0:00:03 > 0:00:06The 150 miles of coastline between the city of Marseille
0:00:06 > 0:00:11and the Italian border, which we now call the French Riviera,
0:00:11 > 0:00:14is home to two million people,
0:00:14 > 0:00:16but between June and August each summer,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19it is host to another six million visitors
0:00:19 > 0:00:23drawn by its sunshine and its glamorous reputation.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26The Riviera is where the summer holiday
0:00:26 > 0:00:28as we know it today was invented.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32For most of the 20th century, in both imagination and reality,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35it was the world's dream destination.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39I've been coming here for half of my life,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42for the unbeatable weather and a way of life
0:00:42 > 0:00:45which for more than a century has made this a haven
0:00:45 > 0:00:47for creativity and culture.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57The dazzling light and the azure sea have attracted some of the most
0:00:57 > 0:01:00creatively gifted artists who ever picked up a brush,
0:01:00 > 0:01:03inspiring them to paint in new ways,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06explore new ideas and experiment with colour.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13From the moment the Impressionists first discovered this coast,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17it was artists who shaped the Riviera in our cultural imagination.
0:01:17 > 0:01:21They were the alchemists who turned this inhospitable wilderness
0:01:21 > 0:01:23into a realm of beauty,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26who conjured up a utopia out of this rural backwater.
0:01:29 > 0:01:33Artists came to these shores seeking escape and tranquillity,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37a freedom to break the rules and follow their wildest ideas.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42The seductive vision of paradise that they painted
0:01:42 > 0:01:46put the Riviera at the centre of the story of modern art.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08"The distance is short, but the route delicious,
0:02:08 > 0:02:11"along a coast of light, of warm breezes,
0:02:11 > 0:02:15"and mysterious hazy forests.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20"Beneath majestic pines, through valleys of golden fruit.
0:02:20 > 0:02:25"In an embarrassment of colours I contemplate the sea and sun.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28"I question the people and the stones,
0:02:28 > 0:02:32"I listen to the sigh of the wind and the blue water."
0:02:33 > 0:02:36So wrote the French poet Stephen Liegeard,
0:02:36 > 0:02:41describing the country's Mediterranean coast in 1887.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45How could anyone fail to fall in love with such a paradise?
0:02:45 > 0:02:48The extraordinary landscape of the Riviera coast
0:02:48 > 0:02:51has played muse to modern artists for over a century,
0:02:51 > 0:02:56but the origins of this love affair were not on these pine-scented hills
0:02:56 > 0:03:00but amid the grey bustle of 19th century Paris.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13While the rest of Europe was busy inventing the modern world,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16post-revolutionary France had been persistently ravaged
0:03:16 > 0:03:18by war and political turmoil.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24France is a very big country, and whoever was ruling it,
0:03:24 > 0:03:28be they royalty or revolutionaries, did so from Paris.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31They tended to ignore everything beyond the southern suburbs.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35The vast territory stretching to the Mediterranean coast
0:03:35 > 0:03:38seemed empty and irrelevant.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43The capital's impressive architecture and wide boulevards
0:03:43 > 0:03:46belied the fact that France's infrastructure was poor,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49and both its economic and population growth
0:03:49 > 0:03:51lagged behind her European neighbours.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55Beyond its busy capital lay a relatively inaccessible
0:03:55 > 0:03:58and undeveloped countryside.
0:03:58 > 0:03:59500 miles to the south,
0:03:59 > 0:04:03the Mediterranean coast remained sparsely populated,
0:04:03 > 0:04:06a region of fishermen and subsistence farmers,
0:04:06 > 0:04:09accessible only by a gruelling journey
0:04:09 > 0:04:11that could take a week or more.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14The only people prepared to undertake the marathon trek
0:04:14 > 0:04:18were British hivernauts, wealthy winter vacationers
0:04:18 > 0:04:21heading for the chic resorts of Cannes and Nice,
0:04:21 > 0:04:24cities that had grown up specifically to cater
0:04:24 > 0:04:27to these aristocratic tourists who sought a haven
0:04:27 > 0:04:29from the damp and cold back home.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Parisians, on the other hand, went to Normandy for their holidays,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38and where the Parisians went, the Impressionists followed.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41In the 1860s, their shockingly modern paintings
0:04:41 > 0:04:46reflected the daily lives of the growing metropolitan middle class
0:04:46 > 0:04:51who were learning how to enjoy their newly-earned leisure time.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53The railways had recently been extended out to Normandy,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56but also the amenities there were being built up very quickly
0:04:56 > 0:04:58so there were nice hotels in the resorts,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02there were quite often casinos, there were nice restaurants to go to.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05It became much easier to have that kind of tourist experience,
0:05:05 > 0:05:08to get out there, to have a civilised encounter with nature.
0:05:08 > 0:05:12Some of the sights also were of real interest to the artists.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14So Etretat, which is one of the places
0:05:14 > 0:05:17that Monet in particular painted repeatedly, had everything he wanted.
0:05:17 > 0:05:20It was a place where he could find dramatic natural motifs,
0:05:20 > 0:05:25but also be able to retire in the evening to the comfortable hotel.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28But comfort is not a great motivator to artists,
0:05:28 > 0:05:32and the innovation that had first got the Impressionists noticed
0:05:32 > 0:05:35was no longer so evident in their work.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39In 1874, they had held their first exhibition
0:05:39 > 0:05:41at 35 Boulevard des Capucines
0:05:41 > 0:05:46and seven years later, in 1881, they returned to the same building.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51But the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition was very far
0:05:51 > 0:05:54from a triumphant celebration of past achievements.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57True, there were still big names here
0:05:57 > 0:05:59like Degas and Gauguin, but the real stars
0:05:59 > 0:06:03that had drawn the public here in great numbers were missing.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07Monet and Renoir had declined to get involved,
0:06:07 > 0:06:11hoping to gain admittance to the official salon instead.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14The novelty value of these artistic revolutionaries was wearing off,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18but more than anything, their subject matter
0:06:18 > 0:06:20was starting to feel tired and familiar.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23Monet painted the Normandy coast many hundred times,
0:06:23 > 0:06:26hugely contributing to its popularity,
0:06:26 > 0:06:28leading the writer Guy de Maupassant to complain
0:06:28 > 0:06:32that there were more people on the footpaths of Normandy
0:06:32 > 0:06:35than on the boulevards of Paris.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39One of the original artists from the first Impressionist exhibition
0:06:39 > 0:06:41took a much more solitary path, though.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45Paul Cezanne had been particularly harshly treated by the critics
0:06:45 > 0:06:47and he did something very novel indeed.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49He went south.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12For a French painter in the late 19th century,
0:07:12 > 0:07:15leaving Paris was commercial suicide.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18You were not only cutting yourself off from the artistic mainstream,
0:07:18 > 0:07:22but travelling south was like travelling back in time,
0:07:22 > 0:07:25to another country, almost to another age.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29In this economic and cultural backwater, the climate was hot
0:07:29 > 0:07:31and the people were different too,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34a melting pot of mixed Mediterranean blood,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37dressing in their own dark clothing and speaking Occitan,
0:07:37 > 0:07:42the local tongue that was definitely not the lingua franca.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46But none of this would have seemed alien to Paul Cezanne.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49He had been born in the south, in Aix-en-Provence,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51and had felt something of an outsider
0:07:51 > 0:07:53in the smart artistic salons of Paris.
0:07:53 > 0:07:55To his fellow Impressionists,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58he sometimes seemed like a country bumpkin,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01and his pictures, with their sharply defined outlines,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05were also not at home under the Impressionist umbrella.
0:08:05 > 0:08:07An allowance from his father
0:08:07 > 0:08:10allowed him to please himself where he worked,
0:08:10 > 0:08:13and in the late 1870s, he was spending a great deal of time
0:08:13 > 0:08:16at his mother's house in the small town of L'Estaque,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19just around the bay from Marseille.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23Life in the underdeveloped south had some advantages.
0:08:23 > 0:08:26The stagnant economy meant the cost of living was cheap,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30and the warm dry weather extended the painting season for artists
0:08:30 > 0:08:32through the winter months.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35When Cezanne first came down here, this little town
0:08:35 > 0:08:38was trying to decide whether it was a fishing village,
0:08:38 > 0:08:43a seaside resort or a minor industrial centre.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45I still don't think it's made up its mind.
0:08:49 > 0:08:55Then as now, the town was in danger of being swallowed up by Marseille,
0:08:55 > 0:09:01but its picturesque winding streets still maintain a separate identity.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04Cezanne's mother lived in this modest house
0:09:04 > 0:09:08in the main square by the church, and this is one of the views
0:09:08 > 0:09:11he painted from the terrace, looking out over the harbour
0:09:11 > 0:09:14towards the Rio Tinto tile factory.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17His remoteness from Paris was liberating.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20No-one saw him as an outsider in L'Estaque.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24He was by nature a loner, and here he could work unconcerned
0:09:24 > 0:09:28by the opinions of his contemporaries, or his father.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33But, much as he loved the place, he found it difficult to paint.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37He wrote to his great mentor and friend, Camille Pissarro,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41complaining that he was terrified of the sun and dazzled by the colours,
0:09:41 > 0:09:44the two things that are the great inspirations
0:09:44 > 0:09:46for any artists coming out here,
0:09:46 > 0:09:50but it changed the way that he painted.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54"Cezanne is the father of us all," said Picasso,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57and in the shimmering heat of the coast he began to develop
0:09:57 > 0:10:00his own way of dealing with these jet black shadows
0:10:00 > 0:10:04and luminous, vivid colours.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06There was a harshness, a brilliance to the light
0:10:06 > 0:10:10that was unlike anything he had seen in the north.
0:10:10 > 0:10:11It threw into confusion for him
0:10:11 > 0:10:15some of the techniques that he'd worked out as an Impressionist,
0:10:15 > 0:10:18so in particular working with broken brushwork,
0:10:18 > 0:10:22painting a lot of different nuances of colour in the atmosphere.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Down in the south, he felt all of that was wiped out
0:10:24 > 0:10:25by the strength of the sun.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28He starts to paint with much brighter colours,
0:10:28 > 0:10:30in much larger blocks of unbroken colour,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33and in particular he talks about looking at objects
0:10:33 > 0:10:35in bright sunlight,
0:10:35 > 0:10:38and seeing kind of strange coloured halos around them.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40So he starts putting outlines around objects
0:10:40 > 0:10:44in his paintings from this time, and that goes against everything
0:10:44 > 0:10:48that Impressionism had held to be true of how you saw the world.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54When Cezanne found a landscape he liked,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57he painted it again and again, at different times of day,
0:10:57 > 0:11:02in changing light and weather, trying to understand it completely,
0:11:02 > 0:11:05and this view of the bay from the hills to the north of L'Estaque
0:11:05 > 0:11:08was one he never seemed to tire of.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13In the middle distance is the port of Marseille,
0:11:13 > 0:11:18and behind those limestone hills is what we now call the French Riviera.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Back then, Cezanne was up here a bit like Moses on the mountain,
0:11:21 > 0:11:28looking across to the promised land, towards the future of modern art.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31He never budged from here.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33The coastline east of Marseille
0:11:33 > 0:11:35was pretty much wild and uncharted territory
0:11:35 > 0:11:39and Cezanne had enough to keep himself occupied here in L'Estaque,
0:11:39 > 0:11:44but his Joshua was about to appear
0:11:44 > 0:11:48and lead art into this paradise, this land of milk and honey.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52His name - Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
0:11:52 > 0:11:56Renoir was one of the original group of Impressionists
0:11:56 > 0:11:58but was also suffering something of a crisis
0:11:58 > 0:12:01at this point in his career. He was 40 years old,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04and like everyone else he was on the trail of something new.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08He had been encouraged by his dealer to see travel as the answer
0:12:08 > 0:12:12to artistic ennui, and he arrived in L'Estaque in January 1882
0:12:12 > 0:12:16at the end of a mammoth trip through Algeria, Spain and Italy
0:12:16 > 0:12:21taking in both the landscapes and the art along the way.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Cezanne was keen to show Renoir some of his favourite bits of L'Estaque
0:12:27 > 0:12:32and its surrounding landscape, and the pair of them headed up
0:12:32 > 0:12:35into the crags on a painting expedition.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37Considering where he had just been,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41Renoir came to a surprising conclusion about L'Estaque,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43writing to his dealer that
0:12:43 > 0:12:47"It must surely be the most beautiful place in the world."
0:12:48 > 0:12:51Now, I don't want to be rude about this town,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54but it does seem rather high praise for L'Estaque.
0:12:54 > 0:12:59Who knows? Perhaps Cezanne was a particularly enthusiastic guide,
0:12:59 > 0:13:02but Renoir was also amazed by another of the benefits
0:13:02 > 0:13:06of this coast, its climate. "What weather!" he wrote.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09"Spring with sweet sun, and no wind."
0:13:12 > 0:13:16Renoir was still at this point essentially an Impressionist
0:13:16 > 0:13:18so he's painting a very pretty scene,
0:13:18 > 0:13:21the colours are very nice, the brushwork is feathery.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23Cezanne looks at the same crags, the same rocks
0:13:23 > 0:13:25and makes something very different out of them.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28He's much more aware of the geometry of the rocks,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30the kind of the solidity of the rocks,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33much less interested in atmosphere and he turns the painting
0:13:33 > 0:13:38into a kind of rigorous and somewhat austere image of the landscape.
0:13:40 > 0:13:44For Renoir, this short visit was a revelation.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47He could see beyond the dark and moody locals
0:13:47 > 0:13:50with their bizarre get up and impenetrable speech.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52The punishing sun and craggy landscape
0:13:52 > 0:13:54that would have had his fellow Parisians
0:13:54 > 0:13:58running to stay indoors all day proved to be his inspiration,
0:13:58 > 0:14:04and that coastline proved utterly magnetic and irresistible to him,
0:14:04 > 0:14:06and hooked him in.
0:14:08 > 0:14:12The following winter Renoir was back, this time bringing
0:14:12 > 0:14:16another interested party with him, Claude Monet.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20At the time, Monet was 43 and moderately successful,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24but after the death of his wife, he had taken on responsibility
0:14:24 > 0:14:28not just for his own two children but six more belonging to the woman
0:14:28 > 0:14:32he would eventually marry, Alice Hoschede.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35He may have been an extraordinary painter but he was also
0:14:35 > 0:14:40a canny businessman, always on the lookout for original material.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44The Riviera was about to get its big break - two painters
0:14:44 > 0:14:49in the vanguard of modern art were about to come and check it out.
0:14:49 > 0:14:51They had no plan to do any painting,
0:14:51 > 0:14:55they just wanted to explore this completely unknown coast,
0:14:55 > 0:14:59and to do that with the utmost efficiency, they travelled by train.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03For such a large country, France was very slow to embrace
0:15:03 > 0:15:07the obvious advantages of building railway lines,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10but in 1860, the Chemin de Fer arrived in L'Estaque.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14The journey from Paris, which only a few years previously
0:15:14 > 0:15:17was measured in days, now took only 20 hours.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31In December 1883, the two artists went on a reconnaissance trip
0:15:31 > 0:15:34the like of which would have been quite impossible
0:15:34 > 0:15:36before this railway line was built. In two weeks,
0:15:36 > 0:15:39they covered the entire coastline between Marseille in the east
0:15:39 > 0:15:42all the way to Genoa in Italy.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47Albeit brief, the journey convinced both men that this terra incognita
0:15:47 > 0:15:51was an absolute gem waiting to be immortalised in paint.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55The railway snaked along the coast
0:15:55 > 0:15:58with typical 19th century engineering ingenuity,
0:15:58 > 0:16:01hugging the shoreline and connecting beaches and coves
0:16:01 > 0:16:05that had previously only been accessible by boat.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09Their route cut through an uninhabited wilderness
0:16:09 > 0:16:13of pine covered hills sloping gently into the sea, punctuated by a string
0:16:13 > 0:16:16of picturesque but impoverished fishing villages,
0:16:16 > 0:16:19but as they approached the Italian border,
0:16:19 > 0:16:22there were several large cosmopolitan towns
0:16:22 > 0:16:25where the gentry spoke neither Occitan nor French.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28The main beneficiaries of the new railway
0:16:28 > 0:16:30were the British gentry who came here
0:16:30 > 0:16:33to avoid the lethal Victorian smog.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37A trip to the Riviera was a common prescription for consumption
0:16:37 > 0:16:40and in the winter months, towns like Nice and Menton
0:16:40 > 0:16:42filled up with Les Anglais,
0:16:42 > 0:16:46but in Cannes they practically ran the place.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48This is the Chateau Eleanore,
0:16:48 > 0:16:53former home of the British Lord Chancellor, Lord Brougham.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56Monet had spent several months in London in 1870
0:16:56 > 0:17:00and had a soft spot for the British, but what impressed him most about
0:17:00 > 0:17:05the ex-pat community he discovered on the Riviera were their gardens.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Earlier that year, he had moved into the house at Giverny
0:17:08 > 0:17:11and begun creating the garden that would become the subject matter
0:17:11 > 0:17:13for so many of his later paintings,
0:17:13 > 0:17:15and where he lived for the rest of his life.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18At this point, he was a green-fingered novice
0:17:18 > 0:17:21on the hunt for new ideas, and returned almost immediately,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24kitted up for a proper painting expedition.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33His twin enthusiasms as both a painter and a gardener
0:17:33 > 0:17:37drew him to a little town straddling the border between France and Italy
0:17:37 > 0:17:39called Bordighera.
0:17:41 > 0:17:45That ubiquitous icon of the Riviera landscape, the palm tree,
0:17:45 > 0:17:47is not native to these shores,
0:17:47 > 0:17:50and like so many towns and cities along the coast,
0:17:50 > 0:17:53Bordighera fancies itself responsible for its introduction.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59The town's patron saint, Sant'Ampelio,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02is alleged to have brought the seeds from Egypt,
0:18:02 > 0:18:05and Bordighera is still the official supplier of palm fronds
0:18:05 > 0:18:07to the Vatican on Palm Sunday.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13In January 1884, when Monet arrived here,
0:18:13 > 0:18:16he found the usual contingent of British gentry
0:18:16 > 0:18:18enjoying a bit of winter sunshine.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23The Inglese had their own resident British doctor,
0:18:23 > 0:18:26and had built the first tennis courts in Italy
0:18:26 > 0:18:30in the shade of these palms, but the biggest gardens in the town
0:18:30 > 0:18:34belonged to the French consul, Monsieur Moreno.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40Monet persuaded the notoriously private consul to allow him
0:18:40 > 0:18:45to paint the gardens, and quickly fell under the spell of this place.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48He wrote home to Giverny in terms that have become
0:18:48 > 0:18:52very familiar in descriptions of the Riviera.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55"It's an earthly paradise, this property.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59"It's like none other. It is a pure fantasy,
0:18:59 > 0:19:01"all the plants in the world grow here."
0:19:01 > 0:19:04It's very easy to imagine Monet enjoying himself,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07pottering around with his brushes and easel
0:19:07 > 0:19:09in these beautiful surroundings,
0:19:09 > 0:19:13but like Cezanne and Renoir before him, he was in for a bit of a shock.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20These paintings of Bordighera were a struggle for Monet.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23He found himself rummaging through his paints looking for colours
0:19:23 > 0:19:26he had hardly taken the cap off the tube before,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29and his letters home are one long complaint
0:19:29 > 0:19:32about how badly it's all going.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35Working ferociously on up to four canvases a day,
0:19:35 > 0:19:39he was frustrated by the constantly changing light.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41It rained frequently,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44but when the sun did come out, he was dazzled.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49"How beautiful it is here, but how difficult to paint."
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Monet struggles in the south
0:19:52 > 0:19:55because he's a Northerner through and through.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57I mean, he's from Le Havre.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59There's a sea that he recognises
0:19:59 > 0:20:01but the light on the sea doesn't even look the same
0:20:01 > 0:20:04as the light he's known through his childhood.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07Something else to remember about Monet is that he's a complainer.
0:20:07 > 0:20:13Now, that's just his... That's also his mode.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16He works out clearly that complaining is a way of thinking for him,
0:20:16 > 0:20:20and as he complains he comes to his solutions.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25'It's hard to imagine what Monet could find to complain about
0:20:25 > 0:20:27'in these lush semi-tropical surroundings,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30'either as a painter or as a gardener.'
0:20:30 > 0:20:33What would Monet have found when he first arrived here?
0:20:33 > 0:20:36Monet, when he came here to the Riviera,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40was seeing something very intense,
0:20:40 > 0:20:44something he never would have seen in Northern France,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48and which had extraordinarily sculptural shapes for him to paint.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Francesco Moreno, who was an olive oil merchant,
0:20:52 > 0:20:55had been travelling all over the world
0:20:55 > 0:20:58and he'd been bringing plants back from China, from Japan,
0:20:58 > 0:21:03from the Middle East, and introducing plants to the Riviera
0:21:03 > 0:21:05that had never been seen here before.
0:21:05 > 0:21:10I mean, things like this aloe vera, the yuccas up above us.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13That agave over there, for example.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16Monet couldn't have grown many of these things in Northern France
0:21:16 > 0:21:19because of course the climate is so much colder.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24I wonder whether he took a sort of blueprint from this garden.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28The idea of planting things so intensely, so close together,
0:21:28 > 0:21:33and getting a really lush exuberant effect.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35Which is what you have at Giverny now.
0:21:35 > 0:21:37Which is what you have at Giverny now, exactly.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41Monet had intended to stay for three weeks,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44but ended up being here for three months.
0:21:44 > 0:21:48He still wasn't happy with his canvases when he left.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52"People will exclaim at their untruthfulness, at madness,
0:21:52 > 0:21:58"but too bad. All that I do has the shimmering colours of a brandy flame
0:21:58 > 0:22:03"or of a pigeon's breast, yet even now I do it only timidly.
0:22:03 > 0:22:05"I begin to get it."
0:22:05 > 0:22:09He also finished a letter on his way home with a positive thought.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13"What a lot of gardening I shall have to do."
0:22:19 > 0:22:24Renoir, meanwhile, was experiencing his own fallout from the trip.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28Disillusioned with the Impressionist path he had been following,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32his visit to the Riviera took his painting in a new direction.
0:22:32 > 0:22:33When Renoir returns to Paris,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37then the influence of his time with Cezanne really begins
0:22:37 > 0:22:38to show itself in his painting.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41There's a very interesting image called Umbrellas,
0:22:41 > 0:22:43which Renoir had started before the trip.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45In the lower right-hand corner,
0:22:45 > 0:22:47it's still in his usual Impressionist style,
0:22:47 > 0:22:50but the figures over to the left are much more defined,
0:22:50 > 0:22:52the outlines are much more clearly indicated,
0:22:52 > 0:22:55and that seems to be something that Renoir had picked up
0:22:55 > 0:22:57from looking at Cezanne,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00also looking at other art that he'd seen on the trip.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03Renoir returned to the Riviera frequently in the next few years,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05and eventually bought a house
0:23:05 > 0:23:08in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the hills above Nice,
0:23:08 > 0:23:13where he remained mesmerised by the surrounding landscape.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17Today, this department of France is called the Alpes-Maritimes,
0:23:17 > 0:23:20and just to underline its classical credentials,
0:23:20 > 0:23:24it was first given this name by the Roman Emperor Augustus in 14 BC.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30Gerard is from the local ramblers' association,
0:23:30 > 0:23:32and has come to understand exactly why
0:23:32 > 0:23:36the unique combination of climate and geology in this region
0:23:36 > 0:23:38make it so captivating to artists.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41What attracted painters at first, I think,
0:23:41 > 0:23:45- was of course, as you can see, the light.- Incredible light.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Incredible light, and the colours.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52These mountains, the first ones you see, are called the Prealpes.
0:23:52 > 0:23:55This is white lime. Those hills are so close to the sea.
0:23:55 > 0:24:00Alpes-Maritimes means that the Alps are actually falling into the sea.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04The mountain is extremely steep. It was quite an achievement
0:24:04 > 0:24:08to build a motorway, whereas these mountains over there
0:24:08 > 0:24:12are blue granite, so much harder stones.
0:24:12 > 0:24:18Because of these high mountains, Nice will never run out of water.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20This is our reservoir, if you like.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23We have plenty of water, so it's good for the plants,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27- good for the trees and good for the flowers.- Good for the artists.
0:24:27 > 0:24:32Good for the artists to go bathing or to wash their brushes.
0:24:32 > 0:24:34Most of the famous paintings made of the area
0:24:34 > 0:24:40were painted in the winter, and you can't tell.
0:24:40 > 0:24:42You can't tell it's winter.
0:24:42 > 0:24:43There's green, look at it.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46If you come in the winter, this will be the same colour
0:24:46 > 0:24:50because there are very few deciduous trees.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Pine trees, olive trees do not shed their leaves at all,
0:24:53 > 0:24:56so it remains green throughout the winter,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59and of course you've got the fruit on top.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02The orange trees are not the orange trees you are used to.
0:25:02 > 0:25:08They are like this one, which is what you call Seville oranges,
0:25:08 > 0:25:11and the French for it is bigaratier.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16- Bigaratier.- Don't eat them. Make marmalade with them.
0:25:20 > 0:25:23The Parisian art world had its doubts about whether the Riviera
0:25:23 > 0:25:26really looked like it did in Monet and Renoir's paintings,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29but people were starting to go and see for themselves.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34The British continued to show a proprietorial interest
0:25:34 > 0:25:39and in 1887, Queen Victoria took her first holiday on the Riviera.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43It was the publication that same year of a guidebook to the region
0:25:43 > 0:25:47that really changed its fortunes.
0:25:47 > 0:25:52A minor French poet, Stephen Liegeard, wrote a travel book whose title
0:25:52 > 0:25:56gave this coast its defining identity - the Cote d'Azur.
0:26:01 > 0:26:03His gushing Victorian prose promised
0:26:03 > 0:26:07that "the cerulean waves would wash away the weakness of men
0:26:07 > 0:26:10"and the sadness of things."
0:26:10 > 0:26:12It quickly became a bestseller.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16The book may have reminded Monet
0:26:16 > 0:26:20that he still had a score to settle down here.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24In 1888, he returned to this azure coast.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32He chose this spot across the bay from the ancient port of Antibes,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35framed by twisted pines, and settled down once more
0:26:35 > 0:26:40to tackle the changing light that had so profoundly perplexed him
0:26:40 > 0:26:41four years earlier.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45I think there's a clue to Monet's solution
0:26:45 > 0:26:47in the titles of these paintings -
0:26:47 > 0:26:51"Morning at Antibes", "Antibes, Afternoon Effect",
0:26:51 > 0:26:56and this evening picture, "Antibes, View From Salis".
0:26:58 > 0:27:01Conspicuous by its absence is
0:27:01 > 0:27:07"Antibes As Seen By Mad Dogs And Englishmen, Out In The Midday Sun."
0:27:07 > 0:27:09Even Monet knew when he was beaten.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15By painting early or late in the day, Monet skilfully caught
0:27:15 > 0:27:19the magical effect the low sun had on this landscape.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22The Riviera was giving him the confidence
0:27:22 > 0:27:26to try colour combinations that were a new departure for artists,
0:27:26 > 0:27:31in particular the juxtaposition of yellow and violet.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34This was to become the unmistakeable colour signature of this coast.
0:27:34 > 0:27:37It was not something Monet had encountered
0:27:37 > 0:27:40when painting the sea in Normandy.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45All those greys that he's such a specialist in
0:27:45 > 0:27:47will not really serve him very well.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Yellow and violet becomes the great colour story of the south.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53You see very little use of yellow and violet
0:27:53 > 0:27:56as a colour complement in the north, it's almost never used.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59But down here there is something so exotic about
0:27:59 > 0:28:01the combination of violet and yellow -
0:28:01 > 0:28:08it's kind of sexy and surprising. It adds to this colouristic climatic drama of lighting on the Cote d'Azur.
0:28:09 > 0:28:12This time, Monet's letters home were more positive.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16"What I'll bring back from here will be softness itself.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20"White, pink, blue - all of it wrapped in this fairy air."
0:28:21 > 0:28:25The innovative colours and the fairy air received a mixed response
0:28:25 > 0:28:27back in the capital, however.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30When Monet exhibited the paintings from Antibes in Paris
0:28:30 > 0:28:34the public certainly appreciated the beauty of these works.
0:28:34 > 0:28:36However, they had a somewhat mixed critical reception.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39Some critics thought that he had essentially sold out.
0:28:39 > 0:28:43That he was making kind of chocolate box paintings, for a paying public.
0:28:43 > 0:28:45Foremost among them was Felix Feneon
0:28:45 > 0:28:49who talked very scathingly about Monet's brilliant vulgarity.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53Feneon's criticism was not surprising.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57He was the most vocal supporter of another group of avant-garde artists
0:28:57 > 0:29:00that he had dubbed the Neo-Impressionists.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And it wasn't just their paintings that were revolutionary.
0:29:09 > 0:29:14This extraordinary portrait of Feneon, is called "Opus 217...
0:29:14 > 0:29:18"Against the Enamel of a Background, Rhythmic with Beats and Angles,
0:29:18 > 0:29:23"Tones, and Tints, a Portrait of Monsieur Felix Feneon in 1890".
0:29:24 > 0:29:26It was painted by Paul Signac,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29who, in collaboration with his great friend Georges Seurat,
0:29:29 > 0:29:34had developed the painstakingly complex Neo-Impressionist technique.
0:29:34 > 0:29:37While Monet was refining his palette in Antibes,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39these guys were conducting
0:29:39 > 0:29:42some really radical experiments with colour.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44This is Seurat's great masterpiece,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte".
0:29:47 > 0:29:51The Neo-Impressionists were more popularly known as Pointillists
0:29:51 > 0:29:56because their pictures were made up of thousands of tiny dots of paint.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00The innovation of Neo-Impressionist colour theory
0:30:00 > 0:30:02was the idea of optical mixing,
0:30:02 > 0:30:07that rather than allowing colours to be mixed by the artist on the palette,
0:30:07 > 0:30:13colours would be separated on the canvas, juxtaposed to each other
0:30:13 > 0:30:16and then the eye - at least this was the theory -
0:30:16 > 0:30:19the eye would then mix them in a more vivid fashion.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22Does this really happen? Probably not.
0:30:23 > 0:30:24Whether it worked or not,
0:30:24 > 0:30:28it was certainly a very difficult technique to master effectively.
0:30:28 > 0:30:32It took Seurat over two years to paint "La Grande Jatte".
0:30:32 > 0:30:34But it wasn't just colour theory
0:30:34 > 0:30:37that united Feneon and the Neo-Impressionist painters.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41They shared the same political outlook - they were all anarchists.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45In Paris towards the end of the 19th century,
0:30:45 > 0:30:47anarchism was a significant political force.
0:30:47 > 0:30:49But it meant something very different
0:30:49 > 0:30:51from what we tend to associate with the word today.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55The idea was essentially that if you removed the control of the state,
0:30:55 > 0:30:58and of the church and of the military and so forth,
0:30:58 > 0:31:00human beings would live together naturally in harmony
0:31:00 > 0:31:02and work out their own rules,
0:31:02 > 0:31:06in harmony with each other and also in harmony with nature.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10This little cell of anarchist painters suffered a tragic blow
0:31:10 > 0:31:16when Seurat, who was only 31 years old, died unexpectedly in 1891.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19For Paul Signac, it now became more important than ever
0:31:19 > 0:31:23to continue the work he and Seurat had begun,
0:31:23 > 0:31:27and he worked obsessively to refine the Pointillist technique,
0:31:27 > 0:31:31but his most successful paintings would not be made in Paris.
0:31:31 > 0:31:35To console himself after the death of his friend,
0:31:35 > 0:31:38he set sail for the Cote d'Azur.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Not only did Signac feel completely at home in the south,
0:31:41 > 0:31:44but so did his Neo-Impressionist dots of paint.
0:31:58 > 0:32:02Signac was one of those people whom the Riviera snared,
0:32:02 > 0:32:05Medusa-like, the moment he set eyes on her.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08In 1892, he navigated his way along this coast -
0:32:08 > 0:32:11utterly enchanted.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Rounding the Maures mountains, he discovered a small fishing village
0:32:15 > 0:32:18inaccessible by road, bypassed by the railway,
0:32:18 > 0:32:22lying in splendid isolation, cut off from the world.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25He wrote to his mother and declared, "I have found happiness."
0:32:27 > 0:32:29The village was Saint-Tropez.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35Signac was from a wealthy family who supplied saddles
0:32:35 > 0:32:37and leather goods to the Parisian gentry.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40Young Paul, an only child,
0:32:40 > 0:32:42had wanted to paint from a very early age.
0:32:42 > 0:32:46He was thrown out of the fifth Impressionist exhibition
0:32:46 > 0:32:49for bringing in his sketchbook to copy a Degas.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52One reason he was so pleased to have discovered Saint-Tropez
0:32:52 > 0:32:56was his belief that it would make the ideal place
0:32:56 > 0:33:00to lead an anarchist life, remote from the prying eyes of the state,
0:33:00 > 0:33:03where he could live and paint as he pleased.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09Try to ignore for a moment the rampant commercialism
0:33:09 > 0:33:13and consumerism that characterises Saint-Tropez today,
0:33:13 > 0:33:18and imagine a tiny, remote, impoverished fishing village.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20A few buildings along the harbour,
0:33:20 > 0:33:22a group of fishermen cleaning their nets.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26This was the scene that greeted Paul Signac in 1892.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30Would it make anyone think of setting up an anarchist colony(?)
0:33:35 > 0:33:38The little fishing harbour is empty today. The fishermen are all gone,
0:33:38 > 0:33:44and the beach that once sheltered their boats has found other users.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48When Signac planted his anarchist flag on the hillside at Saint-Tropez
0:33:48 > 0:33:51he soon discovered that the Riviera suited his painting technique
0:33:51 > 0:33:54just as much as his politics.
0:33:54 > 0:33:56What was evident was that,
0:33:56 > 0:33:59as much as the Pointillists loved this landscape, it loved them back.
0:33:59 > 0:34:03It wasn't Seurat or Signac who invented Pointillism,
0:34:03 > 0:34:07it was Mother Nature. The ripples of sunlight on the water,
0:34:07 > 0:34:09the dappled light on the leaves through the woods
0:34:09 > 0:34:14lent themselves to this exacting and fragmented application of paint.
0:34:15 > 0:34:17OPERA ARIA
0:34:32 > 0:34:35Unlike the struggles of Monet and Renoir,
0:34:35 > 0:34:37there was no grumbling from these boys
0:34:37 > 0:34:40about the problems of capturing the light on canvas.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44They had just the technique to deal with it.
0:34:45 > 0:34:48Though he certainly became very accomplished
0:34:48 > 0:34:51at capturing the light of Saint-Tropez,
0:34:51 > 0:34:55Signac also wanted to express his political ideas in his pictures.
0:34:55 > 0:34:57If the Riviera was to be the location
0:34:57 > 0:35:00where he could gather together like-minded people
0:35:00 > 0:35:02and create a future utopia,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05he wanted to show what it would look like.
0:35:05 > 0:35:11In 1894, he began work on his magnum opus, "In Time of Harmony",
0:35:11 > 0:35:14bringing together his love for this landscape
0:35:14 > 0:35:18and his anarchist ideals in one gigantic canvas.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22Strangely, today this Mediterranean arcadia
0:35:22 > 0:35:25finds itself in a busy suburb of Paris.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27When Signac died, his widow
0:35:27 > 0:35:30didn't want his most significant painting to go to an art gallery,
0:35:30 > 0:35:34but somewhere where it would be seen by ordinary citizens.
0:35:34 > 0:35:39It was gifted to the staunchly communist town hall at Montreuil
0:35:39 > 0:35:41in the beating red heart of the capital.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43This monumental work
0:35:43 > 0:35:47refines the yellow and violet palette that Monet employed.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51But, for Signac, the Riviera was far more than a beautiful scene -
0:35:51 > 0:35:54it had a powerful symbolic importance too.
0:35:54 > 0:35:56Whilst it has all the qualities
0:35:56 > 0:35:59of a traditional pastoral landscape painting,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02its figures - whether at work or at play -
0:36:02 > 0:36:04are leading an anarchist life,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07enjoying a freedom from the control of the state.
0:36:07 > 0:36:09In harmony with nature,
0:36:09 > 0:36:13they are pursuing healthy activities like swimming and playing games,
0:36:13 > 0:36:17reading and painting, dancing under the spreading branches
0:36:17 > 0:36:19of a Saint-Tropez pine tree,
0:36:19 > 0:36:21whilst the march of progress
0:36:21 > 0:36:24represented by the modern farm machinery
0:36:24 > 0:36:27makes their lives less arduous.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32Signac was not the only Neo-Impressionist
0:36:32 > 0:36:34who sought refuge on the Riviera.
0:36:34 > 0:36:39A few miles away at Cavalaire, the painter Henri-Edmond Cross
0:36:39 > 0:36:43was exploring his own vision of paradise in little dots of paint.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46Although he shared Signac's political views,
0:36:46 > 0:36:48being an equally ardent anarchist,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52Cross was not dreaming of the future, but of the past.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56Set in a landscape of warm woodlands on a sunlit shore,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59this was the coast the Romans had known,
0:36:59 > 0:37:02populated with the nymphs and naiads of classical mythology.
0:37:02 > 0:37:04In the dappled sunlight,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07filtered through the luminous dots of Neo-Impressionism,
0:37:07 > 0:37:10his bathers were living in the Garden of Eden.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14Cross first came to the Mediterranean coast
0:37:14 > 0:37:17because he suffered from debilitating arthritis
0:37:17 > 0:37:19which the climate seemed to alleviate.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22But once he was here it was the landscape
0:37:22 > 0:37:26and the way of life that fired his artistic imagination.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30For Cross, the Riviera was both a muse and a nurse,
0:37:30 > 0:37:34sort of like an arty Florence Nightingale,
0:37:34 > 0:37:39encouraging him to embrace the life-enhancing air and continue to paint.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43The image of the bather became a key motif in paintings of the south.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46This is a place that one immersed oneself in a kind of raw nature,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50one felt the sun on one's skin, one rejuvenated oneself.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52But it's also, I think, that the southern coast had,
0:37:52 > 0:37:56for many French people, associations with the classical tradition,
0:37:56 > 0:38:00the idea that this was where France's Latin heritage was most keenly felt.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04The successors to this Latin heritage,
0:38:04 > 0:38:09the local population, had a rather more commercial attitude, however.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12Although this area was indeed still largely wilderness,
0:38:12 > 0:38:15rather than preserving it as an inspiration to painters
0:38:15 > 0:38:19they were only too keen to encourage more tourists.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21They had seen other fishing villages
0:38:21 > 0:38:25transformed into wealthy cosmopolitan resorts in a few years,
0:38:25 > 0:38:28and small hotels were already opening
0:38:28 > 0:38:30in these coastal communities.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34When Henri Cross sought permission to build himself a painting hut
0:38:34 > 0:38:38right on the beach, his unusual request was approved
0:38:38 > 0:38:41with the full support of the local council.
0:38:41 > 0:38:43If paintings of their little village
0:38:43 > 0:38:46were to be exhibited in the art galleries of Paris,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50it might just help to fill up these new hotel rooms.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58Cross didn't disappoint.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01When he painted the view from the beach here at Saint-Clair,
0:39:01 > 0:39:05it's the striking simplicity of the picture that impresses...
0:39:06 > 0:39:10The grain of the sand, the dancing pinpoints of light on the water
0:39:10 > 0:39:14and the almost evanescent shadow of the off-shore islands,
0:39:14 > 0:39:19cooling in the sea - all perfectly realised with tiny dots of paint.
0:39:21 > 0:39:2270 years later,
0:39:22 > 0:39:26in a faint echo of the nymphs that had populated Cross's landscapes,
0:39:26 > 0:39:30the beaches of the Riviera filled up with topless sunbathers.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33But this was not the fulfilment of Cross's dream
0:39:33 > 0:39:37of a Mediterranean arcadia from the mythological past.
0:39:37 > 0:39:42The crowds of scantily-clad bathers were here for all the wrong reasons.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45They were not the native inhabitants living in harmony
0:39:45 > 0:39:48in a state of prelapsarian bliss, but wealthy incomers
0:39:48 > 0:39:52who were here because Saint-Tropez had become fashionable.
0:39:59 > 0:40:03Signac never managed to establish his anarchist utopia either,
0:40:03 > 0:40:05though his paintings and his writing
0:40:05 > 0:40:09did attract a string of young artists to Saint-Tropez to pay homage.
0:40:09 > 0:40:11The resorts of the Riviera
0:40:11 > 0:40:14had always had a reputation for slightly loose morals,
0:40:14 > 0:40:16but now these young painters
0:40:16 > 0:40:19were to give the whole coast a raffish bohemian air
0:40:19 > 0:40:23that made it even more attractive to society's outsiders.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Signac's disciples were also at the vanguard
0:40:26 > 0:40:30of a significant change in the culture of the Riviera.
0:40:30 > 0:40:32They were some of the first visitors
0:40:32 > 0:40:36who chose to come here in the summer.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39Throughout the 19th century, no-one considered staying on the coast
0:40:39 > 0:40:42during the hottest months from May to September.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46Consequently, when Signac's impecunious admirers arrived,
0:40:46 > 0:40:49they found these villages were deserted and cheap.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53They became the Riviera's first summer holiday-makers.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Amongst this generation of summer pioneers
0:41:00 > 0:41:01was someone who would become
0:41:01 > 0:41:04very strongly associated with art on the Riviera.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08But, in 1904, when Henri Matisse arrived by boat from Saint-Raphael
0:41:08 > 0:41:13with his young family, this was his first sight of the Cote d'Azur.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18Matisse was 34, and still finding his way as a painter.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22He had seen the Neo-Impressionists' work in Paris
0:41:22 > 0:41:24and swung an invitation to visit Signac,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27who was now living in a large house he had built for himself
0:41:27 > 0:41:32above the beach to the north of the town, the Villa La Hune.
0:41:32 > 0:41:34Signac arranged lodgings for Matisse
0:41:34 > 0:41:37in a little cottage just below his villa
0:41:37 > 0:41:42and looked forward to a profitable collaboration. But it wasn't to be.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46The two painters argued about art all summer.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49The truth is that Signac had become rather set in his ways
0:41:49 > 0:41:50with regard to Pointillism.
0:41:50 > 0:41:53Matisse loved the dots, but he was determined to do it in his way,
0:41:53 > 0:41:55and as the summer progressed
0:41:55 > 0:41:59his pictures became less like his host's, not more so.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03When Matisse painted this picture of his wife Amelie on the terrace
0:42:03 > 0:42:08of Signac's house, dots were conspicuously absent.
0:42:08 > 0:42:11He was genuinely interested in the way Signac painted,
0:42:11 > 0:42:13and had made several experiments
0:42:13 > 0:42:15with the Neo-Impressionist technique,
0:42:15 > 0:42:18but Matisse was looking for ideas, not tuition,
0:42:18 > 0:42:21and he struggled to keep relations cordial.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25Signac got progressively more exasperated.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30He told Cross that Matisse was one of those painters who,
0:42:30 > 0:42:35while painting a cloud that changed its shape, is rendered helpless.
0:42:38 > 0:42:40Matisse himself recognised it was not going well.
0:42:40 > 0:42:45"He gives me the impression I'm a sorry soul with no willpower,
0:42:45 > 0:42:50"with no idea where I'm going and no means to get there."
0:42:51 > 0:42:54After a particularly bruising discussion one evening,
0:42:54 > 0:42:57he walked down to the beach to nurse his wounded pride
0:42:57 > 0:43:02and conceived the idea for his own vision of a Mediterranean paradise.
0:43:02 > 0:43:03It would turn out to be
0:43:03 > 0:43:07a breakthrough moment in the history of art.
0:43:07 > 0:43:10Matisse did create one of the great works of art of the 20th century
0:43:10 > 0:43:13while he was here, combining the magical light of Saint-Tropez
0:43:13 > 0:43:16with a classical setting, painted in little dots of colour,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20almost in the approved Neo-Impressionist manner.
0:43:21 > 0:43:28"Luxe, Calme et Volupte" - Luxury, Tranquillity and Pleasure -
0:43:28 > 0:43:30ought to have made Signac very happy.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33Matisse is exploring the Pointillist technique,
0:43:33 > 0:43:37but he has dramatically moved things on.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41On this Riviera beach, he moves away from representation
0:43:41 > 0:43:43and uses colour to convey emotion,
0:43:43 > 0:43:47leading modern art towards abstraction.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50He is going to freely choose colour
0:43:50 > 0:43:53which will convey the sense of intensity
0:43:53 > 0:43:57whether or not it imitates what the world looks like.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59After all, there had been many, many artists
0:43:59 > 0:44:02who had done a remarkable job of giving us a vision
0:44:02 > 0:44:07of the world as it looks, but perhaps they were not always as successful
0:44:07 > 0:44:11at giving us the excitement of the world as we feel it.
0:44:11 > 0:44:16Matisse is an important shift in the direction of artistic licence.
0:44:16 > 0:44:18He can convey the excitement of a landscape
0:44:18 > 0:44:22in a new and what we now call abstract way.
0:44:22 > 0:44:24Like Signac's "Time of Harmony",
0:44:24 > 0:44:27the setting is the Saint-Tropez landscape.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30"Luxe, Calme et Volupte"
0:44:30 > 0:44:33is a quotation from a poem by Baudelaire,
0:44:33 > 0:44:35"L'invitation au voyage",
0:44:35 > 0:44:39a description of a journey to an imaginary village,
0:44:39 > 0:44:40an earthly paradise
0:44:40 > 0:44:43every bit as tempting as the one Signac had painted.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45The fully clothed woman at the picnic
0:44:45 > 0:44:48changes the message of the painting,
0:44:48 > 0:44:50for she is strangely but unmistakeably
0:44:50 > 0:44:53a tourist in this utopia.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57Matisse couldn't know it, but he was painting the future,
0:44:57 > 0:44:59showing us a vision of the crowds to come,
0:44:59 > 0:45:02who would turn this coast into a dystopia.
0:45:03 > 0:45:06It's the bathers in the picture that make it look so modern.
0:45:06 > 0:45:12Swimming in the Mediterranean was a relatively new idea in 1904,
0:45:12 > 0:45:15but the figure on the right, combing her wet hair,
0:45:15 > 0:45:19has become a ubiquitous image on the Riviera to this day.
0:45:21 > 0:45:24It was Matisse's "Pleasure" that was to come to pass,
0:45:24 > 0:45:27rather than Signac's "Harmony".
0:45:27 > 0:45:29But there were no hard feelings.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33Despite the obvious shortcomings of the garish colours,
0:45:33 > 0:45:37and the not-quite-perfect Pointillist technique,
0:45:37 > 0:45:41Signac bought Matisse's painting, hung it in his dining room
0:45:41 > 0:45:44where it remained for the rest of his life.
0:45:58 > 0:46:03The following year, the painting was exhibited at the Salon des Independants,
0:46:03 > 0:46:07where it met with almost universal agreement.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11The critics detested it, almost to a man. It was very, very unpopular.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14It was seen as a betrayal of the way that he'd been painting beforehand,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17so they didn't like the fact that it looked somewhat Neo-Impressionist,
0:46:17 > 0:46:21but they also thought it looked too chaotic, too wild,
0:46:21 > 0:46:23just not a sophisticated painting in any way.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29Sophisticated or not, Matisse's work on the Riviera
0:46:29 > 0:46:30was being talked about
0:46:30 > 0:46:33at a time when there was plenty of competition.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35At the Salon d'Automne,
0:46:35 > 0:46:37a Cezanne retrospective was drawing the crowds,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40focusing attention on his vision of the south,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43and including his paintings of L'Estaque.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48The Cote d'Azur was becoming firmly established
0:46:48 > 0:46:51as part of the artistic landscape.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57Meanwhile, the PLM railway company
0:46:57 > 0:46:59was heavily promoting the destination.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04In 1900, the Gare de Lyon had been revamped,
0:47:04 > 0:47:07and the Art Nouveau maidens on the new station facade
0:47:07 > 0:47:10lured the tourists south.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13The dramatic combination of yellow and violet
0:47:13 > 0:47:16that Monet and Renoir had established
0:47:16 > 0:47:18as the trademark colours of the south
0:47:18 > 0:47:20was now being used to brand the region.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22And elegant advertisements
0:47:22 > 0:47:25employed the city's finest commercial designers
0:47:25 > 0:47:27to portray the Cote d'Azur as a balmy paradise
0:47:27 > 0:47:29just a train ride away.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34If you were young and fit and really wanted to save
0:47:34 > 0:47:38the not inconsiderable train fare, there was an alternative.
0:47:38 > 0:47:41In 1908, a young artist called Georges Braque
0:47:41 > 0:47:44parcelled up his painting kit, sent it off ahead by post
0:47:44 > 0:47:47and set off for the coast on his bicycle.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56The Cezanne retrospective had a powerful effect on Braque
0:47:56 > 0:47:58and he headed for L'Estaque.
0:47:58 > 0:48:02He decisively moved away from the concentration on colour
0:48:02 > 0:48:06that had characterised the work that Matisse had made in the south.
0:48:06 > 0:48:08And with "Houses at L'Estaque"
0:48:08 > 0:48:10he begins to explore the shape of things.
0:48:13 > 0:48:16Once more, the Riviera was providing the setting
0:48:16 > 0:48:18for a powerful artistic idea
0:48:18 > 0:48:21to inspire a new movement in modern art.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Georges was already a very accomplished painter of houses -
0:48:26 > 0:48:29he was the decorator for the family firm
0:48:29 > 0:48:33and had recently achieved his house painter's certificate,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36but after he'd painted "Houses of L'Estaque" that summer
0:48:36 > 0:48:38there was no going back to his old career.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42The paintings he made on the coast that year
0:48:42 > 0:48:44marked Braque out as someone with
0:48:44 > 0:48:47his own singular way of looking at the world.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49It's at L'Estaque on the hillsides,
0:48:49 > 0:48:51those houses stacked against the hillside,
0:48:51 > 0:48:54that he suddenly sees the world through Cezanne's eyes,
0:48:54 > 0:48:56under the light of the south.
0:48:56 > 0:48:59Instead of a world of colour and light,
0:48:59 > 0:49:03it's going to become a world of pure geometry,
0:49:03 > 0:49:06dictated by the brilliance of the light,
0:49:06 > 0:49:11which therefore creates deep shadows and strong geometric forms.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15When Matisse saw "Houses at L'Estaque",
0:49:15 > 0:49:18he recognised it as a profound step forward.
0:49:18 > 0:49:23"This was the first picture that constituted the origins of Cubism," he later said.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27The great experimenter was never tempted to explore
0:49:27 > 0:49:30this particular "ism" in his own work.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33Braque submitted the picture to the Salon d'Automne in Paris,
0:49:33 > 0:49:36along with several others in a similar style.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40They were all rejected by the four-man jury after much discussion.
0:49:40 > 0:49:43The main opposition seems to have come from the jury member
0:49:43 > 0:49:46who had many of his own works on show that year -
0:49:46 > 0:49:48a certain Henri Matisse.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52Where Matisse saw Braque as a threat,
0:49:52 > 0:49:57the other man creating a stir in Paris at that time, Pablo Picasso,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00saw an idea to be explored and understood,
0:50:00 > 0:50:02and began to paint alongside Braque.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05During a period of intense collaboration,
0:50:05 > 0:50:10their pictures became focused solely on form, drained of colour,
0:50:10 > 0:50:12and lost any connection with
0:50:12 > 0:50:14the sun-baked houses of the Riviera coast
0:50:14 > 0:50:17that had provided their original inspiration.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21But though Braque and Picasso's Cubism led them elsewhere,
0:50:21 > 0:50:23the relationship between the movement
0:50:23 > 0:50:26and the Riviera was not yet played out.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29Cubism did, eventually, come home again,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32but it was in very unexpected circumstances.
0:50:39 > 0:50:45In 1864, the Tsar of all the Russians, Alexander II,
0:50:45 > 0:50:47was one of the first people to step off a train
0:50:47 > 0:50:49at the newly-opened railway station in Nice,
0:50:49 > 0:50:54and an enduring love affair between Russia and the Riviera began.
0:50:55 > 0:50:59This is the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe,
0:50:59 > 0:51:02the most visible sign of the Russian presence,
0:51:02 > 0:51:06rather less discreet than the Anglican churches the British had built in the city.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10The Russian upper crust loved the Riviera
0:51:10 > 0:51:12every bit as much as the British
0:51:12 > 0:51:14and were far less ashamed to show it.
0:51:17 > 0:51:21Roubles had been supporting French art for years.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24There was a ready market for modernism in Moscow.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27Sergei Shchukin, a Russian textile merchant,
0:51:27 > 0:51:30owned 50 Picassos and 38 Matisses,
0:51:30 > 0:51:34and it would be Russian artists who brought Cubism back to the Riviera.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43On 1st August 1914, Germany declared war on France
0:51:43 > 0:51:45and began to march on Paris.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49Those that could, fled the city,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52many travelling south to the Mediterranean coast.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55Amongst them was Alexander Archipenko,
0:51:55 > 0:51:56a Cubist sculptor from Kiev
0:51:56 > 0:52:01who had been working in Paris for five years when the war intervened.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06As a Russian, Archipenko inevitably headed for Nice
0:52:06 > 0:52:11where there was a community of fellow compatriots ready to make him feel at home.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15This enforced relocation would work wonders for his art,
0:52:15 > 0:52:20introducing him to a subject that he would explore for the rest of his life.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24Archipenko was part of this new kind of involvement with
0:52:24 > 0:52:28the shoreline, and he particularly likes the bather theme.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32He makes what he calls sculpto-paintings,
0:52:32 > 0:52:34what we might call relief sculpture.
0:52:34 > 0:52:40He makes use of paper and he makes use of metal and other materials.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44He combines materials in an interesting way,
0:52:44 > 0:52:47so he'll juxtapose a kind of shiny aluminium
0:52:47 > 0:52:52with a kind of deep cerulean blue so you get a sense of sky and sea.
0:52:52 > 0:52:55And he does something kind of interesting and almost
0:52:55 > 0:53:02kind of pop...pop art version of the local bathers in Nice.
0:53:05 > 0:53:08Archipenko's Cubist bather is unashamedly modern,
0:53:08 > 0:53:12not only in style but also in its subject matter.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17When Matisse painted "Luxe, Calme et Volupte" only ten years earlier
0:53:17 > 0:53:20his bathers were figures from the mythological past,
0:53:20 > 0:53:22but now Archipenko's bather
0:53:22 > 0:53:26has come prepared for a swim in the sea. She has a towel.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31By this time, swimming in the Mediterranean would have been
0:53:31 > 0:53:33a fairly common pastime.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36Archipenko is updating a subject that has been a staple
0:53:36 > 0:53:39of Western art for centuries, and the column,
0:53:39 > 0:53:42drawn in pencil on the edge of the sculpto-painting,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45is there to remind us of her classical past
0:53:45 > 0:53:49and that Archipenko is the inheritor of this rich tradition.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55Following closely on Archipenko's heels that autumn of 1914
0:53:55 > 0:53:58was another Russian Cubist, Leopold Survage.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03The Survage family business was pianos, but Leopold
0:54:03 > 0:54:07rejected his father's offer of an apprenticeship in the factory
0:54:07 > 0:54:10and moved to Paris to learn to paint,
0:54:10 > 0:54:12tuning pianos to support himself.
0:54:12 > 0:54:15The landscapes he painted after his move to Nice
0:54:15 > 0:54:17are the very essence of the city,
0:54:17 > 0:54:21dissected into its constituent parts
0:54:21 > 0:54:24and laid out in a new Cubist arrangement.
0:54:24 > 0:54:26Survage comes to Nice
0:54:26 > 0:54:30and he creates a kind of curious, mysterious Cubism.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33He's got this little kind of wandering man,
0:54:33 > 0:54:36these little black silhouettes
0:54:36 > 0:54:40who make their way throughout his Cubist art.
0:54:40 > 0:54:45Is this some version of his own sense of foreignness in the south
0:54:45 > 0:54:48or perhaps displacement as a non-combatant in World War I?
0:54:48 > 0:54:50Perhaps it's all those things.
0:54:50 > 0:54:54Remember, the Riviera itself is a place of foreigners,
0:54:54 > 0:54:56is a place of outsiders,
0:54:56 > 0:55:00so I think this character he invents,
0:55:00 > 0:55:04that he takes on a little trip in his paintings through the south,
0:55:04 > 0:55:06expresses some of this excitement
0:55:06 > 0:55:10of this strange, peculiar and mysterious world.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12A Cubism unlike anyone else's.
0:55:14 > 0:55:19Survage's Nice is yet another vision of paradise, with pink washed walls
0:55:19 > 0:55:21and dark afternoon shadows.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25And floating through the celestial blue of the sky,
0:55:25 > 0:55:28the fruit and vegetables that grew in such abundance.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40Survage and his Russian compatriots
0:55:40 > 0:55:43were welcomed in France in the early years of the war.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Russia had the largest army in the world at the time,
0:55:46 > 0:55:51and in 1915 she was still a staunch ally of France.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56But the Russians suffered a series of early defeats, and Survage
0:55:56 > 0:56:00was certainly safer in Nice than on the battlefields of East Prussia.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06As a young man from Moscow he must indeed have
0:56:06 > 0:56:10believed he'd found paradise, but it wasn't to last.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14Even at this remove, la Grande Guerre would make its presence felt.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23The Riviera's reputation as an escapist paradise
0:56:23 > 0:56:25came into its own in the first years of the war.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28For now there really was something to escape from.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31Far from the trenches in the north,
0:56:31 > 0:56:34cities like Nice actually experienced something of a boom.
0:56:36 > 0:56:38Now it wasn't just the British
0:56:38 > 0:56:41and the Russians who filled the hotel rooms and boarding houses,
0:56:41 > 0:56:45the towns were flooded with people fleeing the fighting.
0:56:45 > 0:56:47Bizarre as it may seem,
0:56:47 > 0:56:51the First World War was to mark the beginning of the Riviera's heyday.
0:56:53 > 0:56:58It had the great advantage at this time that it was as far as it was possible to get from the trenches
0:56:58 > 0:57:02without leaving the country, which might have seemed unpatriotic.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08But the tentacles of war eventually began to stretch even to this distant shore.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13As the casualties began to mount,
0:57:13 > 0:57:16the wounded were sent to recover on the Riviera coast.
0:57:16 > 0:57:20The promenaders on the seafront in Nice were no longer "les Anglais"
0:57:20 > 0:57:24but the maimed, the halt and the blind.
0:57:24 > 0:57:26Once more the Riviera was nursing the sick,
0:57:26 > 0:57:29and not just those escaping the winter.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32A guidebook described the soldiers as
0:57:32 > 0:57:37"brooding like wounded birds, blinking at the alien glitter".
0:57:37 > 0:57:41It was no longer appropriate to continue to paint a vision of paradise.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50Merci bien. Thank you very much.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56In the next programme, in the aftermath of the Great War,
0:57:56 > 0:57:59the magnetic pull of this coast is greater than ever,
0:57:59 > 0:58:02as the world's foremost painters, like Henri Matisse
0:58:02 > 0:58:06and Pablo Picasso, make the south their home.
0:58:06 > 0:58:10Artists respond to a call to order, and became fascinated
0:58:10 > 0:58:14with the Riviera's classical heritage, whilst at the same time
0:58:14 > 0:58:19a lost generation embrace a hedonistic lifestyle with new-found enthusiasm.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22The headlong pace of development accelerates
0:58:22 > 0:58:26and a new breed of rich Americans completely transform
0:58:26 > 0:58:29the character of the Cote d'Azur, making it the world's first
0:58:29 > 0:58:34international tourist destination, ushering in a golden age
0:58:34 > 0:58:38when art and the art of living are celebrated in equal measure.
0:58:53 > 0:58:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd