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At the start of the 18th century, Britain was becoming | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
the richest, most powerful nation in the world. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
Prosperity led to the creation of the Bank of England, | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
a storehouse of the nation's wealth. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
I feel like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
Shelf after shelf of delicious chocolate | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
all wrapped up in gold foil ready for sale. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
But of course, this isn't actually chocolate - | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
you'd break your teeth if you tried eating this. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:11 | |
These are solid gold bars - | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
90 billion pounds' worth of the stuff. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
Absolutely sensational. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:20 | |
But this is what I've come to see. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:22 | |
These are the real treasures of the Bank of England. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
They're the very, very earliest banknotes. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
And this is dated 18th May 1700, and it's a work of art in itself. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:36 | |
It's absolutely beautifully printed, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
using very dark ink - because black was difficult to achieve, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:41 | |
and it helped stop forgery - | 0:01:41 | 0:01:43 | |
on carefully handmade paper. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
And at the top, a little seal of Britannia. Not of the monarch. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
It wasn't until the 1960s that the Queen's head appears. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
Banknotes like this radically changed the way life was led in Britain. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:59 | |
Commerce grew, we became richer, our culture changed | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
and, in the end, it was all reflected in our art. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
In the 18th century, Britain became, for the first time, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
a place we might recognise today. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
A new class of people was emerging, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
somewhere between the lord and the labourer. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
It was commerce and prosperity that created them - | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
people with a bit of money to spare and an appetite for novelty and pleasure. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:13 | |
It was the beginning of what we now call the middle class, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:24 | |
though back then they were simply known as people of the middling sort. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
We see their faces in hundreds of paintings done at the time, | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
and one of the best collections is here at Kenwood House. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:35 | |
The paintings on these walls are no longer just kings and queens and aristocrats. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:07 | |
There are people here whose title is Mr or Mrs - | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
ordinary people who've risen to become people of influence, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
the power brokers of their age. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
Actors and politicians. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:19 | |
Inventors, courtesans, even artists. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
Take this portrait, for instance. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
John Joseph Merlin, a portrait by Gainsborough. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
Merlin was a rather eccentric man. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
He was an inventor. He invented roller skates. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
He invented the clock. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:36 | |
But he was no gentleman, | 0:04:36 | 0:04:38 | |
and yet Gainsborough gives him all the airs of an aristocrat... | 0:04:38 | 0:04:44 | |
his hand in his rather elegant coat, | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
and in his left hand, another of his little inventions. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
This is a device for checking | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
that a gold sovereign was of the correct weight, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
because prosperity, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
that was the key to power in this new age. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:01 | |
There's something very refreshing about these paintings. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
They're quite unlike what had gone before. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
There's a sort of innocent pleasure in dressing up in fine clothes. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:34 | |
Innocent pleasure, if a bit sentimental, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
in children playing with their dogs or in the countryside. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
And these are the paintings, remember, commissioned by this new class of people, | 0:05:45 | 0:05:50 | |
people who weren't ashamed of their wealth, | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
but wanted to be seen to enjoy it. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
Commerce and trade changed the face of Britain. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
A network of canals threaded their way through the countryside, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
to speed the movement of goods and raw materials. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
And entrepreneurs seized the opportunities this offered. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:30 | |
In the mid-18th century, | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
Stoke-on-Trent was at the heart of the Potteries, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
great industry, of which very little remains, just the occasional kiln. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
But back then, | 0:06:52 | 0:06:53 | |
it was dirty and dangerous work producing pots. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:57 | |
The potters used to suffer from terrible diseases, | 0:06:57 | 0:06:59 | |
partly the lead in the glaze | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
which gave them lung disease called "potter's rot". | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
And the pots they made were fairly crude, using the local dark clay. | 0:07:04 | 0:07:10 | |
And then a man, a local man, decided to change all that. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
His name was Josiah Wedgwood. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:18 | |
Wedgwood, the 12th child of a poor family, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
was apprenticed into the Potteries. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
But his genius for design and scientific invention | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
soon marked him out as more than a mere potter. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
Wedgwood pushed the boundaries of his art, experimenting with materials, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:47 | |
opening up a new market with his distinctive blue and white designs, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:52 | |
known as jasper ware. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
Wedgwood was a restless perfectionist, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
wanting to produce impeccable work, like these jasper teapots. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:08 | |
