0:00:35 > 0:00:37This is Monet's garden.
0:00:37 > 0:00:41He's one of the world's most famous and best-loved artists,
0:00:41 > 0:00:44and lived here for 43 years.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46Claude Monet loved gardening,
0:00:46 > 0:00:48As soon as he moved here in 1883,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51he set to work transforming the grounds.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58Monet was not only creating a beautiful garden -
0:00:58 > 0:01:03he was composing the subject matter for many of his paintings.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07It's amazing - with all these flowers and vibrant colours,
0:01:07 > 0:01:11it's just like stepping into one of Monet's paintings.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24You may recognise this pond and bridge from one of Monet's
0:01:24 > 0:01:28famous paintings - Waterlily Pond, one of my favourites.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32I'll try to capture it in a Monet-style painting of my own.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36I'm doing a rough sketch to work out my basic composition.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44The Impressionists got their name from one of Monet's early works,
0:01:44 > 0:01:45called...
0:01:47 > 0:01:52He captured the impression of early morning light using vague shapes
0:01:52 > 0:01:56and concentrated on light and colour, rather than precise outline.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01You can get the same effect by half-closing your eyes.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04I won't squint through my painting - not very practical!
0:02:04 > 0:02:08I've got something to look through - an old plastic folder.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12If I hold it in front of me, it softens the hard edges,
0:02:12 > 0:02:15so I can concentrate on the light and colour.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20Another Impressionist technique is to use thick brush strokes.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Up close, they don't look much, but from a distance, look superb.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Given how big some of Monet's canvases were,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30you'd HAVE to view them from a distance.
0:02:34 > 0:02:38To create my Impressionist painting, I'm not using brushes.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40I'm using my fingertips.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44I'm going to start with a nice light green for the willow.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53I'm using acrylic paint. Monet would have used oils,
0:02:53 > 0:02:57but acrylics give the same effect and dry a lot quicker.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Monet believed things should be painted where they were -
0:03:05 > 0:03:09to paint the garden, he'd stand in the garden, whether it be 3 degrees
0:03:09 > 0:03:12or 33 degrees, like today.
0:03:13 > 0:03:14Phew!
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Painting here in Monet's garden,
0:03:18 > 0:03:21I feel a little like the Great Master himself.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30I like that.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47This is a film about a man who became an artist because he missed a train.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49This happened many years ago.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52He left the station in a Manchester suburb
0:03:52 > 0:03:55and started to walk up the road wondering what to do.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59He came to some streets of terraced houses,
0:03:59 > 0:04:02which lay at the foot of an immense mill.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06As he took in the scene, he was filled with the urge to paint it.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10And at that moment, he decided to become an artist.
0:04:10 > 0:04:15His name is Laurence Stephen Lowry. What was there in these sooty streets
0:04:15 > 0:04:17to make Lowry wish to spend his life amongst them,
0:04:17 > 0:04:21painting a world in which other people could see no beauty?
0:04:21 > 0:04:24I really don't know why I paint these streets.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28I just paint them, that's all, as far as I can see.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32There's something about them that attracts me in a pictorial sense.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37But I do feel that the pictures that I like the best
0:04:37 > 0:04:42are pictures done entirely from... call it imagination if you like.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49I start on an empty canvas
0:04:49 > 0:04:53and prefer to paint from the mind's eye.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56And, er...
0:04:56 > 0:05:01Often I haven't the slightest idea what I'm going to put on the canvas.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05In that case, I suggest something,
0:05:05 > 0:05:09call it a chimney or church or anything else...
0:05:10 > 0:05:15..going along slowly and adding things
0:05:15 > 0:05:20and, in a strange sort of a way, it seems to come.
0:05:20 > 0:05:26I work like that until the canvas is completely filled.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29My figures may be long and thin and their boots may be enormous,
0:05:29 > 0:05:33but I don't mind it at all. I see them like that,
0:05:33 > 0:05:36so I paint them like that. If they call them matchstick figures,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39well...let them do it. I don't mind at all.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42Of course, they're intricate pictures
0:05:42 > 0:05:45and they're full of figures and detail.
0:05:45 > 0:05:50It all takes balancing, which is not easy to do.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54You work on this, as I say, not working too often,
0:05:54 > 0:05:59or too rapidly, until I find that the time comes
0:05:59 > 0:06:03and you can do no more with the picture.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07When you're satisfied with that, you leave it as complete.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25This is his actual studio,
0:06:25 > 0:06:29just as he left it almost 100 years ago.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35'This was where Cezanne really started to experiment
0:06:35 > 0:06:39'using what's normally a very mundane subject - the still life.
0:06:41 > 0:06:46'And all around his studio are the actual objects he painted.'
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Still-lifes had traditionally been a way for an artist
0:06:56 > 0:07:02to show how superbly realistically and perfectly they could paint.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06But Cezanne wasn't interested in that at all.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09He wasn't interested in a photographic likeness.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13He was interested in a whole new way of seeing things
0:07:13 > 0:07:16and then putting them onto his canvas.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20I've arranged some of his objects
0:07:20 > 0:07:23in what's a fairly pleasing shape for me, I think.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26He never followed perspective
0:07:26 > 0:07:30the way traditional artists saw perspective.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34If he wanted to see into the top of a bowl,
0:07:34 > 0:07:37he would go and prop it up with something,
0:07:37 > 0:07:39so, instead of seeing sort of a flat bit,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43he would tilt it up so he could see that sort of a view of it.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46So I think I'll tilt that basket,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50move that back here and sit the basket up there.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54'Cezanne would spend days fine-tuning his compositions,
0:07:54 > 0:07:57'sometimes using coins to tilt things by just the right amount.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59'He often took so long,
0:07:59 > 0:08:04'he had to use artificial fruit to stop the real fruit from rotting.
0:08:04 > 0:08:06'Cezanne loved painting still-lifes.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10'He had complete control over the arrangement
0:08:10 > 0:08:12'and it would stay put there for months,
0:08:12 > 0:08:15'unlike his fidgety portrait sitters.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19'With a still life, he could do something really special,
0:08:19 > 0:08:22'just with some plain old fruit. He even boasted
0:08:22 > 0:08:26'that he would astonish Paris with an apple.'
0:08:27 > 0:08:30He created the shape, the roundness,
0:08:30 > 0:08:35by different colours, rather than by different tones.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40He would have apples in the foreground, which we would assume
0:08:40 > 0:08:43would be bigger than way off in the background,
0:08:43 > 0:08:46but he ignored all that sort of perspective.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49For example, this line of the table
0:08:49 > 0:08:52is completely out of whack. On purpose, of course.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00'Finally, I think I can see what Cezanne was doing
0:09:00 > 0:09:03'and I'm really pleased with my painting.'
0:09:06 > 0:09:08I think I've done all I can now.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14'In Cezanne's still-life paintings, the rules of the picture
0:09:14 > 0:09:18'were important than the rules of real life. There was nothing
0:09:18 > 0:09:22'to stop him painting a fruit bowl all wonky if he wanted to.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26'This was what people couldn't get their heads around,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30'but he didn't care. He knew he was onto something.'
0:09:39 > 0:09:421066 is the best-known date in English history.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45Harold, the last Anglo Saxon King of the English,
0:09:45 > 0:09:48lost his eye to an arrow and his crown to William, Duke of Normandy,
0:09:48 > 0:09:52at the Battle of Hastings. A great deal of what we know,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56or think we know about the event, is captured in the Bayeux Tapestry.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59The first thing to say about the Bayeux Tapestry
0:09:59 > 0:10:03is that it's not a tapestry at all. Technically, it's an embroidery.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05A tapestry is woven on the loom.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10An embroidery is stitched onto the fabric - in this case, linen.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13The images in the Bayeux Tapestry are terribly familiar -
0:10:13 > 0:10:17men going like that, going overseas and meeting kings.
0:10:17 > 0:10:23When you see it for real, it's quite a surprise just what it looks like,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27in terms of its proportions. That's only half of it, way down there.
0:10:27 > 0:10:31It's displayed on a U-bend on the outside of it, here in its gallery.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34It's now accepted that the tapestry was made in England,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37which was top nation at tapestry making at the time.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41It was sewn by English craftsmen, but probably designed by a Norman,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44and commissioned and paid for by William's half-brother,
0:10:44 > 0:10:46Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49In the main central band,
0:10:49 > 0:10:51there are depicted over 600 men,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54200 horses, 50 dogs...
0:10:54 > 0:10:55and three women.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03Anglo-Saxons are recognised by their moustaches,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07Normans by their hair, cropped aggressively short at the back.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11The more you look at the tapestry, the more sophisticated it appears.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13To take a simple example,
0:11:13 > 0:11:17Harold is here shown eating a meal before sailing to France.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21He and his companions are on the first floor of a large house.
0:11:21 > 0:11:23But for economy of space in the tapestry,
0:11:23 > 0:11:26the upper floor is also the meal table.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Holding up the roof on the right,
0:11:28 > 0:11:31there is a man who points the way down the stairs to Harold,
0:11:31 > 0:11:34who is now seen boarding his ship to Normandy.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48Where necessary, scenes are separated by highly stylised trees.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59In the borders, drawings of fables and fantastic beasts
0:11:59 > 0:12:01comment on the action.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24One or two scenes appear to be out of order,
0:12:24 > 0:12:26and have sometimes been dismissed as mistakes.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29But the ordering is no more an accident
0:12:29 > 0:12:32than is the use of flashback in a novel or a feature film.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35Westminster Abbey, Edward the Confessor's burial place,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38is shown before his funeral procession
0:12:38 > 0:12:40and two-layered deathbed scene.
0:12:40 > 0:12:44This is not because the designer forgot that you do not bury a king
0:12:44 > 0:12:46before he dies. Rather, it's done in this way
0:12:46 > 0:12:50so that the man offering the crown to Harold in the next scene
0:12:50 > 0:12:53can point to Edward, bequeathing him the kingdom just before his death.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57What everyone knows - or thinks they know - about the Battle of Hastings
0:12:57 > 0:13:00is that Harold was killed with an arrow in his eye.
0:13:00 > 0:13:03Is the tapestry the original source of that story?
0:13:03 > 0:13:08It's the earliest known source of the story, but it's a very plausible one.
0:13:08 > 0:13:13And although, sometimes, people have thought that the arrow in the eye
0:13:13 > 0:13:16was part of a restoration and wasn't in the original,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19the stitch-holes at the back of the tapestry show clearly
0:13:19 > 0:13:23that it WAS in the original. And as I said, it really is quite plausible,
0:13:23 > 0:13:26because so many arrows were flying around.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29Of course, further along, there's another man falling down,
0:13:29 > 0:13:32obviously dead. THAT could be Harold.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35The most plausible explanation is that they're both Harold,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38because these are two scenes shown as in a cartoon, where you have to
0:13:38 > 0:13:42draw your figure several times, in order to show the change.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:13:50 > 0:13:53E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk