0:00:14 > 0:00:19In London in the late summer of 1770, a young poet named
0:00:19 > 0:00:23Thomas Chatterton returned to his roomy house in Holborn
0:00:23 > 0:00:27and climbed the narrow stairs to his third-floor garret.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34Without knowing it, he was about to create a myth that has dogged
0:00:34 > 0:00:36poets like me ever since.
0:00:36 > 0:00:37A myth that has compelled
0:00:37 > 0:00:41many of our finest poets to follow in his footsteps.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46When the door was prised open a few days later,
0:00:46 > 0:00:50Chatterton's corpse was found stretched out on his pallet bed,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54an empty phial of arsenic lying near his lifeless hand.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59He was 17 years and 9 months old.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05But Thomas Chatterton was to die not once, but several times.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10His death would be replayed in the works of romantic poets,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14Pre-Raphaelite painters and pioneering Victorian photographers.
0:01:14 > 0:01:18And through these repeated deaths he would become
0:01:18 > 0:01:21a paradigm of literary Bohemianism.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26In 1856, the painter Henry Wallis
0:01:26 > 0:01:30made Chatterton the subject of a new oil painting.
0:01:30 > 0:01:34It is now one of the 19th century's most enduring images,
0:01:34 > 0:01:39but when it first appeared, this delicate, desolate scene caught
0:01:39 > 0:01:43the public imagination to an extent that no-one could have anticipated.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49Poets have a strange image in our culture.
0:01:49 > 0:01:52There's a persistent myth that in order to write great poems
0:01:52 > 0:01:55the poet has to risk everything.
0:01:55 > 0:01:58And there is a roll call of 20th century poets, Sylvia Plath,
0:01:58 > 0:02:03Dylan Thomas, John Berryman, who seem to endorse that view.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Wallis' painting is perhaps the ultimate icon of the doomed poet.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11But how did this painting become
0:02:11 > 0:02:14so much more famous than the poet who inspired it?
0:02:14 > 0:02:20It's a very powerful image, a tortured poet, broken by poverty
0:02:20 > 0:02:24and obscurity, driven to madness and self-destruction.
0:02:25 > 0:02:31As a poet I hate it, or at least I hate the myth it made.
0:02:31 > 0:02:36Despite its beauty and technical mastery, there is something
0:02:36 > 0:02:39repellent in the painting's declaration that the true
0:02:39 > 0:02:45poet must be prepared to sacrifice his or her life to serve the muse.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48It is a painting that haunts me.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06To understand the myth of Thomas Chatterton,
0:03:06 > 0:03:08we have to know a little of the life.
0:03:10 > 0:03:1618th-century Bristol was an unpropitious background for a poet.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20A clamorous, intensely commercial city built largely
0:03:20 > 0:03:23on the profits on the trade in wine and sugar...
0:03:23 > 0:03:27and, notoriously, slaves.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33It was into this hive of commerce in 1752
0:03:33 > 0:03:35that Thomas Chatterton was born...
0:03:36 > 0:03:38..here in this modest house
0:03:38 > 0:03:41attached to the school where his father taught.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47Young Chatterton was a moody,
0:03:47 > 0:03:52introverted boy at odds with brash, mercantile Bristol.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55From an early age he would spend hours escaping into his own
0:03:55 > 0:03:57fantasy world.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59With the aid of folios, manuscripts
0:03:59 > 0:04:04and the family's black-letter Bible, he taught himself to read.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09But it was the looming edifice of St Mary Redcliffe,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13just across the way, that really took hold of him.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17As one acquaintance recalled, Chatterton would often fix his eyes
0:04:17 > 0:04:22upon the church and seem as if he were in a kind of trance or ecstasy.
0:04:30 > 0:04:35Once inside, beneath its magnificent vaulted ceiling,
0:04:35 > 0:04:40Chatterton began to lose himself in his very own gothic reverie.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48The church became Chatterton's medieval playground.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51He would spend hours among the tombs and effigies,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54and in particular he liked to sit here,
0:04:54 > 0:04:58immersed in an old book beside the monument to William Canynges,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02former mayor of Bristol and one of the church's great benefactors.
0:05:06 > 0:05:12But there was another more secluded part of the church which
0:05:12 > 0:05:14became Chatterton's private sanctuary...
0:05:17 > 0:05:20..and the place where his imagination really began to form.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27Chatterton liked to hide himself away
0:05:27 > 0:05:31up here in the muniments room, high above the north porch.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35He was fascinated by these great oak coffers
0:05:35 > 0:05:37and in particular by what they contained -
0:05:37 > 0:05:41vellum and parchments, some as old as the Wars of the Roses.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47It was here that the 16-year-old Chatterton claimed to
0:05:47 > 0:05:50have discovered a treasure,
0:05:50 > 0:05:52a sequence of ancient poems
0:05:52 > 0:05:57dating from the reign of Edward IV by a monk named Thomas Rowley.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00The poems featured as their principle character
0:06:00 > 0:06:03the very same William Canynges beside whose effigy
0:06:03 > 0:06:08in the church below Chatterton had spent so many of his waking hours.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16But the Rowley poems were, in fact, a marvellous fabrication,
0:06:16 > 0:06:21a hoax written by none other than the young Thomas Chatterton himself.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24Delving into dictionaries of old English,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27studying the poetic techniques of Chaucer, Dryden
0:06:27 > 0:06:32and Shakespeare, he managed to create an authentic medieval style.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44Drain my heartes blood away,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47Life and all its good I scorn,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50Dance by night or feast by day,
0:06:50 > 0:06:51My love is dead,
0:06:51 > 0:06:53Gone to his death-bed
0:06:53 > 0:06:56All under the willow-tree.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03Once you get beyond the fake medieval spelling
0:07:03 > 0:07:05and construction of these poems,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09you can hear a real lyric ear at work.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12He clearly, although he was only 16 when he wrote that,
0:07:12 > 0:07:14had a prodigious natural talent.
0:07:15 > 0:07:20With a cannon of work around 700 pages long, the sheer quantity
0:07:20 > 0:07:26of his poetry is remarkable, yet so is its inventiveness and range,
0:07:26 > 0:07:31incorporating different verse forms, rhyme schemes and metrical patterns.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38The so-called discovery of the Rowley poems caused quite a stir.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42They were released in tantalising fits and starts and all backed
0:07:42 > 0:07:47up with learned footnotes provided by their editor and discoverer,
0:07:47 > 0:07:50T Chatterton.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54In the spring of 1769, Chatterton caught
0:07:54 > 0:07:58the attention of the celebrated antiquarian Horace Walpole.
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Walpole was intrigued by the Rowley poems
0:08:03 > 0:08:06and even considered printing them, but grew suspicious when
0:08:06 > 0:08:12Chatterton rather rashly disclosed his age and lowly social status.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16Then, when Walpole's friend the poet Thomas Grey declared
0:08:16 > 0:08:20that the Rowley poems were not real antiquities,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22Walpole cut Chatterton dead.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25Young Thomas was devastated.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29It brought home just how much his youth and humble roots
0:08:29 > 0:08:32counted against him with the higher echelons.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35Following Walpole's snub,
0:08:35 > 0:08:39Chatterton abandoned not only the Rowley poems
0:08:39 > 0:08:41but also Bristol itself.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45He headed for London where he took up political journalism,
0:08:45 > 0:08:50penning article after article raging against government policies.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56He did the rounds of London editors, bombarding them with ideas
0:08:56 > 0:08:59and articles, many of which were eagerly snapped up.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02His work ranged from political diatribes
0:09:02 > 0:09:07and eclogues to songs and burlesques in verse and prose.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11Within a year of his falling from grace with Walpole,
0:09:11 > 0:09:16Chatterton had sold 31 articles, many under pseudonyms
0:09:16 > 0:09:19like Vamp, Decimus and Harry Wildfire.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24His career was on the up again
0:09:24 > 0:09:26and a confident Thomas was granted an audience with
0:09:26 > 0:09:29the Lord Mayor of London, William Beckford,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32to try and win his support.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36The mayor liked him and his work and promised to back him.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42But two days before his endorsement was due to appear in print,
0:09:42 > 0:09:44Beckford dropped dead of a fever.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56As over his misfortune with Walpole, Chatterton was scuppered again.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01And at a time when the government was taking steps to curtail
0:10:01 > 0:10:03the freedom of the press,
0:10:03 > 0:10:07Chatterton felt that yet another door had slammed in his face.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15Two months later, in August 1770, the beautiful boy was found
0:10:15 > 0:10:20dead in his garret and the myth of the doomed, tortured poet was born.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30To start peeling back the layers of this myth, I have come to
0:10:30 > 0:10:34Bristol Library to talk to the chairman of the Chatterton Society
0:10:34 > 0:10:38and see some of the revealing artefacts that prove how the legend
0:10:38 > 0:10:43was propagated almost immediately after Chatterton's death.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47So what we have here, Michael, are the very makings of a myth.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51One of the early illustrations you can see here shows Despair
0:10:51 > 0:10:54handing Chatterton a bowl of poison.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58So already, the illustrator here is focusing on the suicide,
0:10:58 > 0:11:01the poison and not the poetry.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03Also what is immediately striking about these images
0:11:03 > 0:11:06which were decades and decades before Wallis' famous painting,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08The Death Of Chatterton,
0:11:08 > 0:11:09he must have seen these,
0:11:09 > 0:11:12because, although in both these images the bed is the other
0:11:12 > 0:11:16way around, all the accoutrements of the suicide scene are there.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20The chest open at exactly the same angle as in the Wallis painting,
0:11:20 > 0:11:23the medicine bottle on the floor, the heap of papers.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25There's no question he must have known about these.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27You're absolutely right.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29What Wallis was doing was essentially
0:11:29 > 0:11:31embellishing these images.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35He simply painted it again, if you like, but in beautiful colour
0:11:35 > 0:11:38and in a Pre-Raphaelite style.
0:11:38 > 0:11:40And this is illustrated,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43but it's on cloth, not like the other images. What's that?
0:11:43 > 0:11:47Yes, so this artefact is a handkerchief.
0:11:47 > 0:11:48Chatterton handkerchief?
0:11:48 > 0:11:51And if anything indicates an industry growing
0:11:51 > 0:11:56around the phenomenon of this sad boy's fate, it would be this.
0:11:56 > 0:12:02Not only with people selling his poems onto publishers and so on,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05but products being made in this way.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08So, this is the dead Chatterton merchandise,
0:12:08 > 0:12:11but this is actually something he had his hands on, isn't it?
0:12:11 > 0:12:16Oh, it is indeed, yes, and perhaps the greatest myth of all.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19This is Chatterton's pocket book of 1769
0:12:19 > 0:12:22that he took with him from Bristol to London.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26And he kept his accounts in it, but it's not the accounts
0:12:26 > 0:12:29that are of particular interest, it's this on the back.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32You can see here this brown stain.
0:12:32 > 0:12:34It was studied forensically
0:12:34 > 0:12:38and found to contain opium deposits.
0:12:38 > 0:12:45So it's reasonable to suppose that Chatterton was taking laudanum
0:12:45 > 0:12:48because he had the foul disease.
0:12:48 > 0:12:50What was the foul disease?
0:12:50 > 0:12:55Well, it was a term used at the time to denote a venereal disease.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00So I believe that he took the laudanum or opium
0:13:00 > 0:13:05to deaden the pain from the vitriol and calomel medication
0:13:05 > 0:13:07he was taking for the foul disease.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12And so, therefore, a more likely cause of his death, would have been
0:13:12 > 0:13:16an overdose of his self-medication, an accidental overdose.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18So he got the balance of his medicines wrong
0:13:18 > 0:13:20and didn't commit suicide at all?
0:13:20 > 0:13:24Well, that is currently the most plausible explanation.
0:13:25 > 0:13:30So it now seems that the long-held belief in Chatterton's suicide
0:13:30 > 0:13:33is, in fact, part of the very myth itself.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36His death was more than likely a terrible accident.
0:13:38 > 0:13:43And yet, a tragic young suicide suited the purposes of sculptors,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47illustrators and playwrights who, into the 19th century, began to
0:13:47 > 0:13:50embroider the myth with their own sensibilities.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56And the next generation of poets, the Romantics,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00were to resurrect Chatterton as one of their own.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02Keats dedicated Endymion to him...
0:14:04 > 0:14:07..Shelley commemorated him in Adonais
0:14:07 > 0:14:11and Wordsworth hailed him as the marvellous boy.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18But these eulogies would be as nothing compared with the
0:14:18 > 0:14:20impact of his death on canvas.
0:14:22 > 0:14:27In 1856, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis
0:14:27 > 0:14:31unveiled his painting and it caused a sensation.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35I've come to examine it at Tate Britain with curator
0:14:35 > 0:14:36Dr Carol Jacobi.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38Carol, the first thing that strikes me
0:14:38 > 0:14:42seeing the painting in flesh is the strength of the colour.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45From having seen reproductions of it over many years,
0:14:45 > 0:14:49I always remember the red of his hair and the blue of the breeches.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53He's all hair and trousers in my memory, but how is that achieved?
0:14:53 > 0:14:57Well, the optical effect that you get with this painting is
0:14:57 > 0:14:59different in real life than it is with a reproduction.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02And the reason is that instead of using
0:15:02 > 0:15:04a dull background to paint on,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07which was the traditional way of doing it, he's used
0:15:07 > 0:15:12a pure white background underneath the paint, so here, you can
0:15:12 > 0:15:17see that he's laid on this beautiful prismatic colour over a white ground
0:15:17 > 0:15:21and the white ground is shining through and lighting it up
0:15:21 > 0:15:23and the effect is particularly beautiful
0:15:23 > 0:15:25in the area of his red hair.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27Yes, it's as if it's back-lit somehow.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30- It's an extraordinary effect. - Yes, that's exactly right.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33And like a lot of these Pre-Raphaelite paintings,
0:15:33 > 0:15:36it's full of narrative detail, as well, isn't it?
0:15:36 > 0:15:38One of the ways they departed from traditional art of the time
0:15:38 > 0:15:42is that the detail goes right to the edges of the painting.
0:15:42 > 0:15:46So here, for example, he's taken enormous trouble over
0:15:46 > 0:15:48the torn up pieces of paper.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51Yes, they look like they've been torn up in a fury.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55Exactly, exactly. So we sort of get insight into the storm
0:15:55 > 0:15:56before the calm, if you like.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59The painting had an extraordinary after-life, didn't it?
0:15:59 > 0:16:02With the help of Ruskin giving it a push,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05it became phenomenal in its popularity.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy,
0:16:08 > 0:16:11Ruskin praised it as faultless and wonderful in every way,
0:16:11 > 0:16:13and it was hugely admired.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15And, in fact, in these days
0:16:15 > 0:16:19they began to tour paintings, a bit like a film.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21So they'd be exhibited on their own in a darkened space
0:16:21 > 0:16:25and people would buy tickets to see it and, of course,
0:16:25 > 0:16:28because there's such intricate narrative told by all the details,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32it was a little bit like seeing a film in an age before film.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35This is famously a picture of a very young man,
0:16:35 > 0:16:37but it's also a picture by a very young man.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40Henry Wallis, who painted it, was in his mid-20s, I gather,
0:16:40 > 0:16:42when he painted this.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44I wonder what drew him to Chatterton?
0:16:46 > 0:16:50Pre-Raphaelites and Wallis were a young man's movement.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53And they were particularly interested, I think,
0:16:53 > 0:16:56in the idea of Chatterton, who was only 17,
0:16:56 > 0:16:59representing the misunderstood artist,
0:16:59 > 0:17:04the artist who is struggling in an unsympathetic society.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07And in a way, the unsympathetic society is represented
0:17:07 > 0:17:12by the poverty of the room, but also by the city beyond,
0:17:12 > 0:17:15because, of course, Wallis himself
0:17:15 > 0:17:18was struggling in a newly industrial age
0:17:18 > 0:17:23in which it was difficult to know what an artist should be.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27What art was going to be for in this new modern world.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30The myth of the suicidal poet is so strong
0:17:30 > 0:17:32that it's hard to face the facts,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36and the facts seem to be stacking up that this was not a suicide at all.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39He was earning a good living from his pen in London,
0:17:39 > 0:17:41and what seems to be an act of self-poisoning
0:17:41 > 0:17:44could, in fact, have been getting his medicines out of balance
0:17:44 > 0:17:47when he was trying to treat himself for a venereal disease.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50That's the extraordinary thing about the figure of Chatterton,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53the way he's propagated myth after myth after myth,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56so by the time Wallis was thinking about Chatterton
0:17:56 > 0:17:59it was a sort of hall of mirrors of myths stretching back
0:17:59 > 0:18:00and, of course, it carries on.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04This painting contributes another mirror, if you like, to it
0:18:04 > 0:18:07and by using these echoes of Chatterton,
0:18:07 > 0:18:12the figure becomes much more than just one poet.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15It becomes a much more sort of resonant icon of the artist.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18I think he's come to haunt poets.
0:18:18 > 0:18:23This idea of the true devotion to the muse ending up in disaster
0:18:23 > 0:18:26and that that's the price of great poetry.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30I find it beautiful, but I also find it quite disturbing,
0:18:30 > 0:18:34and every time I look at it, I kind of think, it's his fault.
0:18:34 > 0:18:36The myth of the doomed poet is his fault.
0:18:36 > 0:18:41Whether by him I mean Chatterton or the painting...
0:18:41 > 0:18:43I think I probably mean the painting.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51Shows like the colossal Art Treasures Exhibition
0:18:51 > 0:18:54in Manchester in the summer of 1857,
0:18:54 > 0:18:59which ran for 141 days and attracted over a million visitors,
0:18:59 > 0:19:03provided the perfect showcase for The Death Of Thomas Chatterton,
0:19:03 > 0:19:06as the painting had come to be known.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10Being toured round the country, the painting was disseminated to
0:19:10 > 0:19:15a far wider spectrum of society, including the new urban poor,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18than if it had remained in private ownership in London.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25And tapping into a growing Victorian fascination with death,
0:19:25 > 0:19:29Wallis' painting proved a palpable hit.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32At a time of great and rapid urbanisation,
0:19:32 > 0:19:35the doomed and beautiful Chatterton
0:19:35 > 0:19:38represented a glimpse of something other.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42This was the poet as dandy, yes, but more than that...
0:19:42 > 0:19:45this was the poet as counter-cultural,
0:19:45 > 0:19:48self-sacrificial, utterly intoxicating...
0:19:48 > 0:19:49and dead.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57But even Wallis' painting, like Chatterton himself,
0:19:57 > 0:19:59was to have a curious afterlife.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04One of the many eager visitors who had queued to see Wallis'
0:20:04 > 0:20:08painting on its tour was a dental surgeon turned photographer
0:20:08 > 0:20:10named James Robinson.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14And so moved was he that he decided to recreate
0:20:14 > 0:20:18the scene in the popular new form of 3-D stereoscopy.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26And now we can see it in an exhibition at Tate Britain.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31Displayed alongside Wallis' painting for the very first time
0:20:31 > 0:20:35is Robinson's remarkable take on the Chatterton myth.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40At first glance, it looks identical to Wallis' painting
0:20:40 > 0:20:44with composition and colours painstakingly copied.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47But look closer and you begin to notice differences.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49Chatterton's face is not the same
0:20:49 > 0:20:52and the colours don't look as vivid as they do in the oils.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59But in order to fully appreciate the stereoscopic image
0:20:59 > 0:21:01you need to view it as the Victorians did.
0:21:06 > 0:21:08It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust,
0:21:08 > 0:21:10but it's extraordinary when they do.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14It's like a hyper-real version of Wallis' painting.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18You're in the garret with Chatterton. It's quite remarkable.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24The driving force behind this exhibition
0:21:24 > 0:21:26comes as something of a surprise,
0:21:26 > 0:21:31as it turns out to be none other than Queen guitarist Brian May,
0:21:31 > 0:21:35who owns one of the world's greatest collections of stereoscopic cards.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40For me, it goes back a very long way to my childhood
0:21:40 > 0:21:44when we used to get little stereo cards in Weetabix packets.
0:21:44 > 0:21:45I remember the first time
0:21:45 > 0:21:47it fell out of the packet, thinking, "What is this?"
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Two little images which looked very flat and quite boring,
0:21:50 > 0:21:53but then you send off your one and six pence for your viewer
0:21:53 > 0:21:55and you put the card in the viewer
0:21:55 > 0:21:57and suddenly this magic happens
0:21:57 > 0:22:00and you can feel like you can walk in there
0:22:00 > 0:22:05and it becomes a sort of real-life experience, an immersive experience.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07It's an odd effect. When I first looked through the viewer
0:22:07 > 0:22:09at The Death Of Chatterton painting,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13which is a painting I know very well, it's been so often reproduced,
0:22:13 > 0:22:15there is a strange hyperreality to it,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18which is a slightly odd thing with a death scene.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20How do you feel it sits in relation to the painting
0:22:20 > 0:22:24when you step into the stereoscopic world of Chatterton's garret?
0:22:24 > 0:22:28Yes, the painting is already immersive in its way, isn't it?
0:22:28 > 0:22:29It's designed to draw you in
0:22:29 > 0:22:31and feel like you're in that room with him.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35Of course, it lends itself perfectly to the stereoscopic medium
0:22:35 > 0:22:40and Robinson, in 1859, obviously paid his six shillings to go
0:22:40 > 0:22:43and see the painting and thought, "Ah! I can do this at home
0:22:43 > 0:22:45"and I can make a stereoscopic version of this."
0:22:45 > 0:22:47It seems like it took him less than a week to do it
0:22:47 > 0:22:50and he had it advertised within a week.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54If you put the original James Robinson stereo, though,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57into a stereo viewer of the period,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00a Brewster viewer, this is how it's done.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04- You then open up the top to get some light in...- I see.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06And the view you get is quite stunning.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10Now, this is a very old, faded and damaged card,
0:23:10 > 0:23:12but the effect is still there.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14- You still get this immersive experience.- Thank you.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19It is. It still works.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21It's like stepping into the room, isn't it? Yeah.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24You get the Victorian experience. Beautiful.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28But I have a very interesting thing here
0:23:28 > 0:23:30which, really, nobody knows about.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34We discovered another version of the James Robinson view.
0:23:34 > 0:23:35He's alive!
0:23:35 > 0:23:37He's alive!
0:23:38 > 0:23:40But this is never, ever seen.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44We now realise that there were two views, at least, of Chatterton,
0:23:44 > 0:23:47one with him alive and one with him sadly passed away.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49He's alive, but it looks like
0:23:49 > 0:23:51it's about 30 seconds before the painting.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55His shoe's off and he's got all his torn up poems beneath him
0:23:55 > 0:23:56so he's not that cheery, is he?
0:23:56 > 0:23:58No, he's got his poison ready, I think.
0:23:58 > 0:24:00He's got his poison ready.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04But isn't it strange and ironic, this icon of the poetic death
0:24:04 > 0:24:06and it's the one of the death that survived.
0:24:06 > 0:24:10- Yeah. The legend lives on. - The legend lives on.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14Do you find the painting and its stereoscopic image that striking?
0:24:14 > 0:24:15What draws you?
0:24:15 > 0:24:18I'm fascinated, yes. I think to all of us who have been
0:24:18 > 0:24:20involved in this, it becomes something that lives with you.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23It's a kind of haunting experience.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26Chatterton was a kind of Victorian icon, I suppose,
0:24:26 > 0:24:30representing the purity of the artist and the pain of the artist.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33And, yeah, I think we feel very drawn to it.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36In fact, we've been trying to recreate it ourselves...
0:24:36 > 0:24:40as you have magnificently done it here, this is amazing!
0:24:40 > 0:24:44Comparatively recently, Pete Doherty on a Babyshambles album cover
0:24:44 > 0:24:47uses the image of The Death Of Chatterton,
0:24:47 > 0:24:49and I guess he has a similar image
0:24:49 > 0:24:52as a sort of popular Bohemian figure.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55Do you think it's stretching it too far to think of rock stars
0:24:55 > 0:24:58in a similar kind of vein to Chatterton?
0:24:58 > 0:24:59There is a parallel, isn't there?
0:24:59 > 0:25:02He's the kind of the tortured artist figure, I suppose,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05and you could think of Kurt Cobain.
0:25:05 > 0:25:07I think there's a lot of truth in it, actually.
0:25:07 > 0:25:12I think, you know, the artist frequently is this way
0:25:12 > 0:25:14because he is tortured.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17And sometimes it leads to great creativity and success.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20Sometimes it leads the other direction down to despair and death.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22And I feel it still, definitely, you know.
0:25:22 > 0:25:29I achieved success and fulfilled a lot of my dreams,
0:25:29 > 0:25:31but I still very often get that feeling,
0:25:31 > 0:25:32is it really worth anything?
0:25:32 > 0:25:34You know, what am I really doing here?
0:25:34 > 0:25:35You know, what's my motivation?
0:25:35 > 0:25:38It runs through your life as an artist,
0:25:38 > 0:25:40this kind of self-questioning.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42So in its extreme form, maybe this is it.
0:25:42 > 0:25:43Maybe...
0:25:43 > 0:25:47Here's the torn up poetry of the man who killed himself.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49It is a real story.
0:25:49 > 0:25:54It's a fictional painting and it's a fictional stereoscopic card,
0:25:54 > 0:25:56but it's a real story.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00So maybe it's the ultimate Bohemian rhapsody.
0:26:00 > 0:26:01THEY CHUCKLE
0:26:01 > 0:26:04That's completely ruined it for you, hasn't it?
0:26:04 > 0:26:05That's great.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17The hyper reality of a stereoscopic image of The Death Of Chatterton
0:26:17 > 0:26:22is an attempt to bring us into the emotional heart of the scene,
0:26:22 > 0:26:25rather like religious painters focusing on the wounds
0:26:25 > 0:26:30of Christ to shock the viewer into seeing the scene afresh.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34It's meant to evoke pity at the beautiful young poet
0:26:34 > 0:26:37broken by devotion to the muse.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42But if the mythic Chatterton is a sacrificial victim,
0:26:42 > 0:26:44what was his sacrifice for?
0:26:45 > 0:26:49For the purity of his art. For poetry itself.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Of course, the irony is that Chatterton's work
0:26:54 > 0:26:55is largely forgotten.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58More of us are likely to remember the colour
0:26:58 > 0:27:03of his breeches in a painting than a line from any of his poems.
0:27:03 > 0:27:07But the myth of his death has been a powerful, shaping influence
0:27:07 > 0:27:09on poetic lives and reputations
0:27:09 > 0:27:11and it still has some purchase today.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17"Give me a Chatterton attic," pleaded Dylan Thomas in a letter
0:27:17 > 0:27:19written when he was 19.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23Thomas had been seized by the notion of the pale Romantic poet
0:27:23 > 0:27:25dying in his garret
0:27:25 > 0:27:30and his own much-mythologised death aged just 39 in New York would
0:27:30 > 0:27:34cause him to be seen as a latter-day Chatterton.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38His death had a profound effect on that ill-fated generation
0:27:38 > 0:27:45of American poets including Sylvia Plath, John Berryman
0:27:45 > 0:27:52and Anne Sexton, who were all to follow Dylan into an early grave.
0:27:53 > 0:27:58But why do we need these poets to burn themselves out for their art?
0:27:58 > 0:28:03Perhaps because they are living a life of extremes on our behalf,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06bringing back bulletins from the edge of experience.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12It would be fanciful to blame the myth of the doomed
0:28:12 > 0:28:14poet on one painting.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17Still more to blame it on the young Chatterton himself
0:28:17 > 0:28:21whose death was misread as a suicide.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24But in the hands of the 19th-century poets and artists,
0:28:24 > 0:28:29he became the ultimate literary Bohemian
0:28:29 > 0:28:32and the founder of an image of the poet which, even now,
0:28:32 > 0:28:34we can't quite shake off.