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Ah, Versailles, mighty palace of the French kings.
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And a crucial Rococo hot spot.
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I wanted to come to Versailles to read you this -
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it's an important Rococo document
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and it sums up what this film is about.
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Now, if you're an American, you might be thinking -
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that's not a Rococo document, that's the Declaration of Independence.
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And of course, you're right.
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This is the document with which America
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declared its independence from Britain
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on the 4th July 1776.
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But this is a Rococo document, not just because of its date,
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but because of what's in it.
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What Thomas Jefferson wrote in here embodies what this film
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is about, particularly the famous second sentence,
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the one about all those unalienable rights that we all hold.
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According to the Declaration of Independence, all of us have an
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unalienable right to life, liberty
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and the pursuit of happiness.
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Now, life and liberty, of course. They're obvious.
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But the pursuit of happiness?
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When did that become an unalienable human right?
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When were we put on Earth to be happy?
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I'll tell you when - in the Rococo era, that's when.
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This isn't just the Declaration of Independence.
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This is a Rococo manifesto.
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Ooh-la-la!
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Ah!
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HINGE CREAKS Hey!
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Argh!
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Eek!
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RUNNING WATER AND LAUGHTER
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The Rococo pursued happiness in various ways and various places,
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as you'll see in this film.
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But of course, the first thing you need to get right
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when you pursue happiness is love.
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The pursuit of love fuelled the Rococo Age,
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like petrol fuelling a fire.
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LAUGHTER
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Love ought to be so uncomplicated, oughtn't it?
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A meets B, they like each other and live happily ever after.
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But of course, it hardly ever works out that way.
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The pleasures of love shouldn't be complicated, but they are.
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Love shouldn't be a battleground, but it is.
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And to its credit, the Rococo Age knew this.
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The Rococo recognised love for what it really was -
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a powerful intoxicant,
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that left you weak and helpless, like an illness.
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No-one knew this better than the most wistful of the Rococo's many
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observers of love - the genius of
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painted flirtation, Antoine Watteau.
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Watteau, or "Vatteau" as they called him in Paris,
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was from northern France, Valenciennes, on the Belgian border.
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So his origins were actually Flemish.
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We know that his father was a humble roof tiler
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and that Watteau arrived in Paris in about 1702.
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And that's about all we know.
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Watteau is usually credited with inventing a new
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genre of painting, called the fetes gallantes.
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There's no exact English translation of "fetes gallantes".
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It's a kind of garden fete devoted to love.
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A festival of outdoor flirtation.
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LAUGHTER
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In a fetes gallantes,
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dreamy couples stroll across a dreamy landscape of parks and trees.
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Music's playing, hearts are fluttering,
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secrets are being swapped.
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In the background, there's often a playful statue of some Greek
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or Roman god, ready to come to life.
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And booming in the distance, unheard by anyone in the picture,
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but ringing out clear as a bell
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to us, is a loud warning.
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Beware! Love is on the loose!
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This is Watteau's masterpiece. It's one of the key images of the Rococo.
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It used to be called The Embarkation For Cythera,
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but these days, there are arguments about what it actually shows.
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Cythera was the Mediterranean island on which Venus,
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the Goddess of Love, was supposed to have been born.
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The legend goes that Kronos, the Titan, castrated his father,
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Uranus, Ruler of the Universe, and threw his testicles into the sea.
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The sperm from Uranus' testis gave birth to Aphrodite, or Venus,
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as the Romans called her, who rose up out of the waters
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and floated to Cythera.
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That famous painting by Botticelli, The Birth Of Venus,
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shows exactly this moment.
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Venus, the Goddess of Love, floating to Cythera in a seashell.
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In the Watteau painting, Venus is over here,
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and typically, he's turned her into this rather ambiguous statue.
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Is she real or isn't she? Stone or flesh?
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We know it's Venus because of all these Cupids buzzing around her.
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Cupid was Venus's son, the God of Desire.
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If he fired one of his arrows at you, well, that was it,
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you had to fall in love.
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So that's why all these pilgrims are here.
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Most pilgrims go in search of God, but not this lot.
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Watteau's pilgrims are searching for love.
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The question is, are they coming or going?
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It used to be thought that these pilgrims of love were
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setting off for Cythera.
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That's why the painting was called The Embarkation.
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But that doesn't really make sense, does it?
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Why would they be setting off for the island of love,
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when they're already in love?
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I mean, look at these two here.
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So the latest thinking is that this is a departure, not an arrival.
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Venus has presided over an intoxicating visit to her
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island by a boatload of pilgrims.
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And now, the visit's over, the boat is waiting, it's time to go home.
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So despite all the Venuses and the cherubs,
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this is actually a rather gloomy picture.
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According to legend,
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Cythera was the only place on Earth where perfect love could be found.
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So what Watteau is actually showing us is the end of perfect happiness.
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That's why she's looking back so wistfully at where she's just been.
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She knows she'll never have all this again.
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For me, there's almost a religious dimension to Watteau's gloom.
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All these sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, fated never to find
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the perfect happiness they're looking for.
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And that's what's so interesting about Rococo art.
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It goes on and on about happiness and pleasure,
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but deep inside, it seems instinctively to know
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that in the twinkling of an eye, it could all be over.
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In the garden of love, the pursuit of happiness took place
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outdoors, against the beautiful backdrop of nature.
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What happened therefore to the Rococo when it went indoors?
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To achieve indoor happiness,
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the Rococo had to invent a new kind of architecture,
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a new way of living in comfortable new spaces, created
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specifically for the pursuit of pleasure, and places like this.
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Sanssouci in Potsdam, Prussia,
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the pleasure palace of Frederick II.
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Or, as he's most usually called, Frederick the Great.
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Now, I'm Polish,
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so I'm deeply prejudiced against Frederick the Great.
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He's the Prussian king who organised the partitioning of Poland,
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tore up my country and shared it out with the Russians.
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In war and politics, Frederick was ruthless.
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But in private, he was more complicated, more interesting.
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It was actually Frederick who designed this palace,
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the Palace of Sanssouci.
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This is the original design he sketched out for it
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and as you can see, it's all on one level - a palace with the
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ease of access of a bungalow.
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No stairs to climb up, direct access to the gardens,
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an architecture of ease and pleasure.
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Frederick named his palace Sanssouci,
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a French name which means without worry.
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At the foot of the great bungalow, there's a handy vineyard.
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All this pleasure at his doorstep.
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Frederick designed the decoration as well.
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Those figures up there, the big ones, those are Bacchantes,
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followers of Bacchus, the God of Wine.
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And look, he's put the name of the palace, Sanssouci,
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right in the middle, between two of them.
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But it's written rather strangely.
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It actually says "Sans, Souci."
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So, why the comma, why the full stop?
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It's very puzzling,
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but also very typical because Frederick loved playing word games.
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It was his Rococo way of having fun.
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Written up on the front of his palace was
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a message to the world that no-one could understand.
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Forget Bletchley Park, forget the Enigma machine.
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This is a German code that's really tough to crack.
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Hundreds of great brains have had a go at it,
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but I think the secret is not to aim too high.
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OK, "Sans" is French for "without",
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that bit's easy, but the French word for "comma", "virgule",
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that comes from the Latin "virgula",
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which means "little rod" or "little stick".
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And of course, a little stick, a little rod,
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can have a sexual connotation.
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So, "Sans virgule" has a naughty twist to it.
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I told you not to aim too high. Now...
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.."Souci", that means "worry". So that's straightforward again.
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But the French word for "full stop", "point", that is also used
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in literary French, posh French, as a way of suggesting a negative.
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So instead of saying "ne pas",
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something isn't something, you say "ne point", in posh literary French.
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Something is not something else.
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There's one other bit of information that's important.
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Frederick is thought to have been gay.
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He had no children, his marriage was sexless,
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and a rumour doing the rounds claimed that when he was young,
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he contracted a sexual disease from a male lover.
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And after that, his little rod never worked again.
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We do know that women weren't allowed into Sanssouci.
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No women was a strict house rule.
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So what that code up there, the way Sanssouci is written,
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what it actually seems to be saying is "Sans vergule,"
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without a little rod, "Souci point," worry stops.
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Only the Rococo could have come up with that.
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Inside Sanssouci, the Rococo revolution gently continues.
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To lead the new Rococo way of life, you needed new Rococo spaces.
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This is the music room, where all you did was play music
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and listen to it.
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Frederick was actually a very decent composer.
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He played the flute and wrote numerous concertos.
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You're actually listening to one now.
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MUSIC PLAYS
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The dining room, another Rococo speciality.
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Of course, there'd been big draughty banqueting halls before,
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but this idea of a room created specially for the pleasures
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of eating, with all the different courses served on gorgeous
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pieces of crockery, that was a Rococo idea.
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The bedroom.
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When it comes to the pursuit of pleasure, the bedroom was,
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of course, especially important.
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Before the Rococo Age, the bedroom was a room for sleeping in,
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but now...
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Well, now, it became a room full of pleasurable possibilities.
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What we're actually watching here is the invention of modern living.
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Frilly bedrooms, elegant dining rooms,
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single level living in a bungalow.
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The Rococo were so prescient, it even invented...
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..the home study.
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Study was now seen as one of life's great pleasures.
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People started having libraries at home.
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As Voltaire put it, probably in this very room because he stayed
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here once, "Study delivers us from the burden of our leisure."
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(Hmm... Casanova...)
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HE CHUCKLES QUIETLY
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Ah!
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Ooh!
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HE READS QUIETLY TO HIMSELF
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Do you know what the Greek word for beautiful is?
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It's omorfi.
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And the only reason I know that is because of Casanova, here.
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During one of his interminable searches for love,
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Casanova encountered a young Irish girl called Louise O'Murphy.
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O'Murphy was the daughter of an Irish soldier who had somehow
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ended up in France.
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Casanova saw her naked one day and was
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so struck by her teenage beauty, he had her picture painted.
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And on this picture, he says he added the inscription "Omorfi" -
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beautiful, in Greek.
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A pun on her name, O'Murphy.
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Like most of what Casanova wrote,
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the Omorfi story is obviously nonsense. He just made it up.
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But Louise O'Murphy isn't nonsense. She definitely existed.
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The proof is this infamous painting of her by Francois Boucher,
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court painter to Louis XV.
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The picture, nicknamed the Blond Odalisque, hangs at the Pinakothek
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in Munich, and shows Louise O'Murphy sticking out her bottom, brazenly.
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The real Louise O'Murphy was Louis XV's teenage mistress.
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She bore him children, gave him her best years, and then he dumped her.
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So, nothing remarkable there. A typical story of the French court.
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But Boucher's portrait is remarkable for its sheer licentiousness.
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Art has given us plenty of nudes before,
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but none of them was quite as shameless and direct as this.
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00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:09,240
Boucher is often viewed as the Rococo's most typical painter,
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00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:13,080
particularly by those who don't like the Rococo.
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As Louis XV's official artist,
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he was the go-to painter in the Rococo's naughtiest moments.
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Do I like his work? No.
256
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:29,040
Do we have to deal with it? Yes.
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00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:36,280
Because Boucher's frilly nudes and pink bottomed goddesses mark
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the arrival in art of a new type of sensuality.
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00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,880
Crude, pink, and artificial.
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In Boucher's art, nothing looks real. It's like Rococo Manga.
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00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,240
A cartoonish world,
262
00:21:57,240 --> 00:22:02,240
in which the pursuit of pleasure has had all its complications removed.
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00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:07,880
No doubt, no guilt,
264
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:10,600
no hesitation,
265
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:16,120
just desire, raw and colour-coded, a plastic pink.
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00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:26,080
Boucher painted another notorious female portrait in the same
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pose as Louise O'Murphy. It hangs in the Louvre now.
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00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:35,000
And this one is nicknamed the Brunette Odalisque.
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00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:42,080
This time, the woman in the picture is Boucher's own wife.
270
00:22:43,120 --> 00:22:47,800
Poor Madame Boucher has spread-eagled herself for him
271
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:51,080
and pulled up her nightdress.
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00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:55,680
So distressed was the French encyclopaedist Diderot by this
273
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:59,840
notorious image that he accused Boucher of prostituting
274
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:01,640
his own wife.
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00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,800
"In Boucher," fumed Diderot,
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00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:13,720
"degradation of taste, colour, composition, character,
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00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:18,320
"expression and drawing have all kept
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00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,920
"pace with moral depravity."
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00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:27,360
One of the main subplots of this series,
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apart from showing you all the different sides of the Rococo,
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is to prove to you that the Rococo age invented the modern world.
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00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:41,160
If I show you a Watteau, that doesn't really do it, does it?
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00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:49,040
Watteau's too subtle and elusive. Too whispery and gentle.
284
00:23:50,360 --> 00:23:56,000
But if I show you a Boucher, well, that's us, isn't it?
285
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:03,280
Pleasure without consequences, nudity without modesty,
286
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,840
desire without boundaries.
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00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,760
Get yourself down to your local newsagent, have a look
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00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:18,040
at the top shelf and I think you'll find those are our preferences too.
289
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:24,800
But just because Boucher painted so many subservient women
290
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:29,840
doesn't mean that all the women of the Rococo were subservient.
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00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:31,880
They weren't.
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00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,280
DOOR CLOSES
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00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:42,440
Right, we're going to have general knowledge quiz.
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00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:46,920
On this table, I have three things and I want you to tell me
295
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:49,600
what it is that connects them.
296
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:55,200
So the first thing is a champagne glass, in that Babycham shape,
297
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,480
what they call a coupe de champagne.
298
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,320
So that's object number one.
299
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:06,600
Next, Elvis in his pomp. Note the hairstyle.
300
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:09,960
That's the clue.
301
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,960
And finally, this bottle of nail polish.
302
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,920
Pink nail polish.
303
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:21,040
A particular kind of pink.
304
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:29,720
So, pink nail polish, Elvis, and a champagne glass.
305
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,000
What connects them?
306
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,080
Easy-peasy, right?
307
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,400
I bet all you Stephen Frys out there got it straightaway.
308
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:44,320
What connects all these objects is that momentous Rococo presence.
309
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:50,280
The infamous, the all-powerful,
310
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:52,480
Madame de Pompadour,
311
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:56,520
Louis XV's favourite mistress,
312
00:25:58,360 --> 00:26:03,160
the first and greatest of the Grandes Horizontales.
313
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:08,160
Just in case you didn't get it, Elvis's hairstyle here,
314
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:13,000
all piled up in a teddy boy quiff, that's called a Pompadour.
315
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,800
It's how Madame de Pompadour wore her hair,
316
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,600
brushed up from the front, an uplifting style.
317
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:36,800
And this colour, here, that's very specifically Pompadour Pink.
318
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:42,320
Pink was her favourite colour.
319
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:47,200
It was particularly popular in the Sevres porcelain factory,
320
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,520
on which she lavished so much of her attention and the nation's money.
321
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,600
Madame de Pompadour's pink
322
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:00,360
became one of the Rococo's definitive colours.
323
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:08,320
And this, according to legend, this type of champagne glass,
324
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,720
the flat type, the coupe de champagne,
325
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,000
this is supposed to have been inspired, say the French,
326
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:19,120
by the shape of Madame de Pompadour's breasts,
327
00:27:19,120 --> 00:27:21,880
which were cupped gently, like this.
328
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:29,040
Madame de Pompadour is supposed to have met the French king,
329
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,040
Louis XV, at a fancy dress ball
330
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:37,920
in February 1745 in the famous
331
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,440
Hall of Mirrors in Versailles.
332
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,360
Madame de Pompadour came as a sexy shepherdess,
333
00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:51,960
while the king, bizarrely, was dressed as a tree.
334
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,200
So he didn't even have to lure her into the bushes to
335
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:59,320
have his wicked way with her. He WAS the bushes.
336
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:07,000
By the end of the evening, she'd climbed into his branches.
337
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:12,120
That night, the courtiers saw her carriage parked outside
338
00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:14,520
the royal apartments,
339
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,880
where it stayed for the next 20 years.
340
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,080
What Madame de Pompadour seemed to realise straightaway,
341
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:29,280
as she set about becoming the most powerful woman in France,
342
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,280
and then the most powerful woman in the world, was that she could
343
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:37,960
use art to shape her image and maintain her power.
344
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,440
In reality,
345
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:49,840
she was just the daughter of a failed Parisienne financier,
346
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:54,840
but in art, she could become something else, something new.
347
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,160
In art, Madame de Pompadour could
348
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:02,680
become a captivating Rococo presence.
349
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:10,320
Her favourite portraitist, Boucher again,
350
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,720
was particularly skilled at portraying her.
351
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:20,080
He shows her playing a piano, or reading a book.
352
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,480
Beauty, yes, but also brains.
353
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,440
Notice how in most of Boucher's pictures of her,
354
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,520
she shows you this side, her best side,
355
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:39,040
but in this one, unusually, she's looking straight at us.
356
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:43,160
What's really interesting about the way Boucher portrayed her is
357
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:47,840
how unregal she looks, how informal.
358
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:53,320
By this time, 1750, her power was absolute.
359
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:58,240
Pompadour sent more people to the Bastille than any French king.
360
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:05,720
She started wars, she changed world history,
361
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,040
but in Boucher's art,
362
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,600
she's such a light and delicate
363
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:13,720
and kittenish presence.
364
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,960
One of the chief functions of these pictures
365
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,240
was to keep the King interested.
366
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,760
He was paying for them all, after all,
367
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,680
so that coquettish tone they have,
368
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,640
that shy thing looking out through the big eyes,
369
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:36,280
that's not aimed at you or me, that's aimed at Louis XV.
370
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:42,120
The most powerful woman in Europe is saying,
371
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,160
"I'm only a delicate little flower,
372
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,400
"so come and protect me,
373
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,680
"you big hunk of a king."
374
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:03,800
Elsewhere in the Rococo, the female cast of this exciting age
375
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,920
was achieving a different kind of power.
376
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:10,560
Religious power.
377
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,440
This is the Church of the Carmini in Venice,
378
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,800
and inside are a couple of beautiful altarpieces,
379
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:22,760
one by Cima da Conegliano
380
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,840
and the other by Lorenzo Lotto.
381
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,400
But we're not going to see them
382
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:29,520
because they were painted in the Renaissance,
383
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,520
and this is a film about the Rococo.
384
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:42,120
So instead, we're going next door to the Scuola Grande dei Carmini.
385
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:52,400
These "scuolas" were charitable organisations set up
386
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,760
to help the poor, so if you were homeless in Rococo times,
387
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,040
you came in here and they'd put you up.
388
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:01,600
Not bad for a hostel, is it?
389
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,160
This particular scuola grande was set up
390
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:14,000
by an organisation of charitable women called the Lay Carmelites.
391
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,680
They weren't actually nuns - they were friends of nuns,
392
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,520
associated with the Carmelite order.
393
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:24,800
And their main task here was to make these -
394
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,160
scapulars.
395
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,080
The scapular is a Catholic talisman,
396
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:36,080
something you wear around your neck to ward off evil
397
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,480
and keep you on the straight and narrow.
398
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:43,040
It's just two bits of cloth connected at the sides,
399
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:47,440
and you wear it around your neck like that, under your shirt.
400
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,360
I used to have one as a kid,
401
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,840
but I'm afraid I strayed from the straight and narrow,
402
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,160
and this is a recent purchase.
403
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,080
If you wear a scapular, the story goes,
404
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,440
and lead a pious life,
405
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,320
you're sure to go to heaven.
406
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,280
The Virgin Mary herself has guaranteed it.
407
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,560
This entire building, the whole scuola,
408
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:24,200
was funded on the proceeds of selling these things.
409
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:28,880
They were very popular, as you can imagine - free ticket to heaven.
410
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,240
Anyway, the reason I've brought you in here
411
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,680
is because the Rococo masterpiece we're here to see
412
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,480
is all about scapulas.
413
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:46,520
It's by Tiepolo, the greatest ceiling painter of the Rococo.
414
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,960
We saw him in film one of this series, the one about travel,
415
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:53,760
working for the rich and famous in Bavaria.
416
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,840
Here, in his hometown of Venice,
417
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,400
in the Scuola Grande dei Carmini,
418
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:03,840
he's working for God...
419
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,280
..and the scapular.
420
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,040
What the ceiling actually shows us
421
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:15,960
is the moment the Virgin Mary handed the first scapular
422
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,200
to a saint called St Simon Stock.
423
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,640
He's the old boy with the beard on the left,
424
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:29,520
who's being handed the scapular by a handsome angel.
425
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,320
Tiepolo's most haughty Madonna,
426
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,840
a grand dame of the skies,
427
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,640
looks down her nose at us in that Venetian way...
428
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:46,920
..whilst Stock, the grateful Carmelite saint,
429
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,560
reaches out pathetically for her gift,
430
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:55,560
like a down-and-out in a doorway asking for "a couple of bob, guv".
431
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:03,520
Do you know where we're actually meant to be, where all this is set?
432
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,920
It's actually Cambridge in England
433
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:11,200
because that is where the Virgin Mary appeared
434
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:17,800
to the English saint, St Simon Stock, on July 16th, 1251.
435
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,560
He'd been asking for a favour from her.
436
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:27,920
And she gave him the scapular with the words,
437
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:31,760
"Whosoever dies wearing this scapular
438
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,480
"shall not suffer eternal fire."
439
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:40,440
If you wear one of these, you're sure to be saved.
440
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,520
So the Carmelites did really well out of the scapular.
441
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:48,800
Lots of people wanted one
442
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:53,680
and, in 1749, to mark this great success,
443
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:58,240
Tiepolo was commissioned to paint this ceiling.
444
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:04,440
So why are WE here,
445
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,920
with our scapulars and our unlikely saints' tales?
446
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,400
Because this is an excellent place to witness
447
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:18,320
the pleasure principle at work in the religious art of the Rococo.
448
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:24,840
Tiepolo has set his action in the cool and calm light of dawn.
449
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:31,000
The sky is blue, the sun tints the clouds a gentle pink.
450
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,640
The lighting of Tiepolo's skies is delightful.
451
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,600
This is the ceiling of the nearby Church of the Gesuati.
452
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,360
It was cleaned just recently.
453
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,920
And look how cool and refreshing the skies are.
454
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:54,800
Tiepolo took religious art out of the thunder,
455
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,920
the storms and explosions of the Baroque,
456
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:03,240
and relocated it in the cool, calm, delicious light
457
00:37:03,240 --> 00:37:04,800
of a Venetian dawn.
458
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,000
It's one of his greatest achievements.
459
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,840
They've lit a lot of fires in here in the past 300 years,
460
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:20,120
so it's all yellower than it should be, but you can still feel
461
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:24,040
this new airiness of Tiepolo's religious vision.
462
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:32,360
In the Baroque age, religious art tried to awe you into submission.
463
00:37:33,720 --> 00:37:37,120
In the Rococo, it enchants you,
464
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,960
entices you, seduces you.
465
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,600
Tiepolo's art is a religious honey trap,
466
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:51,440
with perfect weather conditions, beautiful religious babes,
467
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:57,000
and, if you wear one of these, a short cut to Heaven.
468
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,640
Who could resist all of that?
469
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:04,280
Where's the ladder? I want to go up there!
470
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:16,920
MUSIC AND LAUGHTER
471
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:23,960
Venice, France, Germany...
472
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,840
You expect the Rococo to have fetched up in those places,
473
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:31,880
don't you?
474
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:34,320
As we saw in film one,
475
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:38,640
it was an artistic impulse hellbent on travel.
476
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:42,720
So sooner or later,
477
00:38:42,720 --> 00:38:45,400
it had to arrive in Britain as well.
478
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,560
The British aren't naturally Rococo types, of course,
479
00:38:53,560 --> 00:38:56,600
but this wasn't some will-o'-the-wisp art movement
480
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:59,800
that flutters briefly and it's gone.
481
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,720
The Rococo LOOKS fragile and delicate,
482
00:39:03,720 --> 00:39:06,880
but it turned out to be... unstoppable.
483
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:14,200
It was a sandstorm of pleasure that blew in everywhere.
484
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,840
Even the dour and cold-blooded Britons
485
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,160
couldn't keep it out for ever.
486
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:28,120
It got here eventually and look what it gave us -
487
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,960
Gainsborough, the most dashing, quick-fingered,
488
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,720
loose-wristed painter Britain has ever produced.
489
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,920
Gainsborough could paint anything.
490
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:42,320
He was that good.
491
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:48,720
He did landscapes that are so breathy and healthy and British.
492
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,360
He painted men of power,
493
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:56,160
and gave them an air of interesting complexity.
494
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,400
And he painted himself, too,
495
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:05,480
as a modest chap with strong eyes.
496
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:15,400
So he did all that. But there are two things he did particularly well.
497
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:21,600
The first is, paint women, which he did with breathtaking bravura.
498
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,040
I think this one's my favourite -
499
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,680
Countess Howe of Kenwood House.
500
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:34,720
It's her pink dress that intoxicates me.
501
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,240
And the fact that she looks so much like Helen Mirren.
502
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,080
But, wait, THIS could be my favourite, too.
503
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,800
Mrs Robinson at the Wallace Collection.
504
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:56,200
Look how much character he finds in that exceptional Rococo face.
505
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:00,560
Oh, here's to you, Mrs Robinson!
506
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:08,320
This is Sophia Charlotte Digby, Lady Sheffield.
507
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:12,120
She's just got married, hence the big Rococo getup.
508
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:15,280
Look how she casually dangles her arm,
509
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,680
making sure we can all see her wedding ring.
510
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:25,880
Sophia Charlotte Digby knows we're looking at her.
511
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,320
But she pretends she doesn't.
512
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:34,400
It's brilliant pictorial psychology from a painter who obviously
513
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,880
knew a thing or two about women
514
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:43,640
and their Rococo desire to express themselves through their clothes.
515
00:41:45,720 --> 00:41:48,960
And look at her feet. She's moving.
516
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:54,440
You can almost hear all those extravagant silks rustling
517
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:56,960
as she glides towards us,
518
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:59,240
a bouquet on the move.
519
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:05,200
This movement, the strolling, the gliding, was new.
520
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:09,920
For 3,000 years portraits had basically stayed still.
521
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,440
The artist plonked the sitter in front of you and you examined them.
522
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:15,800
That was the deal.
523
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:18,360
Gainsborough, though, was different.
524
00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:24,360
Gainsborough put his sitters strolling towards us,
525
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:27,880
heading for OUR space,
526
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,600
ambling through the parks,
527
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:36,480
and even dancing to the pleasurable new beat of the Rococo.
528
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:42,280
It's a bit like television presenters.
529
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,440
In the old days you plonked them in front of the subject
530
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,040
and they stayed there.
531
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:52,440
But these days your modern presenter is often on the move,
532
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:56,200
and sometimes has to throw in some serious walking.
533
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:06,520
The second thing Gainsborough was particularly good at was children.
534
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,560
My, but Gainsborough was good at children!
535
00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:20,240
The Rococo invented childhood as we know it.
536
00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:25,520
Before the Rococo came along, children were seen as mini-adults,
537
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,360
humankind in its imperfect early form.
538
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,440
In a world where half of all newborns died before they were five,
539
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:41,600
childhood was seen as something you survived.
540
00:43:42,720 --> 00:43:45,640
The quicker you grew out of it, the better.
541
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:51,800
It wasn't till the Rococo years
542
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,520
that childhood began to be recognised
543
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:00,000
as something precious which needed to be protected and enjoyed...
544
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:07,040
..a brief and beautiful moment of innocence
545
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:08,480
and freedom.
546
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,120
As Rousseau, the influential French philosopher
547
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,320
and champion of childhood, put it
548
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:23,320
to all those parents afraid their kids were now doing nothing,
549
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,280
"Is it nothing to be happy?
550
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,720
"Nothing to run and jump all day?
551
00:44:29,720 --> 00:44:35,000
"Give nature time to work before taking over her business."
552
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,240
I think this is my favourite painting of children
553
00:44:48,240 --> 00:44:50,240
in the whole of art.
554
00:44:50,240 --> 00:44:53,840
There are a couple of Picasso's that are in this sort of league,
555
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:55,520
but nothing else.
556
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,560
These are actually Gainsborough's own daughters,
557
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,760
Margaret on the left, Mary on the right.
558
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,480
She was five, and she was six.
559
00:45:11,240 --> 00:45:15,720
The two girls skip through a wood, chasing a butterfly.
560
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:19,480
Margaret reaches out to grab it...
561
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:26,160
..while Mary, the older one, holds back.
562
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:29,200
I love that yellow dress she's wearing.
563
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:32,520
It's a triumph of flashing Rococo brushstrokes.
564
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,240
But just because it's dashingly done
565
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:40,920
doesn't mean it's carefree.
566
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:45,920
Yes, the Rococo chased after pleasure,
567
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:50,400
but it wasn't always blind to the consequences.
568
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:55,200
Look where the butterfly has landed.
569
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,400
A thorn bush. Uh-oh.
570
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,920
When Margaret grabs it, she'll prick her hand,
571
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,480
so what we've got here is a doting dad
572
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,560
who happens to be an artist of genius,
573
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,800
warning his daughters of the dark reality that lies ahead.
574
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:17,320
When childhood finishes...
575
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,360
this begins.
576
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,080
MUSIC PLAYS
577
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:25,560
Tragically, the symbolism of the butterfly
578
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,400
and the thorn bush turned out to be horribly pertinent.
579
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:34,800
It's almost as if Gainsborough had some kind of premonition.
580
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,760
His beloved daughters pop up often in his art,
581
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,720
and you can watch their lives unravelling
582
00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:47,040
in these exceptionally tender pictures.
583
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:54,160
This one here, Mary, made a disastrous marriage
584
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:58,720
to a German oboe player called Johann Christian Fischer.
585
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:02,040
That's his music you can hear playing.
586
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,200
Decent composer, dreadful husband.
587
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:12,320
The marriage lasted a year,
588
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:16,560
by which time poor Mary had begun to lose her mind.
589
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:24,560
Margaret, meanwhile, remained a lifelong spinster,
590
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:29,080
and when her sister's life fell apart, she moved in with her,
591
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:33,280
and the two of them lived out their old age together.
592
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:42,200
How spooky that Gainsborough managed somehow to intuit all this.
593
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,160
GEESE CACKLE
594
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:56,280
Back at Versailles,
595
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,920
the adults of the Rococo were also having trouble growing up.
596
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:07,680
Welcome to the world's largest doll's house.
597
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:16,280
This is the fake village built at Versailles for Marie Antoinette,
598
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,640
the notorious Queen of Louis XVI.
599
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,280
It was built between 1783 and 1787.
600
00:48:26,240 --> 00:48:30,360
And every single inch of it is a fantasy.
601
00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:37,520
The Hameau de la Reine, the Queen's Hamlet, as it's called,
602
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,360
was meant to look like a village in Normandy...
603
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,640
..with these dinky, half-timbered cottages
604
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:50,000
and the useful front garden filled with picture-book cabbages.
605
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,040
Most of the fake village actually worked.
606
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:01,000
This dairy here was a functioning dairy,
607
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:05,160
and once the servants had washed down the cows for her,
608
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,800
Marie Antoinette would do the milking herself
609
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:12,880
using porcelain buckets made specially for her
610
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:14,640
by the Sevres factory.
611
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,160
In real life, of course,
612
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:26,800
Marie Antoinette didn't have a rural bone in her body.
613
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,280
She was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor,
614
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:37,480
an Austrian archduchess bred and brought up to rule the plebs.
615
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:43,960
But that was in real life.
616
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,000
In the Queen's hamlet,
617
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,600
this extraordinary full-size rural theatre set,
618
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:56,800
the Austrian archduchess could play at being a modest milkmaid
619
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:58,080
tending her flock.
620
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:04,600
The Queen would wander about her village
621
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:09,120
dressed as a simple country girl in a plain muslin dress
622
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:11,240
and a straw hat.
623
00:50:11,240 --> 00:50:15,680
And she actually lived in this extra-large cottage here,
624
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:19,320
the bijou two-storey cottage.
625
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:29,840
In her virtual hameau, Marie Antoinette could be someone else.
626
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:35,120
No longer the much-hated Queen of France,
627
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:39,200
wasting the nation's money on fancy fripperies,
628
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:45,400
but a simple country lass leading a simple country life.
629
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:51,760
The usual way to understand all this crazy rural escapism
630
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,680
is to see it as a display of decadence,
631
00:50:55,680 --> 00:51:00,920
a grotesque Rococo descent into falsehood and hedonism -
632
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:06,040
Marie Antoinette and her Versailles milkmaids drifting further
633
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,560
and further away from reality.
634
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:18,160
But it was also part of something bigger, something more prescient,
635
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:22,680
a prediction, if you like, of how the world would go.
636
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:29,000
These days, lots of people pour out of the city
637
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:30,880
and into the countryside,
638
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:34,960
fantasising about the rural way of life.
639
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,720
The Hameau de la Reine in Versailles
640
00:51:37,720 --> 00:51:41,040
is a giant version of the country cottage,
641
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:46,560
somewhere to flee at weekends from the pressures of city living.
642
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,920
But instead of moving to the Cotswolds,
643
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:57,400
Marie Antoinette could afford to make the Cotswolds come to her.
644
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:05,760
This great rural grand design of hers wasn't just an escape,
645
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,120
it was also a vision of the future.
646
00:52:13,720 --> 00:52:15,960
MAN SHOUTS AND LAUGHS
647
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:22,760
Did you know that the word "school"
648
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:26,320
comes from the Ancient Greek "skhole",
649
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:29,920
which means "leisure time" or "play"?
650
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:35,800
It's like Plato says here in his famous Laws.
651
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:40,280
Games and play are a crucial part of our education.
652
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:43,400
It's where we really learn about life.
653
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,120
But that was in Ancient Greece.
654
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:50,200
I'm not so sure the same thing applies to Rococo France.
655
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,600
The relentless make-believe which characterises
656
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,680
the Rococo's pursuit of happiness,
657
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:02,640
and pops up so often in its art,
658
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:06,040
doesn't seem particularly educational to me...
659
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:12,080
..more like a way of being naughty without making it obvious.
660
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,480
I don't know if you've ever played "hot cockles".
661
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:20,560
It's a Christmas game. It was very popular in the Rococo.
662
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:28,240
The rules of "hot cockles" are basic to the point of being inane.
663
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:34,280
One person lays his head on the lap of another person
664
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:38,680
whilst someone else spanks them from behind on the bottom.
665
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:45,400
The point of the game is to guess who spanked you.
666
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:49,600
And if you get it right, you get to spank them next.
667
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:55,760
So it's a silly game,
668
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:58,840
but the reason the Rococo liked it
669
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:02,400
and why that quintessential Rococo painter,
670
00:54:02,400 --> 00:54:06,240
Jean-Honore Fragonard, painted it
671
00:54:06,240 --> 00:54:11,800
was because "hot cockles" had a powerful erotic undertone.
672
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:18,680
Men get to lay their head in the laps of women,
673
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:22,680
and women get to lay their heads in the laps of men,
674
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:25,240
and then they spank each other.
675
00:54:25,240 --> 00:54:28,480
I wonder why that caught on in Rococo France(!)
676
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:35,320
Fragonard was a pupil of Boucher's,
677
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:41,840
who specialised in sly paintings of Rococo people having fun.
678
00:54:43,400 --> 00:54:44,840
But he wasn't all bad.
679
00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:51,760
Look at the way he uses that exciting new Rococo colour, yellow.
680
00:54:53,240 --> 00:54:57,880
Ooh, Fragonard was the most exciting user of yellow
681
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,280
art had so far seen.
682
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:04,320
LAUGHTER
683
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:06,160
Not so good, however,
684
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:09,800
is the clunky eroticism that distinguishes his art.
685
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:15,160
His most famous picture, The Swing, is spectacularly naughty.
686
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:17,600
It's just not immediately obvious.
687
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:24,320
Who doesn't love a swing?
688
00:55:24,320 --> 00:55:28,520
Swings provide such childish and innocent pleasure.
689
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,080
But not in the Rococo.
690
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:37,320
In Rococo times, anyone looking at Fragonard's Swing
691
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:41,240
would have known immediately what was really going on here.
692
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,720
The movement of the swing, up and down,
693
00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:51,840
was a notorious sexual allusion.
694
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:56,800
As for the lover on the ground, well, what can he be looking at?
695
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:04,360
It would be her underwear, except, of course,
696
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:08,120
that in Rococo times there was no underwear.
697
00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:14,800
Another telling joke in The Swing is that the chap on the ground,
698
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:19,800
the one looking up the girl's skirt, is in the exact pose
699
00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:23,400
of Michelangelo's Adam on the Sistine ceiling.
700
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:28,160
And we all know what happened to Adam
701
00:56:28,160 --> 00:56:30,520
when he took a bite of Eve's apple.
702
00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:37,400
So all these games the Rococo played,
703
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,000
which Fragonard painted so slyly,
704
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,440
weren't really games at all.
705
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:45,840
They were pretences, deceits,
706
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:49,280
secret ways of being naughty.
707
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:56,920
A world obsessed with having fun was losing its moral bearings.
708
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:02,160
And no-one was certain any more where real life ended
709
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:03,680
and fantasy began.
710
00:57:09,240 --> 00:57:11,680
WIND HOWLS / BAYING
711
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:17,600
What's real and what isn't?
712
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:22,360
Where do the games stop and real life begin?
713
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:27,480
The Rococo era never could tell the difference.
714
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:36,360
This is a very Rococo location,
715
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:42,000
perhaps the most Rococo location in London - Madame Tussauds.
716
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:47,880
And that's Madame Tussaud herself, wax artist extraordinaire.
717
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:50,680
That's her self-portrait.
718
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:57,240
As a young girl, Madame Tussaud was taught wax modelling
719
00:57:57,240 --> 00:57:59,960
by a doctor her mother worked for.
720
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:05,720
He took her under his arm and shared his forensic skills with her.
721
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:11,120
She got so good at it that, in 1780,
722
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:15,720
she was appointed art tutor to Louis XVI's sister,
723
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:17,560
Madame Elisabeth.
724
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:21,480
And for the next ten years, she lived in Versailles
725
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:23,640
and watched its downfall.
726
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:30,080
When the French Revolution broke out in 1789,
727
00:58:30,080 --> 00:58:32,800
Tussaud was also arrested.
728
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:35,920
But she talked her way out of it
729
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:38,360
and began making death masks
730
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:41,080
of those who'd been sent to the guillotine.
731
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,080
The wax models she made of the decapitated heads
732
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:49,000
were put on these poles
733
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:53,160
and then paraded through the streets like flags.
734
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:56,200
She made Louis XVI's death mask,
735
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:59,120
and this one here is Marie Antoinette.
736
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:06,440
This, then, was where the pursuit of happiness would eventually lead.
737
00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:12,760
And how very Rococo of the Rococo that even in death
738
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:18,120
it couldn't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.
739
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:23,680
So far in this series, I've been enjoying
740
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:27,640
the pleasures of the Rococo - the good news.
741
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:32,280
But you can't drift as far away from reality as the Rococo did
742
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:34,600
without losing your bearings.
743
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:36,680
And in the next film,
744
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,400
we'll be looking at what happens in Rococo art
745
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:43,120
when reality creeps out...
746
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:46,160
and darkness creeps in.
747
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:49,360
LAUGHTER
62142
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