He'd search for clay in Devon, in Cornwall, in America, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:12 | |
anywhere in the world, to try and find the finest possible material, | 0:08:12 | 0:08:16 | |
so that he could produce works that were as neat, as clear as this. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:22 | |
He was obsessed with getting the colours exactly right | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
and he experimented all the time. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:34 | |
These are some of his experiments... | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
These are little pieces of clay mixed with different minerals, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
each one numbered | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
and each one with instructions of where they should go in the kiln, | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
or the so-called "biscuit oven". | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
MBO - middle of the biscuit oven. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
TBO - top of the biscuit oven. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
TTBO - tiptop of the biscuit oven. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
What a labour! | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
All these experiments led to this - Wedgwood's great masterpiece. | 0:09:04 | 0:09:09 | |
This is the Portland Vase. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
And it's a copy of a Roman vase | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
that was brought to England in the 1780s, | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
exhibited at the British Museum and caused a huge stir. | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
People were so astonished by its beauty. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
They went to look at it, queued up to see it. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
And Wedgwood, always one with a sharp eye, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
decided he'd make a copy of it. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
And this is the copy. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
If you were rich enough, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
you could have the actual copy of the Roman vase in your house. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
But it wasn't easy to do, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:47 | |
because the original Roman one was made of glass that had been blown. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:53 | |
He had to use his own clay to make it, | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
and so he started experimenting, | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
and it took him over three years to get it right. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
Look, here's one that went wrong, with these bubbles on. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:07 | |
Here's another one where the figures have started falling off, crumbling. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:15 | |
And here's one that's almost perfect that he kept for himself. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
This is actually Josiah Wedgwood's OWN Portland Vase. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
In the end, he got it right and started producing these, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
and they're still produced even to this day. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
If I talk to you, will you lose your concentration? | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
-No, you're all right. -Will you? | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
-Oh, you're all right? -Yes. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
-How many have you made? -Over a hundred. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
How many went wrong in the process of making a hundred? | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
Oh, quite a few! | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
-How do you know? Is this right so far? -This one's all right so far. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:28 | |
-Is it? -Yes. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:29 | |
Can it still go wrong at this stage? | 0:11:29 | 0:11:31 | |
-It can still go wrong, yes. -What could happen? | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
-It could still collapse. -You're looking a bit anxious. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
THEY CHUCKLE | 0:11:37 | 0:11:38 | |
Wa-ay! | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
I only once made a pot, and it started all right | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
and then it went r-u-u-m, r-u-u-m and bussht! | 0:11:50 | 0:11:52 | |
Right, I think that's it. | 0:11:57 | 0:11:58 | |
-Job done? -Yes. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
-Nice to meet you, anyway. -Terrific! | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
Thank you so much. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:04 | |
The mass-marketing of luxury goods meant it was no longer just aristocrats | 0:12:35 | 0:12:40 | |
who could buy fine things. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
Palatial homes for rich merchants sprang up across Britain | 0:12:44 | 0:12:49 | |
and their houses needed furnishings to match. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
One innovator with an eye for the main chance | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
was the furniture-maker Thomas Chippendale. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
Chippendale published catalogues of his work | 0:13:03 | 0:13:07 | |
to enable consumers to choose exactly which ornate designs | 0:13:07 | 0:13:12 | |
would look right in their homes. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:13 | |
His Gentleman And Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1754 | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
was the IKEA catalogue of its day. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
Nostell Priory is a treasure trove of Chippendale. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
They have well over a hundred major pieces of furniture. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:46 | |
74 chairs alone. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
Like this one - rather theatrical, | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
not a particularly practical sort of chair to sit on. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
But it's not just chairs they've got. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:56 | |
This is a fine gentleman's dressing table. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
A mirror, a basin here would've had the water in. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:08 | |
Various pots for ointments, glass bottles. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:12 | |
A set of six cut-throat razors, one for each day of the week. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
They didn't, apparently, shave on a Sunday. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:20 | |
But the razors are numbered one to six. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
A tongue-scraper, | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
for cleaning your tongue. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:28 | |
Very ingenious! | 0:14:28 | 0:14:30 | |
And in here, a different kind of Chippendale, flamboyant Chippendale. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
This is Chippendale building furniture in the Chinese style | 0:14:42 | 0:14:46 | |
which was all the rage at the time. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:48 | |
This beautiful, complex mirror. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:50 | |
And over here, a clothes press, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
green lacquer with this gold. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:57 | |
People sitting around the table here. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:00 | |
A child with a dog barking at him down there. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
And if you open it, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
this pale green turns into this most beautiful, luscious emerald green | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
where it hasn't been faded, | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
the whole thing transporting you to the Far East. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
This is one of the finest rooms in Nostell, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:22 | |
but it's a bit different from all the others. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:26 | |
It's actually part of the Nostell doll's house. | 0:15:26 | 0:15:30 | |
Look at that. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:31 | |
It was made not for the children of the house | 0:15:31 | 0:15:34 | |
but for the lady of the house | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
to display the grandeur of her house to her friends, and her wealth, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
and it's so finely made that some people say | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
that the actual bits of furniture were made by Chippendale himself. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
The detail is exquisite. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
These little silver plates, the fireplaces, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:56 | |
this grand marble fireplace here. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
It's so beautifully made, this, so finely done, all this furniture. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:09 | |
It makes me feel like a giant looking in on Nostell itself. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:14 | |
Along with the fine objects that filled their homes, | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
Britain's new elite was keen to embrace culture and learning as well. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:40 | |
One man, above all, showed them the way. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
Dr Samuel Johnson, the son of a struggling bookseller, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
rose to become one of the most esteemed personalities of the age. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:54 | |
In the house where he grew up is a copy of his greatest work. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:59 | |
In 1755, Johnson's great masterpiece was published. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:10 | |
It wasn't poetry, it wasn't a novel, | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
it wasn't biography, it wasn't a play, though he wrote all of those. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
It was this two-volume Dr Johnson's Dictionary Of The English Language. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:23 | |
This was a labour of love for Johnson, though at times, of course, | 0:17:23 | 0:17:28 | |
he despaired that he'd ever finish it. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
Every single word written by him, with just a handful of assistants helping. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:36 | |
Over 42,000 entries. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
This became the book that everybody who professed to be intelligent had to have. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
And when you browse through it, you can see exactly why. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
It's full of the most marvellous definition, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
but followed by magical description of how the word has been used in the past. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:57 | |
A bedpresser. | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
"A heavy, lazy fellow", and he quotes from Shakespeare's Henry IV. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:04 | |
"This sanguine coward, this bedpresser, this horse back-breaker, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:09 | |
"this huge hill of flesh." | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
He was great on insults. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
Our insults, sadly, are rather limited and often start with the F-word. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:19 | |
If you look at Johnson's F-words, | 0:18:19 | 0:18:23 | |
we get fat-witted, flagitious, a flasher. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:27 | |
Not what you think - "a man of more appearance of wit than reality". | 0:18:27 | 0:18:33 | |
Footlicker. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
A fopdoodle. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:37 | |
A fopdoodle is an insignificant wretch. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
Or how about calling somebody a fustilarian? | 0:18:39 | 0:18:44 | |
"A low fellow, a stinkard, a scoundrel", | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
and he says, interestingly, "a word used by Shakespeare only". | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
"Away, you scullion, you rampallion, you fustilarian, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
"I'll tickle your catastrophe." | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
In 1707, the Act of Union had united England and Scotland | 0:19:15 | 0:19:21 | |
into one single political entity - | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
Great Britain. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:26 | |
Travel and communication became faster and safer, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
transforming the fortunes of both countries. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
Most Scots strongly objected to the Act of Union. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
But it did bring benefits, not least free trade. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:47 | |
Access to England's markets overseas, in the colonies, | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
particularly America, meant that Scotland became prosperous. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
And by the middle of the century | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
its economy was growing faster than that of England. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
And it wasn't just trade. The prosperity also brought a new ferment of ideas, | 0:19:59 | 0:20:05 | |
so that for a time, Scotland was the intellectual powerhouse of Europe. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:11 | |
Nothing reveals this change more than Edinburgh New Town. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:21 | |
It was begun, at vast expense, in the 1760s. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:27 | |
With its wide, light-filled avenues built on a rational grid formation, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
it complemented Edinburgh's new-found reputation | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
as the Athens of the North. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
It wasn't the architecture that excited admiration, grand though it was. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:44 | |
It was the great minds who lived here. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
A visiting Englishman said he could stand in the middle of town | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
and in a few minutes, grasp 50 people of genius and learning by the hand. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:58 | |
England might have its artists and its designers. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:02 | |
Scotland had philosophers and scientists, | 0:21:02 | 0:21:06 | |
people who changed the way we thought of the world. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
Dr William Hunter was one of the many Scots | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
who epitomised this new spirit of intellectual inquiry. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:20 | |
He was a leading anatomist and male midwife. | 0:21:20 | 0:21:24 | |
Hunter was also a lover of art | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
and he brought art and science together | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
to unlock some of the great mysteries of the age. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:36 | |
This is the culmination of an astonishing life's work. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:55 | |
These are plaster casts of women who've died in childbirth, | 0:21:55 | 0:22:01 | |
either in the hospital or perhaps bought from grave-robbers, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:07 | |
which in the 18th century | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
was a popular way of making a bit of money on the side. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
Hunter wouldn't care particularly | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
as long as he could get bodies of dead women | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
and study what went on inside the womb. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
And here you can clearly see what's gone wrong. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:26 | |
The child has got its umbilical cord round its neck, | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
which would be dangerous were it to be born, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
but it's also in the breach position. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:33 | |
It's going to be born bottom first, head upwards. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:37 | |
And then next to it, this beautiful... | 0:22:37 | 0:22:39 | |
it's like a sculpture, this child, | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
lying curled up with its arms furled and its feet tucked in. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
But Hunter wanted to go further than that. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
He wanted to show every detail with ruthless precision and accuracy, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:56 | |
and to do that, he needed an artist. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
And very fine the drawings that artist produced are, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:03 | |
in red chalk, pictures of exactly the same stages of childbirth | 0:23:03 | 0:23:09 | |
that were in the plaster casts. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:11 | |
These very fine lines, creases on the womb. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:16 | |
This was the first time that people had been able to see into the womb | 0:23:19 | 0:23:26 | |
and watch how the child developed and watch why children died | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
and mothers died in childbirth. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:32 | |
It was an astonishing achievement of William Hunter's. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
If Scotland was the new intellectual hub of the nation, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:57 | |
London was the business capital. | 0:23:57 | 0:23:59 | |
Here, money ruled. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:05 | |
Fortunes were made and broken overnight. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:08 | |
The Italian artist Canaletto, best known for his paintings of Venice, | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
was fascinated by London. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:21 | |
He captured its grandeur in his own inimitable style, | 0:24:23 | 0:24:28 | |
embellishing it a bit in the process. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
But there was a seamier side to the city. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
One London-born painter determined to reveal it was William Hogarth. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:42 | |
Though Hogarth rose to the top of his profession, | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
he never forgot the poverty of his youth. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:48 | |
Tucked away in this tiny, but packed museum | 0:24:57 | 0:25:03 | |
is Hogarth's greatest masterpiece. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
This is The Rake's Progress by Hogarth, | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
the story of the decline and fall | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
of a rich young man who comes to the City. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
It's a morality tale about the evils of 18th-century life, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:30 | |
of the effects of too much money, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
of drunkenness, of whoring, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
of gambling. But, being Hogarth, | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
he doesn't bludgeon the audience with his message. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
He does it all with terrific mischief and a sense of humour. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:46 | |
The story starts | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
with Tom Rakewell inheriting from his father, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
and there's Tom | 0:25:52 | 0:25:53 | |
in the middle of the room being measured for a new suit | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
to go to London - something he can now afford. And around, | 0:25:57 | 0:26:02 | |
all the signs of his father's miserliness. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
A chest full of silver. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:05 | |
There's a lawyer doing the accounts to show Tom his new wealth, | 0:26:05 | 0:26:09 | |
and of course the wealth goes to his head. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
He abandons the girl who he's promised to marry - Sarah, the maid - | 0:26:12 | 0:26:17 | |
who's standing there in the corner holding the wedding ring, rather forlorn, | 0:26:17 | 0:26:21 | |
while an older woman points to the maid's stomach, to Sarah, | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
to show that she's actually pregnant. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
Does Tom care? No. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
Tom goes off to London and, in a moment, is surrounded by all the temptations. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:37 | |
There he is getting dressed in front of all the people | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
who dance attendance on him. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
Silver toque on his head where his wig will go. On the left, the music teacher | 0:26:42 | 0:26:47 | |
wanting to teach him to play Handel. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
The dancing master on tiptoe with his violin. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
Down here, there's a jockey | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
with a great silver cup and a whip showing him the winnings he could have. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:02 | |
And a man comes approaching him | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
with a note of recommendation from another employer. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
So, there he is, surrounded by everything that the great city has to offer. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:12 | |
All the tricks of the trade for which, of course, he will fall, and fall he does. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:19 | |
In picture number three, this is the Rose Tavern - | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
a famous St James' brothel. And there's Tom, drunk. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:29 | |
Clearly he's drunk. He's got a glass of wine and there's wine all around. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:33 | |
Shirt's undone, | 0:27:33 | 0:27:34 | |
his sword hanging limply by his side, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:39 | |
a sort of symbol that with drunkenness his virility has gone. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
And the girls all have black spots to cover syphilitic sores. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:49 | |
It's a scene of debauchery | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
and chaos - the chaos into which Tom's life | 0:27:53 | 0:27:56 | |
has already descended. And the consequences follow soon. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
He gets arrested. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
He's on his way to St James's Palace | 0:28:06 | 0:28:07 | |
to go to court. He's dressed in all his finery, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
but his wig comes askew | 0:28:11 | 0:28:13 | |
as a man comes up to dun him for his debts. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
And who should appear to try and rescue him? | 0:28:16 | 0:28:21 | |
Sarah, the girl that he betrayed. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:24 | |
She's offering him a little bag of money to pay his debts. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:29 | |
So what happens then? | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
In despair, Tom decides to get married. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
He takes the obvious course | 0:28:36 | 0:28:38 | |
of looking for a rich widow in need of a husband. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
And choosing a really rich woman, he can't afford to be too picky | 0:28:41 | 0:28:45 | |
about what she looks like - | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
one-eyed and squat and dumpy. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
And his eyes are actually looking past her | 0:28:51 | 0:28:55 | |
to the buxom young servant girl who's dressing her for the marriage. | 0:28:55 | 0:29:00 | |
But there's another bit of morality tale here because... | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
being denied entrance to the church to complain about the marriage | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
is Sarah once again. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
This time, Sarah carrying her little baby in her arms. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:17 | |
Now, what effect does the marriage have? | 0:29:19 | 0:29:22 | |
Does Tom sober up? | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
He's got the money, he can now lead a respectable life, | 0:29:24 | 0:29:27 | |
and no doubt he could still have the odd maid from time to time. Uh-uh. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
He goes off gambling. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:32 | |
And this is the final downfall of Tom. | 0:29:33 | 0:29:36 | |
Here he is at the gaming tables. | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
He's just lost a large sum of money. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:40 | |
In fact, everybody here seems to have lost money. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:44 | |
And here in the centre, Tom with a kind of manic look in his eyes, | 0:29:46 | 0:29:50 | |
shaking his fist and cursing his misfortune | 0:29:50 | 0:29:53 | |
that all his money is gone. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:56 | |
His wig's fallen off. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:57 | |
On the floor, the chair's fallen over. | 0:29:57 | 0:29:59 | |
And finally, he does get dunned for his debt. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
He's thrown into the debtors' prison. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
And here he is in the Fleet, looking distraught. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:16 | |
On his left sits the wife, | 0:30:16 | 0:30:19 | |
whose money he's spent, scolding him. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
One person again comes to rescue him. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:27 | |
And it's Sarah, who comes and sees him | 0:30:27 | 0:30:30 | |
in the debtor prison | 0:30:30 | 0:30:33 | |
and faints away | 0:30:33 | 0:30:35 | |
and has to be given smelling salts to revive her. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
And at the bottom, tugging at her mother's dress, | 0:30:38 | 0:30:42 | |
is the child that she and Tom had. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:45 | |
The child obviously looking | 0:30:45 | 0:30:47 | |
anxious, distressed, angry at what's happened to her mother. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:51 | |
And it gets worse. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
He ends up in Bedlam - | 0:30:56 | 0:30:58 | |
the lunatic asylum, | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
the place that ladies of fashion came to visit simply to gawp | 0:31:00 | 0:31:06 | |
at this ghastly dance of the mad. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:11 | |
This huge figure is Tom, chained up for his own safety, | 0:31:16 | 0:31:23 | |
gone mad and, once again, | 0:31:23 | 0:31:25 | |
Sarah in this final scene, weeping over Tom | 0:31:25 | 0:31:31 | |
and over what might have been | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
and over the destruction of his life. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
It's an extraordinary story, and Hogarth tells it in a way | 0:31:39 | 0:31:45 | |
that makes us feel a kind of sympathy for Tom. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
But, at the same time, | 0:31:48 | 0:31:51 | |
with a humour but also with a passion. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
It's perhaps because Hogarth himself understood, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
knew what the 18th century was like. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
If you were up, you were up. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
If you were rich, you were fine. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
If you fell into poverty, your life could be hell. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
For Hogarth, it wasn't enough just to depict the miseries of the poor. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:28 | |
He wanted to do his bit to alleviate their suffering. | 0:32:28 | 0:32:33 | |
In the 18th century, the children of the poorest families were very vulnerable. | 0:32:41 | 0:32:46 | |
Three out of four died before they were six years old. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:51 | |
Thousands more were abandoned by mothers either too young or too poor | 0:32:51 | 0:32:55 | |
or perhaps ashamed of having a child outside marriage. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:59 | |
And each day, young infants, wrapped up, were found in doorways, | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
outside churches, left abandoned by their mothers. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
Children literally thrown away like rubbish. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
Hogarth was so horrified | 0:33:17 | 0:33:20 | |
by such sights that he gave his services as patron and governor | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
to help the wealthy merchant Thomas Coram | 0:33:24 | 0:33:26 | |
create London's first sanctuary for abandoned children. | 0:33:26 | 0:33:30 | |
The Foundling Hospital opened its doors in 1741. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:41 | |
From the moment the hospital opened, there was a huge demand | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
from mothers wanting to leave their children here. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:55 | |
So much so that in the early days, they devised a ballot system | 0:33:55 | 0:33:58 | |
to decide which children to take. It must've been very gruesome. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:01 | |
The mothers came with their children | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
and dipped their hands in a bag and took out a coloured ball. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:08 | |
White ball - relief - it meant your child would be taken into the hospital, | 0:34:08 | 0:34:12 | |
subject to a medical test. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:14 | |
Red ball - on tenterhooks - it was put on a waiting list. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:18 | |
Black ball - disaster - the child was turned away. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:23 | |
Pure chance. Just a lottery. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:27 | |
Then, when they were left here, | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
the mothers wanted to leave something of themselves with the child, | 0:34:31 | 0:34:34 | |
and so these tokens... | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
..were often given to the hospital, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:40 | |
partly to identify the child, | 0:34:40 | 0:34:42 | |
partly that the child might feel some connection with the mother. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:46 | |
This, for instance. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:52 | |
A little circle of crystal. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
Almost looks as if it's been taken off a chandelier, | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
because it's not anything you could wear. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
Or this...rather more humble. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
A thimble. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:10 | |
This is thought to be a gambling token. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:14 | |
A little ivory fish. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:17 | |
This is a very beautiful, heart-shaped mother-of-pearl, | 0:35:19 | 0:35:24 | |
with the initials EL. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
Really pretty. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
And this one, which is a giveaway, isn't it? | 0:35:29 | 0:35:33 | |
This was a token left by a mother | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
and it just says "ale". | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
It would've hung around a beer jug. | 0:35:37 | 0:35:41 | |
They're absolutely fascinating, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:45 | |
but the really moving thing about them is | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
they were never given to the children. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:50 | |
The mothers left them, the hospital locked them up, carefully indexed, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:55 | |
but never let the children have them | 0:35:55 | 0:35:57 | |
because they didn't want the children to know where they came from, | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
except if the mother came back to claim the child, | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
which did occasionally happen but very, very rarely. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
Only one in 100 mothers returned here looking for their children. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:12 | |
There was more to this place than just looking after abandoned children. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:32 | |
The Foundling Hospital was a fashionable charity. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:36 | |
People in the upper reaches of London society supported it, | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
the artistic elite supported it. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
Handel came here and, for free, conducted the Messiah | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
on nine different occasions as a fundraiser. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
Hogarth persuaded painters - Gainsborough, Reynolds and others - | 0:36:48 | 0:36:53 | |
to paint their pictures and hang them here for free. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
And when people who were involved in the charity | 0:36:56 | 0:36:57 | |
came here to look at the children, to leave a donation, | 0:36:57 | 0:37:01 | |
they also came here to look at the pictures on the walls. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
This was the first public art gallery in Britain. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:09 | |
The exhibitions at the Foundling Hospital | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
gave artists the idea of displaying their work | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
to a new, wider public with an appetite for culture. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:35 | |
In 1768, the leading artists of the day, with royal approval, | 0:37:38 | 0:37:43 | |
set up an academy for the promotion of British art. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
We take academies and art galleries for granted now - | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
after all, they're two a penny in London. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
But when the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:19 | |
it transformed the fortunes of British artists. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:23 | |
It gave them the recognition they craved and deserved. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:28 | |
And it also allowed them to make a bit of money in the process. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
The lifeblood of the Academy was the annual Summer Show. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:47 | |
The policy was stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
It was a hugely popular event, | 0:38:52 | 0:38:55 | |
attracting up to 80,000 visitors a year. A place to see and be seen. | 0:38:55 | 0:39:01 | |
But the Royal Academy wasn't just about shifting stock. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
It also took on students. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
Pupils here were subjected to the strict teachings of Joshua Reynolds, | 0:39:15 | 0:39:19 | |
the first President of the Academy. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
Reynolds provided them with the rigorous classical training that they lacked. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:31 | |
He taught a whole new generation of British artists how to draw. | 0:39:31 | 0:39:34 | |
He believed that anyone could become a good artist | 0:39:34 | 0:39:39 | |
if only they would follow the rules - | 0:39:39 | 0:39:41 | |
the rules of course were his rules - | 0:39:41 | 0:39:43 | |
as set out in his series of lectures, or discourses, | 0:39:43 | 0:39:46 | |
which he gave to his fellow academicians | 0:39:46 | 0:39:48 | |
and to students. | 0:39:48 | 0:39:50 | |
What he encouraged them to do | 0:39:50 | 0:39:53 | |
was to aim high, | 0:39:53 | 0:39:54 | |
to pursue art with the same style and energy | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
as the great masters of the Renaissance. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
And that way success lay. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
The Royal Academy made the decision, bold for the time, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:11 | |
to accept women artists, | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
although at the start, very few applied. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
This painting shows the founding members of the Royal Academy | 0:40:18 | 0:40:23 | |
at a life class. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:25 | |
You'll notice they're all men. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:27 | |
It was thought improper for women to draw naked models. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:32 | |
The two female members have been relegated to a side wall - | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffmann. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:39 | |
Angelica Kauffmann doesn't seem to have suffered all that much | 0:40:41 | 0:40:45 | |
from not being allowed to draw in the life class, | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
as these four magnificent roundels in the ceiling show. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:52 | |
They are the allegorical depiction of the elements of art. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:56 | |
Now, this one is Design, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
and it shows a woman artist | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
drawing a naked torso, but not of a living person, | 0:41:01 | 0:41:04 | |
but a plaster cast. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
And it stresses the elements of proportion - | 0:41:06 | 0:41:09 | |
the shape of the human body and how to get that down on paper. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:14 | |
And then, over here, | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
Composition...again a woman artist, | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
this time contemplating a chess set... | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
..and with a pair of compasses in her hand, | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
stressing the element | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
of mathematics and organisation of art. | 0:41:30 | 0:41:34 | |
This one is Colour, | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
and it shows the artist | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
stealing pigment from the rainbow and using it on her palette. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
And then over here, the final one, Invention. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
This is a sort of ethereal figure of the artist | 0:41:55 | 0:41:59 | |
with wings on her head, her hand resting on the globe, contemplating. | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
The battle to survive in the open market led ambitious artists | 0:42:14 | 0:42:19 | |
to exploit new, eye-catching ways of drawing attention to themselves. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:25 | |
THUNDERCLAP | 0:42:50 | 0:42:51 | |
In 1781, the artist and melodramatic theatrical designer | 0:42:54 | 0:42:59 | |
Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg hit on a brilliant idea. | 0:42:59 | 0:43:02 | |
He called it the Eidophusikon, | 0:43:02 | 0:43:04 | |
and it was to give people the kind of excitement | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
that years later they'd get from the cinema. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:09 | |
It was to put on a melodramatic show | 0:43:09 | 0:43:11 | |
that they'd sit and watch in amazement, | 0:43:11 | 0:43:14 | |
and this is how it works. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:16 | |
WAVES CRASHING | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
WAVES CRASHING | 0:43:26 | 0:43:27 | |
De Loutherbourg's great skill was to recreate the dramatic side of nature - | 0:43:34 | 0:43:40 | |
the most wonderful seascapes | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
and moonshine and sunsets, | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
storms at sea and volcanic eruptions. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:50 | |
And to do it, he used a series of screens | 0:43:50 | 0:43:53 | |
that came up and down | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
accompanied by music and dramatic lighting. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 | |
WAVES CRASHING AND THUNDERCLAPS | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
THUNDERCLAPS | 0:44:05 | 0:44:08 | |
The idea behind it was to appeal to people who lived in the cities | 0:44:08 | 0:44:13 | |
but wanted to reconnect with nature in the raw. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:16 | |
So they'd sit here in a kind of mixture of amazement and terror. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:21 | |
One regular visitor to de Loutherbourg's shows | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
was the great painter Thomas Gainsborough. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
He too was inspired to add a touch of showmanship to his art. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:58 | |
This curious contraption is known as Gainsborough's Show Box. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:06 | |
Gainsborough was always fascinated by the effect of light on landscape | 0:45:06 | 0:45:12 | |
and on the sky and the sea, and this was a device so he could experiment | 0:45:12 | 0:45:15 | |
with different kinds of light. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
And he used it for himself to work with, | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
but also just for entertainment, to show his friends. | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
The principle's very simple. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:25 | |
There's a glass plate in the front here which he had painted. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
There - one of eight that the box can take. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:36 | |
Just like a stage set. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
Behind it... | 0:45:40 | 0:45:42 | |
..there are five candles - | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
these are the candleholders - which shone through a cotton screen | 0:45:47 | 0:45:52 | |
to diffuse the light before it hit the glass plate. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:57 | |
Shut the box to seal the light off | 0:45:57 | 0:45:59 | |
and come round here, look through... | 0:45:59 | 0:46:01 | |
..and you see this painting lit from behind, | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
the most extraordinary effect - | 0:46:07 | 0:46:08 | |
a golden sun on trees and a cottage in a little valley. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:14 | |
And you could experiment, even at this stage, by pulling | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
the magnifying glass out, coming back a bit... | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
you get a slightly different aspect of the landscape. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
It's magical, this one. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:28 | |
'Artists were also quick to exploit improvements in technology | 0:46:36 | 0:46:40 | |
'and distribution.' | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
When did you start learning this business, Ray? | 0:46:42 | 0:46:45 | |
I was 15. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:47 | |
-15? -About 30 years ago. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
Really? | 0:46:49 | 0:46:51 | |
Does that pass the test? | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
Not bad. We could work with that. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:56 | |
'For the first time, | 0:47:02 | 0:47:04 | |
'high-quality reproductions could be produced in bulk | 0:47:04 | 0:47:08 | |
'and sold at affordable prices to a mass audience. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
'A successful print could make an artist a small fortune.' | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
Let's have a look. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:31 | |
Well, for your first one that's pretty good. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:34 | |
Excellent. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
Well, that, that's all quite good, isn't it? | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
-Mm-hm. -That's come out well. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:43 | |
Yes. Nice and bright. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:45 | |
Beautiful detail on these bottles here. Look at this. And that. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:50 | |
I love all this ornate working around the outside as well. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:56 | |
What's special about it from your point of view as a printer? | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
As a printer, I mean, the quality of work, I mean, it's just... | 0:47:59 | 0:48:04 | |
The depth and the lights, they're just fantastic. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:07 | |
It's just a wonderful, wonderful art in itself. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:11 | |
The ever-expanding print market led to the creation of a new type of art - | 0:48:22 | 0:48:27 | |
one that appealed to the British sense of humour... | 0:48:27 | 0:48:30 | |
..the political caricature. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:34 | |
Britain was famed across the world for its press freedoms. | 0:48:38 | 0:48:41 | |
We were the envy of countries that lived under more authoritarian regimes | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 | |
because, in London, political chicanery | 0:48:45 | 0:48:48 | |
and social snobbery were mercilessly ridiculed. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
Every day, a new cartoon would be published | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
to satisfy the appetite to pillory those in power. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:58 | |
And people who couldn't afford to buy the cartoons | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
would come to shops like this and simply stand outside and have a good laugh | 0:49:02 | 0:49:07 | |
and mock those in power. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:09 | |
The greatest caricaturist of all was James Gillray. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:20 | |
For Gillray, nothing was sacred. | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
He satirised the Royal Family, | 0:49:26 | 0:49:30 | |
the Prime Minister. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
He exposed the greed of bankers... | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
he mocked fashion... | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
..and even laughed at everyday diseases, like gout! | 0:49:42 | 0:49:47 | |
He was particularly susceptible to toilet humour. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:54 | |
But as the 1790s dawned, one affair, | 0:49:56 | 0:50:00 | |
a dramatic upheaval, attracted his particular attention. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
The biggest event at the end of the 18th century, | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
which affected Gillray and everybody, | 0:50:14 | 0:50:16 | |
was the cataclysm of the French Revolution, | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
this attempt to overturn a whole society and renew it. | 0:50:19 | 0:50:23 | |
And people were riveted by it, | 0:50:23 | 0:50:24 | |
some in favour, some - from the beginning - very much against. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
Gillray started rather in favour, | 0:50:27 | 0:50:29 | |
like a lot of people were, of what was happening in France, | 0:50:29 | 0:50:32 | |
but quite quickly turned against it. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:34 | |
But this cartoon shows a kind of mixed emotion. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:38 | |
Here is Pitt, the Prime Minister, hanging from a lamppost | 0:50:38 | 0:50:43 | |
and the Queen, with her breasts showing naked, hanging beside him, | 0:50:43 | 0:50:48 | |
it has to be said, in a slightly suggestive position. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
What a wonderful cartoon of the Queen that is. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
And then, here is the King, George III, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
who's about to be decapitated. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
And he's being held with his bottom up in the air here | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
and...Gillray had such a low opinion of the King that he has him saying, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
"What, what, what? What's the matter now?" | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
Completely unaware of what's going on. | 0:51:13 | 0:51:15 | |
It's a sort of comic take on the Revolution | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
and how it would look seen from the British political scene. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
But as the news from France got more and more grim - | 0:51:24 | 0:51:27 | |
stories of the violence, the bloodshed, | 0:51:27 | 0:51:30 | |
the daily murder of aristocrats, | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
everybody killing everybody in the end, the Reign of Terror - | 0:51:34 | 0:51:37 | |
Gillray changed his tune. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
He looked on it then as something of real horror. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
It has the revolutionaries | 0:51:43 | 0:51:45 | |
sitting round after their day's work at the guillotine, | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
eating the bodies of the people they've decapitated. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
This man here with the revolutionary cap | 0:51:52 | 0:51:56 | |
eating the eye from the head of a body | 0:51:56 | 0:51:59 | |
that's been executed that day. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
And the women beside eating the heart, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:06 | |
the kidneys. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:07 | |
Somebody's sitting bare-bottomed | 0:52:07 | 0:52:11 | |
on top of a naked woman eating the arm. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:15 | |
And over here, an old crone is basting the body of a young child | 0:52:15 | 0:52:20 | |
by the fire, pouring oil over it, | 0:52:20 | 0:52:23 | |
turning it to get it just neatly roasted, ready for the table. | 0:52:23 | 0:52:28 | |
And then the children of course are being given the leftovers, | 0:52:28 | 0:52:30 | |
and what are they eating? | 0:52:30 | 0:52:32 | |
They're eating the intestines of the decapitated aristocrats. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:37 | |
An absolutely horrific portrait. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:43 | |
And it was a sign of a real terror, exaggerated of course, | 0:52:44 | 0:52:50 | |
that Gillray felt would reign if the French Revolution came to Britain, | 0:52:50 | 0:52:54 | |
as many people began to fear that it would | 0:52:54 | 0:52:57 | |
The Revolution and the ensuing wars between Britain and France | 0:53:08 | 0:53:13 | |
lasted 22 years. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
For Britain, the cost was crippling, | 0:53:16 | 0:53:18 | |
bringing an end to the exuberance of the Age of Money. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:23 | |
But the war also provided the backdrop | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
for the emergence of a new type of hero, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:28 | |
a figure whose fame encapsulated the changes | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
in British society that had defined the century. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:37 | |
On 8th January 1806, a Royal funeral barge bearing a coffin | 0:53:44 | 0:53:50 | |
left the Queen's Steps at Greenwich. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:53 | |
The gilded barge was draped in black velvet. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
The canopy over the coffin bore black ostrich feathers. | 0:53:57 | 0:54:01 | |
A flotilla of boats followed it as it rowed upstream | 0:54:01 | 0:54:05 | |
and every minute they fired a salute. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
This sombre procession was watched from the banks | 0:54:08 | 0:54:12 | |
by crowds of weeping mourners. | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
But this Royal barge wasn't carrying a king. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:19 | |
It was carrying a commoner, a man who'd risen through the ranks | 0:54:19 | 0:54:24 | |
to become the greatest naval commander in our history - | 0:54:24 | 0:54:28 | |
Admiral Lord Nelson. | 0:54:28 | 0:54:29 | |
Nelson was the son of a humble Norfolk parson. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:38 | |
Through a sparkling naval career fighting the French, | 0:54:41 | 0:54:44 | |
he became the toast of the nation. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:47 | |
His death at the Battle of Trafalgar | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
inspired numerous paintings and mass reproductions | 0:54:51 | 0:54:55 | |
which brought Nelson's image into every patriot's home. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
This is where, at the end of the first state funeral ever given to a commoner, | 0:55:31 | 0:55:37 | |
Nelson was buried, here in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, | 0:55:37 | 0:55:42 | |
right under the huge central dome. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:45 | |
Hallowed ground | 0:55:45 | 0:55:47 | |
given to Horatio Viscount Nelson. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:51 | |
On the marble floor all around, symbols of the sea, the anchor there, | 0:55:51 | 0:55:57 | |
and the words of the famous message | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
he sent on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar to the fleet... | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
"England expects every man to do his duty." | 0:56:02 | 0:56:06 | |
And what a tomb this is. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:09 | |
This beautifully carved black marble was made by an Italian sculptor, | 0:56:09 | 0:56:15 | |
not for Nelson, but it was going to be used by Henry VIII. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:19 | |
He didn't, and it was left for 300 years at Windsor. | 0:56:19 | 0:56:24 | |
It was rediscovered and, at the time of Nelson's death, it was decided | 0:56:24 | 0:56:29 | |
that this was a suitable tomb for the great Admiral Nelson himself. | 0:56:29 | 0:56:35 | |
And look at the top of it. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:36 | |
There, where there might have been Henry's crown, | 0:56:36 | 0:56:40 | |
is a viscount's coronet, Nelson's coronet. | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
This man, the son of a humble Norfolk parson, who'd risen so high. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:49 | |
This man who really typifies that very middling class | 0:56:49 | 0:56:53 | |
that came into their own in the 18th century, | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
a commoner buried here in St Paul's like a king. | 0:56:56 | 0:57:01 | |
In the next age... | 0:57:28 | 0:57:29 | |
the excitement of exploration... | 0:57:29 | 0:57:33 | |
..building a new world... | 0:57:35 | 0:57:37 | |
the allure of India... | 0:57:37 | 0:57:39 | |
..Imperial domination - | 0:57:40 | 0:57:42 | |
it's Britain in the Age of Empire. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:47 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:12 | 0:58:18 |