 0:15:21He relished telling his children
0:15:21 > 0:15:23that we were descended from a bona fide witch.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28And as a consequence, for me, Isobel got up out of the pages of history
0:15:28 > 0:15:30and joined our family.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36But Isobel was a real person,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39whose experiences of persecution and conviction
0:15:39 > 0:15:42were a direct legacy of the witch-hunts.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44In her extraordinary confessions,
0:15:44 > 0:15:46she renounces Christ,
0:15:46 > 0:15:48describes having her blood sucked by the Devil,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50flies on a beanstalk,
0:15:50 > 0:15:54mixes potions and murders passers-by.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56And worst of all,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58she fornicates with the Devil,
0:15:58 > 0:16:00relishing the experience
0:16:00 > 0:16:02and describing it in shockingly intimate detail.
0:16:02 > 0:16:07"He was a very mickle black, rough man.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10"His members are extremely great and long.
0:16:10 > 0:16:14"No man's members are so long and big as they are.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17"The youngest and lustiest woman
0:16:17 > 0:16:20"will have very great pleasure in their carnal copulation with him.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23"Yea, much more than with their own husbands."
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Isobel's story reminds us of the real tragedy
0:16:29 > 0:16:31that lies behind the history of the witch-hunts.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35She could only have absorbed her ideas from the world around her.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37In Scotland, traditional folklore
0:16:37 > 0:16:41was now bolstered by the graphic propaganda of the presses,
0:16:41 > 0:16:43in which the role of the artist was essential.
0:16:49 > 0:16:50In their hands,
0:16:50 > 0:16:52a gathering of women was tantamount to a Witches' Sabbath.
0:16:54 > 0:16:56And at the heart of the incantations
0:16:56 > 0:16:59was the familiar domestic cauldron,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02now recast as a metaphor for cooking up trouble.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Women are no longer a comforting presence in society.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11The feminine symbols of fertility,
0:17:11 > 0:17:13maternal care, food
0:17:13 > 0:17:15are all corrupted.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22Isobel was clearly a vulnerable and deluded person,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25whose visions merely repeated ideas about witchcraft
0:17:25 > 0:17:27which were embedded in the popular imagination
0:17:27 > 0:17:30by storytellers, gossip
0:17:30 > 0:17:31and the printed image.
0:17:31 > 0:17:33She was convicted of witchcraft
0:17:33 > 0:17:36and most likely strangled and burnt.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49In the heat of the moment, when the frenzy of terror was at its highest,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52James capitalised on his unfortunate victims
0:17:52 > 0:17:54to cement his power and reputation.
0:17:54 > 0:17:58Later in his reign, the King became more sceptical.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01It was harder to convince him that those accused of witchcraft
0:18:01 > 0:18:03were actually guilty.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06Artists, poets and playwrights
0:18:06 > 0:18:09were going to have to run to keep up with their enlightened monarch.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18King James's changing views reflected the age.
0:18:18 > 0:18:20By the end of the 17th century,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23witchcraft laws were being repealed across Europe.
0:18:25 > 0:18:27In the battle between reason and superstition,
0:18:27 > 0:18:31belief in witches belonged to an ignorant, outdated past.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38Italian painter Salvator Rosa was one of the first to mark the change.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43In his great masterpiece Witches At Their Incantations,
0:18:43 > 0:18:48Rosa creates a scene so macabre, it verges on farce.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55For those in the know, it embodied a sense of scepticism.
0:18:58 > 0:19:00An expose of hokey beliefs.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13But the man who signalled the new enlightened era more than any other
0:19:13 > 0:19:15was my father's hero, Francisco de Goya.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20At the end of the 18th century,
0:19:20 > 0:19:22Goya was official artist to the Spanish court.
0:19:22 > 0:19:25But after illness plunged him into depression,
0:19:25 > 0:19:28he created one of the great works of European art -
0:19:28 > 0:19:30Los Caprichos -
0:19:30 > 0:19:35and turned the witch into a powerful political metaphor.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43The spirit of these engravings
0:19:43 > 0:19:46rests within images that appear to have been conjured
0:19:46 > 0:19:48from the wildest recesses of the imagination.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51But in the velvety world of Goya's aquatints,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53we are immersed in a nightmare that is deeply disturbing.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57The engravings were intended to satirise society
0:19:57 > 0:19:59and in order to make that satire really bite,
0:19:59 > 0:20:02Goya populated his world with witches.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Across the series, the stereotypes reach a crescendo.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15There are broomsticks and child sacrifices,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18bats and bristling cats.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Nearly 300 years has passed
0:20:25 > 0:20:28since Durer first unleashed his naked hag upon us.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30But there she is, still flying around,
0:20:30 > 0:20:33still grasping her staff suggestively.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36Except now...she's got a girlfriend.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39And although Goya is spinning out all the old themes,
0:20:39 > 0:20:41he's doing so knowingly.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43Durer reinforces the stereotypes,
0:20:43 > 0:20:45but Goya breaks them down.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51Disgrace and shame were the weapons of choice
0:20:51 > 0:20:53for an authoritarian state.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56They can be exploited to control the masses.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58And the shame of sex, the shame of illness,
0:20:58 > 0:21:00the vulnerability of old age
0:21:00 > 0:21:03all burn off the pages of Goya's engravings.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07And those themes had always been associated with witches.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Goya challenges this power
0:21:13 > 0:21:18of prejudice and superstition in society by making us complicit.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22First we shrink from the withered hags,
0:21:22 > 0:21:24which repulse us with their nudity.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29But, for me, this is rapidly followed by a smile of bewilderment
0:21:29 > 0:21:31at the ridiculousness of it all.
0:21:31 > 0:21:35The engravings become a mirror to our own folly.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41Goya conjured up these images from his troubled imagination,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44but in the late 18th century, artists in Britain
0:21:44 > 0:21:47turned directly to literature for inspiration.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51Here, witch imagery was valued for its ability to provoke
0:21:51 > 0:21:54Romantic excess and Gothic horror.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59British audiences knew a witch when they saw one.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02They'd seen her being performed on stage in Shakespeare's Macbeth.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05But the painters gave their public
0:22:05 > 0:22:08the weird sisters... Hammer Horror-style.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12The Swiss-born artist, Henry Fuseli,
0:22:12 > 0:22:14worked in Britain most of his life.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18His depictions of Macbeth were intended to provoke fear.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23But this painting is rooted in high camp and melodrama.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26In the Romantic period,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28artists still found the witch irresistible,
0:22:28 > 0:22:31but the stereotypes are ever more exaggerated.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35In the witch's new theatrical profile,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38prosthetic noses and slap-on warts
0:22:38 > 0:22:41became an instantly recognisable look of the era.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47In the confident, educated and mature society
0:22:47 > 0:22:49Britain was becoming in the 18th century,
0:22:49 > 0:22:52the witch was no longer unleashed for political purposes,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55but instead, to entertain us.
0:22:56 > 0:22:59The terrifying early imagery of vicious old crones,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02rooted in genuine social fears and anxieties,
0:23:02 > 0:23:07now seems a world away from the theatrical 18th-century version.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13Of course, there was one great exception -
0:23:13 > 0:23:17the extraordinary visual alchemist of British art...
0:23:17 > 0:23:18William Blake.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24His Whore Of Babylon is inspired by a literary source -
0:23:24 > 0:23:25the Bible.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28But this image has a nightmarish, twisted quality
0:23:28 > 0:23:30that could only be created
0:23:30 > 0:23:32by an artist channelling visions through his mind.
0:23:37 > 0:23:39Blake was a titan
0:23:39 > 0:23:42who haunted the border lands between dreams and reality.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51The Whore Of Babylon is a symbol of evil
0:23:51 > 0:23:55and, by association, of the power of female sexuality.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57A kind of mother witch.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03For me, Blake is a haunting example
0:24:03 > 0:24:06of how the most powerful depictions of the supernatural
0:24:06 > 0:24:08come with a touch of the surreal.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12A lurid quality to the imagery,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15which abstracts and inverts the order of the world,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19forcing you to question what it is you're being shown.
0:24:27 > 0:24:29But a different kind of nightmare
0:24:29 > 0:24:32emerges on the canvases of the 19th century.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36Medea and Vivien materialise before us as cool as porcelain.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Underneath the skin, they may still crawl with evil thoughts,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43but on the surface, they're tantalising beauties.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Those old hags belong to folklore.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50Now we're in a much more sophisticated, literary world.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55These classical beauties, Medea and Vivien,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58are presented to us by Frederick Sandys
0:24:58 > 0:25:01as the ancient embodiment of the femme fatale,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04who seduce men with their beauty and magic.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12Their origins lay in Greek mythology and Arthurian legend.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16The kind of timeless literary precedent
0:25:16 > 0:25:17beloved of the Victorians.
0:25:19 > 0:25:22Although these paintings retain some anxiety
0:25:22 > 0:25:24about the power of women's wiles,
0:25:24 > 0:25:28they also embody a shift in attitudes towards the supernatural
0:25:28 > 0:25:30and to women's role in society.
0:25:35 > 0:25:37For me, it marks the evolution of the witch
0:25:37 > 0:25:40into a more comfortable literary fiction.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44The witch has lost her bite.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59Today popular culture has tamed the witch.
0:25:59 > 0:26:01We've sugar-coated the warts,
0:26:01 > 0:26:03turned her into a prime-time phenomenon.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06It's virtually impossible to make a literal depiction of the witch.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08We've become so familiar
0:26:08 > 0:26:11with the visual shorthand that has evolved over 500 years.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16Any attempt to exploit the cauldron, the wrinkly old hag, the broomstick
0:26:16 > 0:26:19tips us quickly over into pantomime.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Perhaps the reason the witch has proved such an irresistible subject
0:26:25 > 0:26:27is because there's something in their magic
0:26:27 > 0:26:29that artists envy.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35Painters have always mixed their pigments like potions,
0:26:35 > 0:26:37desperately trying to create images
0:26:37 > 0:26:39that will exert power over their audience.
0:26:43 > 0:26:45For artists, the witch's real magic
0:26:45 > 0:26:47has always been her ability to captivate the viewer
0:26:47 > 0:26:50with grotesque images...
0:26:52 > 0:26:55..provocative sexuality...
0:26:56 > 0:27:01..and veiled attacks on enduring prejudice and social taboos.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08The witch, through all her many incarnations,
0:27:08 > 0:27:12has confirmed the enduring power of art to unsettle and provoke.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20My father certainly wanted to unsettle and provoke
0:27:20 > 0:27:23through the obsessive depiction of his own witch, Nannie.
0:27:25 > 0:27:28But he also wanted to tell a tale in paintings.
0:27:28 > 0:27:30One which acknowledged that the potency of magic
0:27:30 > 0:27:33and witches is rooted in reality,
0:27:33 > 0:27:35in the elements...
0:27:36 > 0:27:38..and in the landscape.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42When his paintbrushes failed him,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45this is where my father came to confront his demons.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47These are the fields that he walked
0:27:47 > 0:27:51to feel the texture of the myth and folklore,
0:27:51 > 0:27:53in order to touch something
0:27:53 > 0:27:57of that real history of persecution and terror.
0:27:57 > 0:28:01He would come out here to these pockets of northern wilderness,
0:28:01 > 0:28:06because in such places the ghosts of those long-executed witches
0:28:06 > 0:28:08still wander the sodden tracks.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16When I close my eyes and magic her up in my imagination,
0:28:16 > 0:28:18the legacy of the witch painters
0:28:18 > 0:28:22plays across my mind with terrifying clarity.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25And at their head, the surging, spectral seductress...
0:28:25 > 0:28:27Nannie Dee.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd