All language subtitles for BBC.The.Art.Mysteries.Series.1.2of4.1080p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

I'm Waldemar Januszczak...

..and for 40 years,
I've been looking at art,

writing about art
and thinking about art.

So, I've learned a lot,
and it's all useful...

..because art
is full of mysteries...

..and mysteries need solving.

If you ask people
what their favourite painting is

by that great French
Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat,

most of them will tell you
it's that famous masterpiece

Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte.

Ever since it was painted in 1886,

La Grande Jatte
has fascinated people.

It shows a parade
of fashionable weekenders

strolling along a river bank
in Paris.

And everybody here
is made entirely of dots.

It's one of the 19th century's
best-known pictures,

and one of the most mysterious.

Most of Seurat's art is mysterious.

It has a haunting quietude to it,
an atmosphere of timelessness,

and that's particularly true
of this strange picture here,

Les Poseuses, as it's called -

a Seurat masterpiece which ought
to be much better known than it is.

Les Poseuses is French
for "The Models".

There's three of them here,
naked and glum,

posing silently
in the artist's studio.

And look what's behind them.

It's La Grande Jatte again.

Today, Les Poseuses hangs in the
Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia,

where it puzzles the hell
out of everyone who looks at it.

In fact, Les Poseuses
has two meanings in French.

It means "the models" -
as in artist's models -

but it also means

"people who pretend to be something
that they're not."

People pretending
to be something they're not.

Not the most helpful clue
I've ever heard...

..but it's a start.

And the thing we really need
to answer is why,

here in the corner,
Seurat has added La Grande Jatte.

Why is it here?
What's it trying to say?

Why are we getting
two masterpieces at once?

Three nudes,
a picture within a picture,

and everyone really unhappy.

Don't just stand there, Januszczak.

On your bike!

Paris, the City of Lights.

It's called that because
it was the first city in the world

to get electric lighting.

In Paris,
the night was finally lit up,

and the secrets of the dark
were finally revealed.

Seurat was born here in 1859,
the son of a rich lawyer.

I'd love to show you what he looked
like as a boy, but I can't.

He was pathologically private.

There are almost no images of him.

Years later, he painted his mistress
powdering her nose in her boudoir.

And later still,

someone X-rayed the flowers
at the back of that picture,

and found a secret portrait of him
lurking behind the blooms.

So, that's the first
known image of him...

..and this is the second.

Seurat's dad was so rich that,
at the age of 42,

he retired to live a life
of bourgeois indolence.

And Seurat himself
never had to work.

His dad paid for it all.

And in 1878, he was enrolled here,

at the most prestigious
art school in Paris,

the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,

under the watchful eye
of his predecessors,

Seurat was taught art the old way...

..drawing from plaster casts,

copying the statues of the Greeks...

..and absorbing the classical myths.

It was a traditional art education -

copying the old masters,
studying the past,

completely ignoring
the modern world -

and he got very good at it.

You can see from the start
just how talented he was.

There's a painting made
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

of his young cousin.

It's exceptionally sensitive
and sad.

In his cousin's downturned face,

we see the first signs

of Seurat's appetite
for feminine mystery.

It won't be the last.

The Ecole des Beaux-Arts
wasn't just plaster casts

and the old ways of doing things.

The school also had
a spectacular library,

with just about every book
on art ever written,

and Seurat, a bookish chap
who liked studying things,

took full advantage
of this great library.

He was particularly drawn
to the science of colours,

and to books that explained
how colour works,

what it does to your eyes,
how one colour sits next to another.

And that's how
Seurat's scientific interests

led him to the work
of the pioneering optical scientist

Eugene Chevreul -
the master of the dot.

Seurat had to pass

very difficult competitions

to be admitted
in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

He succeeded with very bad marks,
but he succeeded,

and he stayed in the Ecole
as a pupil during two years.

So, you've got here the actual books

that Seurat could have looked at
in the library.

I mean, this is one of, I know,
the most important for him.

This is Chevreul
with his theories of colour.

Chevreul was a chemist -
a French chemist -

and he said that two colours
put close to one another

produce another colour -
a third colour.

He called this
a theory of harmonies.

His books were very famous.

A copy of this book was sent
in every grammar school in France.

The first thing, of course,
you see about it is that

most of the illustrations are
these beautiful arrays of dots.

Yes, there are lots of experiences
about colours in those books.

Of course, it's rather scientific,

but it was meant
to help the painters.

Mm. Well, it certainly
helped Seurat, didn't it?

Because if you're looking
for the origin of Seurat's dots,

I think you don't need to look
much further than here, do you? Yes.

So, that explains the dots.

The big idea here is that they mix
in your eye and not on the canvas.

What it doesn't explain

is Seurat's fascination
with unhappy women.

This era we're talking about -
the 1870s and '80s -

these were also the great years
of the Impressionists

who were putting on
revolutionary exhibitions

and attacking the things
that Seurat was being taught

at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

So, Seurat, he wanted
to be young and revolutionary, too.

And after little more than a year,
he packed in the Ecole,

and with his dad's money
supporting him,

set himself up
as an independent artist.

So, the first thing he does

is to devote himself entirely
to drawing,

with these beautiful
black drawings in crayon.

That was the foreplay.

Then, having studied colour
with Chevreul,

and with his head full
of scientific information

about the way colours work...

..he began painting
those famous dot pictures...

..where the Paris around him
is slowed to a halt.

As I said before, this was still
the era of the Impressionists,

who, at exactly this time,
were trying to make the modern world

a suitable subject for great art.

You don't have to go to
classical Rome or ancient Greece,

they said, to find good subjects.

You can find them right here
in modern Paris,

right under your nose.

This was a world
that liked having fun,

if you had enough francs
in your pocket.

In particular, the Impressionists
were fond of the River Seine,

which flows through
the middle of Paris,

and which fashionable Parisians
used as a pleasure ground.

They'd go dancing and boating
and flirting -

enjoying the pleasures of life.

Manet, the so-called father
of the Impressionists,

painted a very famous picture
by the Seine

called Dejeuner sur l'Herbe -
The Picnic on the Grass.

It's a very provocative image.

A group of young Parisians
is relaxing on the river bank.

The woman is naked.

Perhaps she's been swimming.

The men, meanwhile, are lounging
about like typical blokes,

mansplaining something important.

But she ignores them
and stares brazenly out at us,

as if daring us to disapprove.

Interestingly, Manet based
his Dejeuner sur l'Herbe

on a famous picture
by an old master -

The Judgment of Paris by Raphael.

Raphael's original design
has disappeared...

..but there's a print of it
by his pupil, Raimondi,

which Manet must have seen.

And what's interesting -
very interesting -

is that Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
is based not on the main scene,

but on a detail at the side
of some river gods by the water.

The main scene -

the actual judgment of Paris -
is missing.

So, Manet and the Impressionists

were bringing this lively new
subject matter to art

of a 19th-century bourgeois
having fun by the river.

But for Seurat, that wasn't enough.

Art shouldn't just be
about having fun.

It should also be about
something deeper.

So, Seurat began plotting
his first masterpiece -

the Bathers at Asnieres.

Now, lots of old masters
had painted river scenes before

with undressed figures
relaxing by the water...

..but they were usually
nymphs or goddesses

or classical heroes,

and not a bunch of blokes
from the factory

grabbing a dip in their lunch break.

But where
the Impressionists were happy

with carefree
and splashy brushstrokes,

Seurat wanted
something more permanent.

So, he swapped the splashy
Impressionist brushstrokes

for a careful arrangement
of speckles and dots.

And he seemed to freeze
all the action,

as if the Seine had been
magically transported

to ancient Pompeii.

It was completely revolutionary,

not just because it was painted
with all these dots

in this new scientific method
invented by Seurat,

with the help of Eugene Chevreul,

but the Bathers was also a picture
with an important social message -

a message aimed at Paris
and the modern world.

Look at all these factory chimneys
belching smoke into the sky.

You don't see those very often
in Impressionist art.

They're a harsh reminder of
the grim divide in Seurat's Paris

between the haves and the have-nots.

The Bathers is such
an interesting picture

with all these blokes
from the factory

sprawled on the grass
like river gods.

And have you noticed how
they're all looking the same way -

across the river to the other side?

I wonder what they're looking at.

They're actually looking at that -

the island of La Grande Jatte
on the other side of the river,

which is where
Seurat's next great painting,

Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte,
is set.

# La brise d'un soir d'ete

# Je suis soudain emportee... #

So, here is
Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte,

which hangs today
at the Art Institute in Chicago.

# Tes yeux, ta voix... #

And here, again,
are the Bathers at Asnieres,

from the National Gallery in London.

# Je connais a peine ton prenom... #

But look at this.

If, with the magic of television,

we put the two pictures together
side-by-side...

..we can see that
Seurat was deliberately trying

for a stereo effect...

..where one side of the river
is calling across to the other.

The Bathers at Asnieres
are calling to La Grande Jatte.

# Dans le silence de la nuit

# L'amour a parle... #

So, this is it,
the island of La Grande Jatte.

Today, it's just a dismal place
to walk your dog,

but in Seurat's time,

this was the fashionable playground
of the Parisian bourgeois.

It's where the posh folk paraded...

..where the top-hat brigade
brought their mistresses...

..and where the mistresses
brought their pet monkeys -

the ones that feel so symbolic.

For Seurat, over here and over there

are different worlds,
different realities.

Over there are the workmen
from the factories,

the great unwashed.

Over here is fashionable Paris,

where tout le monde has turned up
to stroll along La Grande Jatte.

# Enlaces l'un et l'autre... #

The more I look at La Grande Jatte,
the more symbolic it all feels.

# L'amour a parle... #

It's like a Roman frieze
unfolding across the picture...

..a secretive encapsulation
of Seurat's Paris.

And there are plenty of blokes
strutting about the island,

but it's the women
who grab your attention.

And look how
everything seems to converge

on the little girl in white
at the centre of the picture...

..who stares straight at us
so pointedly,

as if everything here is our fault.

Back at my place, I try
to make sense of what I've seen,

and what it means for Les Poseuses.

Seurat was such a sneaky painter.

Everything he gives you
has something hidden underneath.

At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,

it wasn't just Chevreul's dots
that he discovered.

It was also the art
of the Greeks and the Romans

with all those frozen figures

and that sense of hidden,
symbolic meaning.

As for his women,
he was always on their side,

and never on the side of
the sugar daddies and the bankers.

So, I'm getting a good idea
of what Les Poseuses may be about,

but there's just one more thing
I need to investigate.

Remember Manet's
Dejeuner sur l'Herbe

and how it was inspired
by Raphael's Judgment of Paris?

Well, what the hell is going on
in the Judgment of Paris?

It's a famous story
from classical mythology.

There are lots of paintings of it,
and this one is by Rubens.

A young man called Paris -
that's this fellow here -

has been asked by the gods

to choose the most beautiful
of all the goddesses.

Is it Minerva or Juno or Venus?

The one who wins
gets the golden apple.

When they've all got
their clothes on,

Paris can't decide.

They're all beautiful,
so he gets them to strip,

and when they're naked, he can see
that Venus is the most beautiful,

so she's the one
who gets the golden apple.

But what's this got to do
with Les Poseuses?

Well, everything.

DOOR CREAKS OPEN

Hmm.

Three nudes and La Grande Jatte
thrown in, as well.

What was Seurat up to?

Well, one thing
he was certainly doing

was rhyming one picture
with another.

See how this girl here,
with her back to us

and the parasol
and the basket of flowers,

seems to echo the young girl
in La Grande Jatte?

And the model on the right,
she echoes that figure there -

the one with the straw hat.

And there it is -

the straw hat from La Grande Jatte,
which she's now taken off.

And as for the model in the middle,

the one who's standing there
so forlornly...

..she's rhyming with the
elegant mistress with the monkey -

the one strolling
with her sugar daddy

at the centre of La Grande Jatte.

So, this picture is
deliberately echoed in that picture.

Why?

To connect them, that's why.

To link the storyline
of La Grande Jatte

with the storyline of Les Poseuses.

Remember I told you
that Les Poseuses

doesn't just mean "the models"?

It also means "people who pretend
to be something they are not".

The three sad nudes in Les Poseuses
are pretend goddesses -

Seurat's stand-ins for Juno,
Minerva and Venus...

..because Les Poseuses
is a Judgment of Paris

updated to Seurat's times.

It's a pun, a joke.

In this Judgment of Paris,
Paris isn't a person.

It's a city - Seurat's city.

And what looks like
a simple studio interior

is a clever and biting satire

on the hypocrisy and deceitfulness
of Seurat's world.

These nudes haven't
taken off their clothes

to prove how beautiful they are.

They've stripped off

because that's what women had to do
in Seurat's Paris to make a living.

They've been posing
for La Grande Jatte,

and now it's time
to get dressed again

and return to the real world...

..because in this Judgment of Paris,
there are no winners.

In this Judgment of Paris,
Paris itself is being judged.

There are a million stories
in the world of art.

This has been just one of them.