All language subtitles for Portrait or Bust 1994

What they always say is, "Be yourself."

A baffling injunction.

What they actually mean is,
"Imitate yourself."

I'm talking a bit
like a ventriloquist's dummy

because I'm frightened
if I move my lips,

he might get the mouth wrong.

Like those terrible photographs when
they catch you with your eyes closed.

Tom Wood,
who's painting this portrait,

has been commissioned
by the National Portrait Gallery,

which is, I suppose, a kind of
pictorial cemetery of national life.

He did a very good portrait
of Prince Charles.

Though I suppose he's much more used to
having his portrait painted than I am.

My father used to hate
having his picture taken.

He'd pull down the corners of his mouth
and look really sickened.

My ma would say, "Dad,

"stop pulling your jib."

But he looked so miserable sometimes,

he looked like the last years
of Somerset Maugham.

Being photographed made my dad uneasy,

just as being painted now makes me.

But then, art in general
has always puzzled me.

The first art gallery I ever went into

was here in Leeds,
early in the Second World War.

It had scarcely any pictures

and the only one
that caught my eye was rude.

- It's so natural, isn't it?
- Ah, yes.

I think that's lovely and restful
and peaceful and...

- Peaceful, yeah.
- Yeah.

- That's lovely...
- And that's like

the industrial Yorkshire and all,
with all the chimneys.

- Yes, down Water Lane way.
- Very much.

Yes. I like country scenes,
you know.

- It is really beautiful.
- Very much.

- Jack Butler Yeats.
- Yeah?

He is the brother of the poet,
the great poet.

- Who is that?
- WB Yeats.

I have to take a look

and tell Bjorn...
I get back on the... Watch your step.

That's right. Oh, yes.
I think there are some other pictures

by Yeats in the gallery.

Jack Yeats, very distinguished
Irish artist.

- Very distinguished.
- Okay, yeah.

So, who do you think
these people were?

'Cause they only give us a name, but
they don't tell us about who they are.

- Who they are?
- Who do you think they were?

Well, I don't know who she was,
but she was very, very sad, that lady.

She looks more like
somebody's great granny to me.

And what do you think
of the frames?

It interferes with the picture
or do you think it helps it?

No, I should imagine they...
I would think that they help.

I think they would.
They match the picture.

Yes, they're very old, and...

That is very good
with that picture, that.

- I think that is ever so sweet.
- It's really pleasing.

Really natural, and all.

My appreciation of painting
is quite shallow

I find it hard to divorce appreciation
from possession.

So I know I like a picture only
when I'm tempted

to walk out with it under my raincoat.

However much I like a painting,
I seldom hang about in front of it

but go and get a postcard instead.

Art is hard on the feet.

I loathe standing,
and get more speedily exhausted

in a gallery than anywhere else,
except perhaps a second-hand bookshop.

That apart, I know I prefer paintings

where the colour tones
are close together,

as in this little picture
by the Camden Town painter

Malcolm Drummond.

When I first saw this gallery, I was
about the age these boys are now

It was in 1942, on a school trip.

The Standard 3
from Upper Armley National School

were being brought down on the tram
by our teacher, Miss Timson,

to see an exhibition at the art gallery
to do with Ark Royal Week.

Miss Timson was a grey-haired,
rather severe old lady,

with the kind of old lady's legs
that seem to have gone out now,

begin at the far corners of the skirt,
and converge on the ankles.

And she'd taken us to see

the inevitable fundraising thermometer
on the Town Hall steps

to mark the progress
of the Ark Royal fund.

And now she ushered us into the back
of this crowded gallery,

where people were watching
some sea scouts

singing and whistling
Pedro the Fisherman.

My entertainment was scarce in 1942,

but even then I knew this was
no crowd-puller.

And the attention of Standard 3

soon began to wander.

- Oh, wow.
- Look, a goblin.

- Goblin.
- The goblins?

They fairly look quite Greek,
don't they?

- Perseus!
- Hey, look!

Like a great mask.

Most of the pictures had been evacuated.

But there was one canvas,

big, round, battered,

of a battlefield.

And I don't see it here now.

And it's this that attracted
the attention of Standard 3.

It was the kind of battle that was
always being described in the Bible,

mountains of dead,
imploring wounded.

And women wandered over the field,
looking for their loved ones.

In the foreground, a striking figure,

my mother would have called her
"a big woman".

A queen, possibly,

her many bangles proclaim her
a person of some consequence.

And at her feet, a wounded warrior,
a consort, possibly,

certainly someone with whom
she's on intimate terms,

because she's standing back from him,

and has ripped aside her bodice
to display an ample breast.

Some of the boys in Standard 3,
Roland Ellis, John Marston,

had begun to nudge and snigger.

Not me, because I'm a timid child,

shy, or sly would be a better word.

I keep one eye on Miss Timson,

while stealing looks
at this extraordinary canvas.

The sight of a breast
so insolently displayed was,

even in the hygienic context of art,
not a common sight in 1942.

And as it becomes plain
what this brazen woman is doing,

the sniggering gets worse.

What she was doing was expelling
the contents of her breast,

I think the technical term
is "expressing",

with all the overtones of the day,
I think the technical term
is "expressing",

with all the overtones of the day,

but expelling the contents of her breast
into the mouth of the wounded warrior.

Now, the range would be
about three yards.

And there may, who knows, have been
some botched shots.

But certainly at the moment
of depiction, she was smack on target,

this perfect lactic parabola
going straight into his mouth.

Now, I knew boys who could spit
as accurately as that.

And who knows, maybe this was
the female equivalent?

- And it's made out of bronze.
- Bronze.

By this time, though, the sea scouts
had finished Pedro the Fisherman,

and filing onto the stage came
the Leeds police choir

to give a rendition of Bobby Shaftoe.

And Miss Timson looked round
for her class.

Now, whereas Roland Ellis
and John Marston could be expected

to be looking at rude pictures,
I wasn't that sort of boy.

But no sooner did I perceive the danger
than I took avoiding action.

"Miss, miss," I said,

"is this what's known as suckering
the wounded?" I was eight years old.

"No, Alan," Miss Timson said crisply,
"but very good.

"This is what's known as smut."

- It's Stonehenge. It's...
- Stonehenge?

- Yeah, what does that mean?
- It's a famous monument.

Stonehenge are these great stones.

Now, are they placed there,
or are they there naturally?

No, they were placed there,
about 2500 BC.

Oh, for what purpose? Do you know that?

I think it is for worship.

- I see.
- And I think the sun

is supposed to shine
through the central stones on the...

That's very much like Ireland.

Mmm.

- Country's country, anyway.
- Yes, it is, isn't it?

- Wherever you go.
- Very much so.

So here we have an artist.

- Yes.
- He's painting.

- Oh, yes.
- A person.

So what does that tell us?

Do we always think of artists
as being male?

- No, no.
- I don't.

Right. But there's
a lot of drawings and paintings...

Well, he is a male.
Look at the bottle beside him and all.

- Oh, aye.
- Having a swig.

Refreshments while they work.

We'd better not say
what we think about this. I think I'd...

We can't really see this lady's face.
Is that important, do you think?

Yes, I'm sure.

- Because it's like a pattern.
- Her face?

- It's like a pattern.
- Yes, it is. It's if they've been

- putting in pieces kind of thing.
- Yeah, like a jigsaw.

I don't know what you'd like
to see, Margaret.

- Everything.
- You'd like to see everything?

Yeah, this is the first and last time
I am here.

The first and last time?

Oh, well, that's London.
Look at that.

That's Kokoschka, Kokoschka!
Remember it.

- I have seen that.
- Is it Kokoschka?

- No, what's this in French?
- No, it's Derain.

- Watch the string, please...
- What's the string?

At the age of eight,
one had not learned,

nor, I suppose, had our foremistress,
the propriety of art,

that art and antiquity
make it quite proper to peep.

It's all right if it's art.

I was once at an exhibition
of Indian paintings

at the Hayward Gallery. Tantra.

And there was one panel where a goddess

was having every possible thing
done to her

through every conceivable orifice,
by half a dozen strapping young men,

and enjoying every minute of it.

And looking at this were two
middle-aged, very middle-class ladies.

Eventually one of them spoke.

"Goodness.

"She's a busy lady."

- But look here!
- This is a most extraordinary man.

This man, Stanley Spencer,
he lived in a little village,

- near the Thames.
- Mmm-hmm.

And everything in his life became
something religious, you see?

Mmm. Yes.

Yes, this is Stanley... Now, very stark.
There he is again.

Most extraordinary man,
Stanley Spencer, yes.

Hilda, Unity, and Dolls. That's right.

- When did he live? 1891 -1950.
- Yes.

Oh, he was quite crazy, of course,
but he had a brother

- who was also an artist, you know.
- Hilda, Unity, and Dolls.

Oh, that's Gilbert! That's his brother!
It's a different one.

That's the brother, yes.
He was not so famous as Stanley.

No, "Stanley Spencer, Gardening,"
it says here.

Gardening. But this one is Gilbert.

Ah. Then, you see, we got it wrong.
That's right.

So, that isn't Stanley, that's Gilbert.

It's very puzzling, these things,
isn't it? I mean, you get very muddled.

Painters seem to me an altogether nicer
class of person than writers.

Though they often make
very good writers themselves.

But they're less envious,
less competitive.

And I think they've got more of a sense
that they're all engaged

on a common enterprise.

This is by Duncan Grant.

I once met Duncan Grant
when he was quite old.

And I asked him if he was
envious of other painters.

There was a pause.

And he said,

"Titian, sometimes."

And it was a good remark,
because it was a joke.

But it was also a rebuke to me
for being so shallow-minded.

- Yes, there is a...
- Miss, I love that picture.

That's what happens when you put
your glasses on.

You can see all sorts of things.
I can't see because of the reflection.

- ...war artists, by war artists.
- Oh, look.

Is that Barbara Hepworth?

That's... I've seen a great big one
like that at her garden in Cornwall.

And these sculptures look brilliant
in a garden.

"Sarah, the naturist..."

It's good, that.

Like one of me own family,
they're saying,

"Go get washed in there, you see."

So he's gone in and got washed,
and that's the... I would think that...

So you bring your
own experience into pictures,

and you think...

Right. You imagine how,
why they're there.

- You do.
- What about this one?

This is a circus.

That's if you've gone
to the circus, which was, um,

quite a thing in them days, wasn't it?

- Very good, though, you know.
- Very good, yes.

And this picture,
beside this picture.

- What's this one about?
- Well, why...

Why only listen to one, why not
listen to a few...

- people have opinions and whatnot?
- Well, these ladies...

It's all wrong! Well, I don't...

- I don't agree with it at all!
- What do you think of this one?

I won't say now, just keep it
to meself and let them talk.

Well, it isn't right!

- Don't you agree?
- I disagree.

Well, that's what art's about, though,
isn't it?

- We all have a different opinion.
- No, it isn't. It isn't.

Don't you think?

It is, if you're allowed to say.

It's all right if you want to say...

Oh, dear.

Still, I know exactly how she feels,
wishing one had the gift of the gab.

But I wouldn't say anything
about it now.

Well, I'm interested to know
what you think.

I can imagine meself,
got the kids to bed,

- sitting down and having a read.
- A read, yes.

This is probably the most
famous painting in the gallery.

Holman Hunt' s The Shadow of Death,

in which Mary sees
Jesus' crucifixion prefigured.

There's a larger version of it
in Manchester but this was the original.

It was just about small enough
for Hunt to carry about with him,

as he was constantly
making alterations to it.

It was painted on location in Palestine,
and he went to elaborate lengths

to get the details
and the fittings right.

The body of Christ belonged to one model
and the head to another,

who was actually not at all Christlike,
a notorious villain, in fact.

And on one occasion, Hunt had to
bail him out of the local jail

before he could have a sitting.

It's not at all plain what Jesus
is supposed to be doing,

apart from casting
the appropriate shadow.

I suppose he's meant to be
stretching after a hard day's work,

but it hardly looks like that.

What always used to puzzle me
as a child

was that, apart from the hair
on his head,

Jesus, I mean not merely this Jesus,
any Jesus,

never had a stitch of hair
anywhere else.

Never a breath of hair
on that always-angular chest.

God seems to have sent
his only begotten son into the world

without any hair under his arms.

This rang a bell with me, though,
because I was a late developer.

And at 15, I was longing for puberty.

And Jesus' pose here is exactly
how I felt,

crucified on the wall bars during PE,

displaying for my much more
hirsute classmates

my still unsullied armpits.

There's a fairy over there.

- And it's a big fairy, isn't it?
- I want to see.

- What is it?
- Um...

Rocks.

Rocks.

They're trying to get
the English out of their country.

They didn't want them there any more.

He was a famous general.
But he was killed.

- He's dead now? By them?
- Hmm.

But if they hadn't done that,
would he have been living longer?

- Probably.
- Hmm.

Well, a bit longer, probably.
Not much longer, I would think.

What should we do now?

Good Lord, this is terrible, isn't it?
What the heck is this?

Oh, Vaughan. Be careful!

- You don't need to...
- I can see what you like...

Can't you?
It's fairly safe, I think, isn't it?

- Here is modern artists.
- Modern art, yeah.

I shan't understand anything
about that at all.

Oh, I see.

This I don't understand at all.

- The hands?
- That's too much for me.

No. Gracious me.

- It's too clever for me.
- Hmm.

What do we find here?

It's all very strange, isn't it?
Very strange stuff.

This is too strange. Don't you think so?
It's much too strange, this?

You wouldn't like that in your room,
would you? Dreadful.

Yeah.

People come into an art gallery
for all sorts of reasons.

Some, it's true, come in
because they like paintings.

But with a lot of people, looking
at pictures comes quite low on the list.

They come in out of the rain.

Or to keep warm.

Take the weight off their feet.

Maybe they're early for a meeting
or they're hoping for a meeting.

They've come to pick somebody up.

All of which are perfectly proper
and legitimate reasons for being here.

An art gallery, after all,
is not unlike a park.

But the hope is, the faith is,
that the art will rub off.

And I believe that,
because that's what's happened to me.

Look at the, um...

You can see the brush
and the tiny little details...

The way that these shadows
and the darks and lights...

You got the light and
then the dark going up...

Makes it all quite real.

Okay.

And again, quite a different one
there above, some type of...

That one looks like a frilly skirt.
It's, like, all frilly.

When I was a boy,
I used to do my homework

in the reference library next door.

And I'd come down here not because
I wanted to look at the pictures

but because I wanted a break.

I got to know the pictures by accident,
by osmosis, almost.

I just absorbed them.

And I can see that it's
from this experience

that I derived my attitude
to television,

believing as I do that a lot of people
switch on at random,

or without any specific idea
of the programme they want to watch.

Just as they come in here at random
and for a variety of reasons.

But given good comedy, good drama,
good documentaries,

they could be diverted and elevated,
just as they can be by good pictures.

- Athena, and the goddess whatever...
- Oh, yes! Yes.

Of course, this isn't
a popular philosophy nowadays,

particularly with the government
think tanks,

or those 14-year-old economic eunuchs
who staff the Adam Smith Institute.

They believe that people are
as single-minded

and driven
by purely material considerations

as they are themselves.

And if a means could be devised
of doing a cost-benefit analysis

of art galleries, then they would.

Now, this is a neutral effect, too...

The marvel is
that galleries in Britain

are still largely free
and in public ownership.

But if a means could be devised
of stealing them from the public

for short-term financial gain,

and transferring them to private hands,

then in the light
of its previous policies,

I can see no reason
why the government hesitates.

It's what's known
as thinking the unthinkable.

- I think it's a tail.
- It's not.

- It is a tail.
- It's not.

But look, you see that?
It comes all the way down here,

and all the way around there,
right up to her bottom.

It's the mermaid's tail.
Do you think it's a fish?

Maybe there, Mum?

- What's happened to the ship?
- I can read this. "Mermaid's Rock."

Come back and see.
What do you think has happened to...?

This is more the French style.
Here we are.

That's not so bad.
Ah, he's an Englishman.

- Wood, I learned...
- Christopher Wood.

I associate him with boats, Wood.

I can't see any boats here.
Is this Christopher Wood again?

No, it's Wallace.

Yeah, now, that...
That looks like Van Gogh, doesn't it?

It don't remind me
about him.

- It's doesn't remind...
- It doesn't remind me.

Oh, it's doesn't matter.
That's all right. I like that one.

- Christopher Wood.
- I like that one, don't you?

That's good to have, isn't it?

I love this.

Yes. What does it mean?

I don't know. It's just as though a kid
has just scribbled it, isn't it?

It's all mad, isn't it?

It's very bright, but I don't think
I could live with it, though.

- Could you?
- No, no, no. No, but...

- It's all right for where it is.
- Yes, yes, it is.

"I don't think I could
live with it"

is, of course, the raincoat principle
in reverse.

"I wouldn't want it at home"
rules out all manner of masterpieces.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
for a start.

One side of the...

You know, anybody just casual
looking at it would think it's daubed,

but it isn't.

Because all these bits here, those,
and the ridges on them,

you don't put paintbrush in and
just daub it out like that.

You see, look at it. It's clever.

- Oh, it's specially done, isn't it?
- It's good.

I'm thinking I should bring
my granddaughter to see this because

she does paint.

- And she has painted pictures for me.
- Right.

It's completely different, isn't it,
from the ones next door?

- From the others, yes.
- I mean, can we tell what it is?

- It's not really anything, is it?
- No! No, but it's the modern trend.

- Or it can be what we want it to be.
- That's right. Yeah.

Yes, it's good. It's very nice.

What do you think of it?

- Interesting.
- It's modern art and it's very bright.

- Very bright and cheerful, but I...
- They don't beat the other ones.

- Do they? In the other room.
- No.

It's very busy, isn't it?
It's very energetic.

- Yes, yes.
- Oh, yes.

It's very lively.

I bet it's really lovely for modern art.
You know. That is modern art, of course.

But do you like it?
Would you have it on your wall?

- Oh, no.
- No.

- No?
- No!

I would. I'd be...

I think that must be the Sitwell
over there. Surely.

Mustn't it? This woman here.

- What is that?
- Edith Sitwell, is it?

No, I've got it wrong. Some other woman.

"Praxitella. Percy Wyndham Lewis."
He was a very famous artist as well.

- An English? An Englishman?
- Very famous. Very famous. Oh my, oh!

- It's very severe, isn't it?
- Yes, very.

Metallic. Hard. Cruel.

The colours are marvellous,
you know. Really, aren't they?

I think that's smashing.

I like this.
It's the Union Jack, actually.

More or less, yeah. Yeah.

This is modern, isn't it?

I bet it's taken some doing, you know.

All those little objects, they're all...

How would they be stuck on,
do you think?

- Yeah, if the colour... There...
- Which colour is it?

Oh, yeah.

I wouldn't mind a small one of that
in the house,

but I wouldn't have one of those
in the house.

- Just a small one.
- Yes!

- This is a peculiar effort, isn't it?
- Pardon?

I said, this is a peculiar effort.

Is that a vacuum cleaner on the floor?

What's that?

Minnie Mouse?

It's certainly not a rabbit.

- Could be. Could be.
- Could be.

Could be. Very easily.

Yes, yes, it could. A rabbit? Yes, yeah.

Without the fur. Skinned rabbit.

It is very good.

- I think you could be right.
- Yes.

Charles Ginner, yes. He's very good.

- Yeah?
- Yes, I met his...

I met his sister once, this artist.

And she was distinguished
for Greek dancing.

- His sister, yes. I met her.
- Let me see.

- Ruby Ginner.
- Ginner?

Yes. Ruby Ginner. They belonged, I
think, to the Camden Group of painters.

- All these.
- Mmm-hmm.

Spencer Frederick Gore.
All these are the Camden Group.

There was often a tramp in here
in the late '40s,

hanging about the gallery
or slumped over an art book

in the corner of the reference library.

Except that he wasn't a tramp.
He was quite a distinguished painter.

Jacob Kramer.

And this is his bust by Epstein.

Kramer was Jewish.
His family were from the Ukraine,

one of many thousands of Jewish families
who came to Leeds

at the end of the 19th century.

And since then, there's always been
a very strong Jewish community in Leeds.

And out of it came Marks & Spencer's
and Montague Burton's.

As a young man, he was a vorticist,

an associate of Wyndham Lewis
and William Roberts.

I find it hard to say what vorticism is.

I think of it as
the jagged school of painting.

Cubism with an English slant.

But both Kramer's Jewishness
and his vorticism

can be seen in this picture.

The Day of Atonement,

which was unveiled in the art gallery
in 1920

to a storm of anti-Semitic protest.

There was still a lot of
anti-Semitism in Leeds,

even after the Second War.

And I can remember Jewish boys
at my school being regularly bullied.

One boy in particular, Alan Harris,
always coming in for it,

the masters turning a blind eye.

And one master catching him
a terrific slap across the face once.

And then, years later,
when I was in Harrogate,

I came across this master,
now tranquilly retired.

And he came up to me in the tea shop.

And as he came up, I thought, "Oh yes,
you're the one who hit the Jew."

Nowadays, the Asians have replaced
the Jews in the front line,

actually living where the Jews
used to live.

The only difference really being that
nowadays we talk about the prejudice,

whereas in those days
one never mentioned it.

Kramer himself died in 1962,

indistinguishable from a lot of
the tramps who you see outside.

Except that in 1966,

Leeds College of Art
was renamed after him.

So he was more respectable in death
than he ever was in life.

Old people challenge one's
complacent assumptions.

The old ladies are altogether unfazed
by the avant-garde,

much as children are.

Outrage is for middle-age.

The time it must have been taken
just to make that.

To build that.

Very much. Very, very much.

Are we...

Been very clever,
the people that's done it.

Yes.

Now, that is art. Very much art.

Yeah.

That is beautiful, is that.

Beautiful, that.

Anyone who knows Leeds
will find this painting,

Park Row by Atkinson Grimshaw,

almost a documentary record,
this church apart,

of how the street looked
even as late as 1960,

which was when the city fell
to greed and mediocrity.

Some silly people on the right
nowadays wish the '60s hadn't happened,

because that was when people discovered
sex and smoking pot.

If I wish the '60s hadn't happened

it's because that was when
avarice and stupidity

got to the wheel of the bulldozer.

They called it enterprise,
and still do.

But the real enterprise would have been
if someone in 1960

had had the clout and the imagination
to say,

"Let's leave this city much as it is.

"Convert it, perhaps. Re-plumb it.
But nothing else."

If they had,

Leeds, today would have been one of the
architectural showplaces of the Kingdom.

A Victorian Genoa or Florence, on which
many of its buildings were modelled.

Instead, it's much like anywhere else.

Still, one thing
that hasn't changed in Leeds

is the relationship of art and learning.

Next door to the gallery still,
the library.

The clientele
hasn't changed much, either.

I think these are exactly
the same people

who were here 40 years ago.

Apart from Thak, the cartoonist
on the Yorkshire Evening Post,

the only other artist

whose style I would immediately
have recognised as a boy

was the now long-forgotten illustrator,
Fortunino Matania.

Or F Matania,
as he always signed himself.

His work used to grace the pages
of the now long-defunct

Britannia and Eve.

It was a cross between
The Sphere and The Tatler.

And one would find it in doctors'
and dentists' waiting rooms.

Or in my case,
read while waiting my turn

at Mr Oddy's, the barbers in
Shireoaks Street.

Matania was a historical illustrator

with a particular line
in genteel orgies.

Letting it rip under Alaric the Goth.

The destruction of Pompeii
brought about by heavy petting.

There were lots of thighs
and the occasional breast.

And plenty of floating draperies
and leather thongs.

And poring furtively over them as
I waited for my short back and sides

I found them, aged 11,
immensely exciting.

Of course, it never occurred to me
that this was exactly

what they were meant to seem
and intended to titillate the appetite.

Though from the point of view
of the editors of Brittania and Eve,

the appetites were more those
of jaded club men

and the occasional bishop

whiling away a long afternoon
in the Athenaeum

rather than a small boy

scanning a fifth-hand copy
in a provincial barbershop.

While not quite so ancient
as this photograph,

Leeds as I first remember it
seemed safe, innocent and dull.

It was largely untouched by the war.

Sheffield caught it.
Liverpool caught it.

But Leeds, hardly at all.
Why should it?

The city specialised in the manufacture
of ready-made suits

and the cultivation of rhubarb.

In its conduct to the war,
the German high command

was notoriously quixotic.

But I imagine
a line had to be drawn somewhere.

Thus, in the whole course of the war,
relatively few bombs fell on Leeds.

And these were promptly torn apart
by schoolboys famished for shrapnel.

In London, on the eve of the war,

the precious contents
of the National Gallery were crated up

and taken off
to a slate quarry in Wales,

there to be hidden in caves.

Leeds, lacking metropolitan
masterpieces,

just popped its collection on a tram,
took it a little ride up the York Road

through Holton, along by
the municipal golf course

to Temple Newsam House.

It was a trip I'd done several times
with my grandma.

But the contrast is revealing.

In London, a getaway in the nick of time
to a remote and romantic haven.

In Leeds, a tuppenny-ha'penny
tram ride.

From as early as I can remember,
life, or at any rate, life in Leeds

never quite came up to scratch.

Well, here we are
actually in the Great Hall.

I just wanted to say one word
about the room that we're actually in.

This is actually on the site
of the Great Hall,

which was built by Bordasse in 1500.

But its present appearance
as you see it today

is this marvellous example of
antiquarian taste

of the early 19th century. The romantic
taste of old England, if you like.

This splendid panelling that you see
on the walls.

The ashlar of the walls itself.

And this Jacobean-type ceiling up here.

This is all very, very sort of
symptomatic of the taste of the 1820s,

which is really the date
that we're looking at here.

And we've recently restored this
to its appearance of about the 1820s...

I was conscious,
even as a child,

that I lived in the provinces
and therefore on the sidelines.

Here at Temple Newsam
were kept various historic relics.

A bed in a room
where had slept Lord Darnley,

the murdered husband
of Mary, Queen of Scots.

A hat reputed to be Oliver Cromwell's.

And as a child, I used to come here
quite often to revisit these relics,

gaze at Darnley's bed
and Cromwell's hat

and think that these objects
were here in Leeds, of all places.

So it was possible that this
provincial city,

which seemed so utterly remote
from any life I read about in books,

and which even the war
had scarcely touched,

that Leeds had, once upon a time,
figured in things,

had been brushed
by the wings of history.

Life hadn't always been elsewhere

and here was Darnley's bed to prove it.

He had his wonderful workshop...
Come along!

And lots of creamware here
and other ceramics.

So you couldn't really come back
and look at your stuff.

And there's the...

And then there's a wonderful
single-poster bed here.

Very unusual.

And we come on now
into the Darnley Room.

The so-called Darnley Room.

This wonderful panelled interior
with this wonderful plaster work

in the frieze in the ceiling.

And it would be lovely to think
that this room really actually was made

at the time of Lord Darnley's
occupation of this house,

and was supposedly
the room in which he was born,

but unfortunately, this
is simply not the case.

This is a wonderful 19th century myth.

Mrs Meynell Ingram in the 1890s
almost certainly

had this room panelled and given
its present appearance

and christened it "The Darnley Room".

I think she'd probably been misled
that this was the part of the house

in which the principal apartment
would have been in the 16th century.

But, in fact, this room
did not even exist, unfortunately,

at the time
of Lord Darnley's occupation.

The house ended at that wall over there
and the room beyond.

And, so, this is another example

of this sort of 19th century
sort of myth,

this wonderful making up of stories,
this antiquarianism.

Which, you know, was fun and games
at the time.

Hey ho.

Well, it was a myth that sustained me
as a child, anyway.

The pictures remained in Temple Newsam
till the end of the war.

For "the duration", as it was called,

"the duration" a mysterious term,
both permit and excuse,

a kind of licensed
putting off of things,

the suspension of the normal until,
with peacetime,

life returned to its old ways.

It's a cliché that war advances science,

but of course
it also encourages the arts.

Never were the theatres or the cinemas
so full as during the war.

And of course, the churches
and the art galleries, too.

Philip Hendy, who was the director
of the gallery here during the war

organised a series of exhibitions
by modern British artists.

John Piper, Stanley Spencer,
Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore.

And they attracted huge crowds,

far more than they probably
would have done during easier times.

Peace, which in theory
ought to foster the arts,

actually brings out complacency.

Leeds had been very enthusiastic
about Henry Moore's work during the war

but when, in 1951, they actually bought
one of his reclining figures,

the Philistines came out in force.

Back in the gallery,
they're busy preparing an exhibition

on one of the sons of Leeds
and a hero of modern art,

the critic Herbert Reed.

We can make
provisional arrangements.

Here's the piece at the back.

- No, that's it.
- Is it?

Because it's got
the circle with the cross on it.

No, no, no. This is the piece.
This piece.

We'll put this one first
and this one there.

We're here to celebrate
a great Yorkshireman,

a multi-talented man,
and a great educator,

who did many things, but one of them
was to pull the thinking

of a country about its arts
from one century into another.

And he did it almost single-handedly.

And his sense of propagating art,

of spreading it and giving it
to as many people as possible

has been one of the big triumphs,
you can call it, of this century.

This is a jolly occasion,
but I can't help feeling

that defending and explaining modern art
made Reed's, in some ways, a sad life.

- I like that one the best.
- There, yes.

I wish I owned that.

Few artists will thank you for
explaining or justifying their work.

They think it justifies itself,
or else they wouldn't have done it.

But then I think Reed knew that, too,
and persisted.

And that's what makes him a hero.

And here's my artist, Tom Wood,

who says that the portrait is finished
and about to go on view

But not here in Leeds, of course.
In London.

The gamble, of course, in all this

is whether one is actually
going to make it to posterity.

Meanwhile, it's away and down,
I suspect, to the cellar,

where one will wait
in the far-from-certain hope

of pictorial resurrection.

I have a portrait of myself already,

which I did in... I suppose 1955,
when I was at university.

I did several around that time

and I found that the only thing
I could paint was myself,

so I stopped trying to paint.

However, last year I was in Arezzo
having tea in quite a posh tea shop.

And at another table
were some Englishwomen.

And one of them came over to me.

And she said,

"I would like to thank you..."

and my face fell into a look
of accommodating niceness.

"I would like to thank you
for all the pleasure

"your paintings have given me."

And, I didn't let on. I said thank you

and she went away, and I think
she was going to the loo.

And everything would've been all right,
but en route she told the proprietress

who she thought was in the café.

And the next thing that happens is

the proprietress is bearing down on me
with a large black book.

And she thanks me for

all the contributions I'd made
to operatic design

and would I sign with all the other
operatic notables?

So...

I just did a little drawing of myself,

not unlike the self-portrait...

...and signed it David Hockney.

At which, not surprisingly,
she was very pleased,

and went away with the book
thinking that

she was several thousand pounds
the richer.

♪ Pedro the fisherman
was always whistling

♪ Such a merry call

♪ Girls who were passing by
would hear him whistling

♪ By the harbour wall

♪ But his sweetheart Nina
who loved him true, always new

♪ That his song belonged to her alone

♪ And in the evening
when the lights were gleaming

♪ And they had to part

♪ As he sailed his boat away,
echoing across the bay

♪ Came the tune
that lingered in her heart ♪