[Music] these are the stories of 10 of the
greatest paintings in the world I'm Andrew Mah art not politics is the great Passion
of my life for me it gets to the heart of what it is to be human in galleries across the
globe there are great paintings Works made with almost Supernatural skill Fierce passion and
extraordinary brain power now I want to tell stories behind some of the most iconic images
in history pictures like Leonardo's Mona Lisa van Go's sunflowers and Turner's fighting Tamer
paintings that represent the Pinnacle of what people can do with paint and bristles he created
a brand new way of depicting the world the colors would Fizz and pop on the surface it was like you
could touch these people it was like the portrait will speak to you behind every picture there is
a story I'm going to peel back the layers to find out more about the lives of their creators and
the worlds they came from there was something about this middleclass Florentine housewife that
intrigued
him why are these the paintings we all know and love how were they created and what
makes them the greatest paintings in the [Music] world what makes a painting a masterpiece that
is of course a subjective judgment but there are some paintings so important so iconic that
they come to represent an age or a culture or a nation and it's these kind of pictures
which very often form the centerpiece of the great museums and galleries of the world
all around the globe there are images which speak
to a nation in ways that no others
can match and here in Amsterdam there is a canvas loved by the Dutch like no other
this colossal Gallery at the heart of the vast and beautiful hikes Museum doesn't just
contain the most important painting in Dutch history it was actually built around it
in what feels like a huge secular Chapel dedicated to Dutch art there hangs Rembrandt's
world famous and utterly stupendous night watch this was an act of risk-taking almost of
arrogance created by the g
reatest Dutch artist at the very height of his powers now it's nothing
short of a National Treasure so what is it it's a group portrait of a militia company what you
might call a platoon of Amsterdam's People's Army There are 16 men visible in all we know
most of their names right at the center with that magnificent white rough is France Banning
[ __ ] the commander of the militia giving the order to advance and beside him in the canary
yellow is villain van Rutenberg his Lieutenant all aro
und the picture there are different things
going on there's a dog barking there's a young girl staring into the distance there's a man
cleaning his musket somebody else right in the center has fired his musket by mistake and nearly
hidden somebody else's hat Rembrandt's characters feel so alive they could almost jump off the
canvas but if they did they wouldn't get very far now if you've been watching really carefully
you may have noticed there is a Str strange big glass box around it now w
hy is that and the
answer is it is being restored properly for the first time in more than 40 years for your
average Masterpiece any major restoration would be carried out as far away from the prying eyes of
the public as possible but the night watch isn't average it's not allowed to skull or to take time
out people care about this picture so much that they're prepared to watch it being restored if
they're not prepared literally to watch paint dry then they're prepared to watch varnish dry
which
you must admit is kind of unusual so what is it about this collection of rather chaotic strutting
striding would be unprofessional soldiers from another age in their impressive collection of
strange hats and weird party clothes that gets so many people so emotional so committed it's it's
a mystery that spans more than 300 years takes in an artists triumphant rise and tragic fall and
almost sees the night watch forgotten Forever This painting's Story begins in a period of unrivaled
cr
eativity in Dutch art made by new money and Cutthroat competition the Netherlands in the 17th
century was a very very particular environment because um it had this growing flourishing Art
Market you could buy a painting just for your weekly wage and paintings were sold at markets
you know alongside kitchen wear chickens so these weren't just objects for the extremely wealthy but
anyone could own works of art this was a world of unequaled artistic production make it new make
it fast make it
different with groundbreaking changes in techniqu unque perspective and subject
born in July 16006 rembrand had arrived into the Dutch golden age rman was born in the Dutch
town of Leiden which is about half an hour away from Amsterdam and he was born in a pretty
kind of bouro family his father was a Miller big family lots of children they managed to afford to
send him to the local Latin School so he learned languages he learned about religion but there was
really only one thing that intere
sted the young rembrand his itch his Instinct his determination
was to be an artist and at 14 he began his apprenticeship he entered the workshop of a
local artist and that's where he learned as it were the craft he would have learned
how to draw how to use color how to mix and make his own paint it doesn't appear
that he just wakes up and is suddenly a brilliant artist but rather in his early
works with our own eyes we can see him progressing Rembrandt's first canvases are full
of mistake
s but each and everyone ripples with ambition they show daring colors bold textures
and above all an unusual approach to lighting he was a young artist who wanted urgently
to be different to produce a style that was his alone this was the formative period for the
young rembrand and much of the thinking and the skill you can see in the night watch goes back
to the laden years when he was working on the consistency of his paint and finding new ways to
portray light in a more Dynamic fashion h
is early Masterpiece from that period Judas returning
the 30 pieces of silver is spectacular because it is all about creating the drama of the scene
and emphasizing the drama through very dramatic lighting also when you look at his very early
self-portraits there is one where almost his entire face is in Shadow it was this painting
created when rembrand was in his early 20s that put him on the map no one had painted themselves
in quite the same way before this was one of the first of more t
han 80 self-portraits rembrand
would create across his Lifetime and it brought the young painter to the attention of some
of the most influential art brokers in the area but soon even his hometown wasn't big
enough to contain Rembrandt's ambition what to this single-minded artist had wanted from
birth was to stand out and for that he'd have to try himself on a far bigger stage there's
so much opportunity in Amsterdam those most prestigious commissions those were to be found in
the big city
if you really wanted to get BigTime clients then you had to go to Amsterdam that's
where the riches really were rembrand moved to a studio in Amsterdam in 1631 to put it simply
this aspiring young painter was following the money during the Golden Age Amsterdam was
already overflowing with talented artists competing for fame and fortune une joining
them rembrand was making a supremely bold move that would put him step by Steady
step on the road to the Night [Music] Watch The Night Watch is
one of the most famous
paintings in the world the jewel in the crown of Amsterdam's hikes Museum and it's easy to see why
this is a canvas bursting with life brimming with stories and hints of intrigue one of which is the
identity of a half hidden face only just emerging from the Shadows now of the 34 different people in
the picture there is one who technically shouldn't be there at all he's absolutely dead center right
up towards the top a very very distinctive snub nose a little round inq
uiring slightly cheeky
eye it is of course rembrand himself like Alfred Hitchcock he's put himself into the film as
it were the night watch shows a glimpse of an artist at the exhilarating peak of his power
and [Music] ambition just over 10 years earlier he' arrived in Amsterdam desperate to make his
fortune Amsterdam would have been very exciting in the 17th century it's loud it's busy it was a
real metropolis and for artists that represented a huge opportunity war with the Spanish Empire
was over Dutch ships crisscrossed the world and now the city was packed with wealthy merchants
eager to spend their fortunes on portraits for their brand new tow houses fresh in from Leiden
which itself had been besieged by the Spanish here was a painter who could offer something
new Raman kind of burst onto the scene and quite quickly got quite important commissions he
was one of the first artists to capture physical Expressions across a face he painted portraits
as though he could penetr
ate the person and get their personality he uses highlights so cleverly
you that you see that wet bit at the bottom of the eyelid and the wrinkles around the eyes and
so forth are so acutely observed these are very impactful pieces he breathes life into his sitters
and other artists are just not at that same level at that time from his very first commission it
was clear that Rembrandt's work was different to everything else around him he painted faces
bathed in light and Shadow used the wro
ng end of his brush to scratch individual hairs into
the paint and became a master of touchably real surfaces but most important with a skill that
would become vital to the success of the Night Watch he depicted his sitters with a fresh
immediacy there is a kind of Ruddy earthy realism about the faces these are actual living
breathing sweating people that you could have met in the streets of Amsterdam and there is no
mistaking that at all suddenly this provincial Miller's boy was the most p
opular portraitist
in the city and yet always hungry for the next Advance rembrand needed more private commissions
were were fine but he really wanted to create work on a bigger scale he wanted to be properly
noticed I think his first major success was the anatomy lesson of Nicholas TLP that was painted
in 1632 and that was a very public Mission it was a way of marketing himself and I think people
would have seen that and thought yes that's a man who I want to paint my portrait too Rembrand
t's
first multi- portrait painting was the taste of the night watch to come and it Reveals His
swelling ego for the first time he simply signed himself rembrand audaciously assuming
the same one-name celebrity label as Leonardo Michelangelo or Raphael he saw himself as the
rising hero of the Amsterdam art scene what rembrand wanted now was a lifestyle to match
in 1634 he married the love of his life Sask van anenberg and the Glamorous young couple
threw themselves into enjoying Rembrandt's
Good Fortune they enjoyed life they went out
they spent they lived a very lavish lifestyle rembrand was very confident he was spending
lots of money he was quite flash he was very pleased that he was earning this money and saw
that this was not going to end so he could just spend it as it came he was living the High Life
fancy clothes luxurious meals rembrand it seemed could shell out for anything his heart desired
including this princely three story townhouse in the most sought-after area
of the city now
a popular Amsterdam Museum Dr lvi dkuk is its director rembrand bought this house in 1639 and
by that time he was the most famous artist in Amsterdam and he was very wealthy it cost 13,000
gilders which was a fortune in that time and this was the most opulent in large house in the whole
street Rembrandt's spending however didn't stop here every time he finished painting he'd pick
up his wallet and head out shopping filling his new house with curious purchases this room is
Rembrandt's art cabinet K cabinet in Dutch and this is where he shows his ambition he shows his
extreme drive and his Fascination for beautiful objects he was something of a spendaholic and
his tastes were quite eclectic so he buys things like armor Venetian glass seashells stuffed
animals and bits of coral we don't know how much he spent it must have been a fortune and
in in his new mansion there was one room that was more important than any other now this was of
course the largest room in
the house this is the Grand Studio the light is fantastic it's Northern
Light and it would have reflected beautifully into the studio and of course light dark and light
chos scuro very important in Rembrandt's work the high creativity of the master painter needed
to be matched with the B basic haggling business of funding his lifestyle to sell himself and win
the big commissions rembrand needed to look the part this is the grand entrance hall we call it
the V house the front house it would
have been the grand entrance next to the street and these
were sort of the public areas where visitors were allowed in and where rbrand showed the opulence
of his household but also his success as a painter and it would have been really set too impress it
would have helped close deals on paintings it's most likely to have been here that in 1640 after
almost a decade working in Amsterdam rembrand was approached for his biggest commission yet the
night watch so the night watch was commission
ed uh by the cleners Dolan which was the headquarter
of the Civic militia and they commissioned it for that great hall the Civic militia were close-knit
groups of Citizen soldiers a kind of Dad's Army standing by to protect their communities from a
Spanish attack and the way their portraits were captured was a tradition unique to the 17th
century for years they' been painted by the most established artists of the day in a similar
style the men dressed up in their finest clothes arranged in
a simple line like a school photo
or a bizarre bus queue but in 1640 when the group from District 2 decided to commission their
portrait rather than go with a reliable regular they turned to Amsterdam's edgy celebrity even
though rembrand had never tackled anything like this before Carla oar is an expert in art history
they were vain men they wanted the portraits to be done by a famous Portrait Painter remant in
those days was really like a superstar so they were commissioning their group p
ortrait with
him because they wanted to have their portrait done by a famous artist the company leader Brash
enough to put his portrait into the hands of the radical young rembrand was pink-faced red-haired
Captain France Banning [ __ ] it's a name I think every Dutch person knows because he is the main
character in the night watch the head of of the Civic migia group he was in charge as tradition
decreed Banning [ __ ] would have wanted his expensive commission to capture his men as war
h
eroes even if the reality was somewhat different originally um they were defending the city in
times of War so in that period the war against Spain but when remand was doing the night watch
the Spanish troops were gone my opinion they were not real soldiers anymore there was a sense
of nostalgia the Dutch people were were very respectful towards them and grateful towards
them for what they had done in the past but what was there left for them to do they were in
general Rich important people
we know about them as old boys network a sort of rotary club or Lions
Club they were quite well known because of their well get gings in which they were drinking and
eating maybe gambling and giving each other good positions within the society they may have done
more networking and drinking than fighting but the importance of the militia was still deeply
ingrained in their communities and their minds this was a young country which had just freed
itself from the Spanish Empire by fighting b
ut rembrand couldn't bring himself to copy what
had come before him even if radical re invention would add extra difficulty to an already tricky
brief you have to paint anywhere between 10 and 20 guys but that makes for a really boring
composition if you have to just to line them up so the challenge for the artist really was to
turn this into an interesting composition where you have the impression that they maybe interact
with each other that they talk to each other but they also all have
to look at the viewer in
order to be recognized so it seems like an almost impossible task this was why most artists
responded with a traditional simple Arrangement even then there were added complications they
paid for their individual portraits so the more money you were paying the be best position you
could get the cheapest option would be at the sides of the painting in profile maybe just
your your head or or a bit of your eye and the most expensive would be your whole figure
doing som
ething Majestic doing something very dramatic with the night watch rembrand was
juggling 18 different figures and Egos and the position of his subjects wasn't his only
challenge because this work was not intended to Stand Alone six other Dutch artists had also
been commissioned to make major group portraits for the same room and by the time rembrand started
painting four had already been finished they had all played by the rules this was entirely
competent bus Q painting and therefore for t
he ever ambitious rembrand more than a little
boring and so the artist who based his entire career on being different decided to create an
entirely new type of militia portrait when it was finally unveiled the night watch would indeed be a
painting completely unlike any of its predecessors in 1640 rembrand began work on a painting
that would come to Define him the night watch this was the only Civic militia
portrait he would ever produce but true to form rembrand scrapped convention instead
taking the biggest risk of his career what Rembrant did which was very different was to
place his figures as if they're in an actual battle it actually looks like they're about to
go to war and he constructs a narrative around them he presents what is a portrait more like
a history painting that had never been done before and was completely gamechanging this
was amazing this was like watching a movie and because the figures are life siiz you
really feel as you've got to get out the way cu
z they they're going to come towards
you and you're in danger you're in the way he has created a very unusual and risky
composition throwing aside all the usual rules about lining people up so that he
can achieve the illusion of this militia company literally marching out of the wall
off the canvas and towards the viewer and to do that he has made some very strange decisions
about the lighting most other artists lit their civic guard portraits pretty simply a bright
overhead air but now re
mbrand tried something very different shadows shrouded much of the
canvas and instead he picked out his main characters almost as if with spotlights if
you look just here for example you can see the light Illuminating cock's outstretched hand
casting a shadow which cuts across the Amsterdam coat of arms embroidered on his Lieutenant's
jacket spit like a theater director or a film director's lighting and that gives the picture
a dynamism that rembrand can't have been sure when he started it
would actually achieve the
whole painting is a performance and rembrand has even provided his own soundtrack
a musket goes off behind the captain there's the ratatatat of a drum a dog seems
to bark it's a cacophony of noise action and movement and here is the final almost ludicrous risk that
rembrand is taking with his picture this is a militia These Are wouldbe Soldiers they are men
who want to be remembered as soldiers dangerous men except that this must be the least dangerous
least leth
al least threatening group of so-called wouldbe soldiers in the history of art they are
ridiculous once fir his gun by mistake all their weapons are pointing in different directions and
their mascot girl is laughing at them rembrand is telling a story but it's not the story that
militia expect it is an entirely different story and it was one he had to tell carefully
in order to tread a fine line between honor and insult this was a far from straightforward
painting to complete and for nearly
2 years rembrand worked on the canvas relentlessly in July
1642 the night watch was finally finished and with great expectation installed in the militia group's
Guild Hall I think it's fair to say they were in for a surprise it wasn't what they expected at
all you know they didn't know how to react to this drama um are they meant to laugh at it are
they meant to be a gasted it are they meant to be in awe of the fact that every one of those
people is captured through the expression and the
personality and The Stance I think some of
the sitters in the picture were quite unhappy about how they were shown because they did not get
the prominence that they had expected but it must have been admired because it was immediately put
on the wall rembrand was paid for it in full and the head of the Civic guard had several copies
made for himself to have in his own home and to give to friends the Night Watch watch may
have been unveiled to a mixed reception but no one could deny that thi
s was daring unique
bold rembrand had taken a huge Gamble and he' created something extraordinary everyone could
see that but now just as rembrand triumphed artistically disaster befell him at home as
his beloved saskia died rembrand really loved his wife saskia that was a period of great
Melancholy for rembrand he was devastated when she died Commercial Success seemed to
mean so much less without saskia to share it a year before she'd given birth to the couple's
only surviving child a boy
they had named Titus and now rembrand faced raising his son alone
but his time of disaster wasn't over after the night watch which really represents
the peak of his career rbr's career goes into something of a decline in the decade
that follows his commissions significantly decrease public taste changed people wanted a
little less brown something more fashionable something more frivolous what they considered
to be lighter brighter paintings and I think REM Branch couldn't or didn't want to
keep
up for the first time in his working life rembrand was out of fashion out of commissions
and therefore pretty soon out of money rembrand continued to spend extravagantly even after his
fortunes were in a decline and eventually in 1652 his creditor said that's enough we're
calling in our debts and Rembrant couldn't cope eventually he had to sell his house and
possessions at auction and was forced into bankruptcy rembrand had to move from the big
house he'd bought with saskia in Amster
dam to a very rough part of town where he lived for
the last 13 years of his life the man who'd once been Amsterdam's richest painter now cowed in the
city's shadiest suburb it had only been a handful of years since he produced his Masterpiece but
his life was now unrecognizable it was a real fool From Grace in order to recover some of
his debts he's even forced to sell Sask his tomb In 1664 that must have caused him great
Melancholy and Trauma she was the love of his life Rembrandt's livel
ihood was hanging by a
thread and yet wrinkle by wrinkle failure by failure he magicked disaster into Triumph
the realism he' brought to Banning cock's men now applied to his own aging features
creating what are now seen as his most moving [Music] work even now worse was
still to come in 1668 Titus his son was killed by a plague there was
simply nothing left for rembrand he struggled on for one more year before
dying penniless and alone at the age of 63 he was so forgotten by the town that
had once loved him there wasn't even
an official notice of his [Music] death in spite of
the fame Rembrant achieved in his lifetime he was buried in a
popa's grave so this is an unmarked grave and it doesn't exist today you can't find
it All That Remains of his final resting place is a plaque erected in 1909 in the westerkerk
church acknowledging his forlon [Music] death it's frankly very moving to be here to reflect on
Rembrandt's own life all the hard work the years and years of toil th
e terrible disappointments
the struggles the disasters the bankruptcies and towards Ward the end of his life that sense
of a great Dark Cloud hanging over everything what would he have thought had he been able
to be here now and realize that his greatest and most complicated work is at the heart
of Amsterdam at the heart of the greatest Dutch Museum and in many ways at the heart of
the Dutch people but before the night watch could embark on its triumphant progress to Dutch
national icon it
would a little like its creator suffer its own humiliation 73 years after it
was first hung in the militia HQ the Colossal canvas was moved to Amsterdam's palacial town
hall now a palace Alice tuen is its curator of exhibitions so this is the room where the
night watch was hung in 1715 when it was taken from the clo doua uh to here this was
the office of the colonels of the great war council but in bringing the night watch to
its new home the officials faced a rather tricky problem the nig
ht watch was placed
in between those two doors behind me the problem was though that the space between the
doors was too small so they took the pragmatic route and um cut it down on all sides in what
must be one of the most brutal truncations in art history Rembrandt's glorious Night
Watch was chopped down to fit its new h home we know what was lost on the night watch uh
because of a small scale copy made by ked lundon the portions that were taken off were actually
essential to understand
the painting so what we see on the copy is that the guard company is
passing through a City Gate and over a bridge over Canal so that makes it very logical that
all the people are moving so they cut off about 2 ft from the left which took off a couple of
people and it cut off an area at the top which meant that all the wonderful perspective and the
archway and the rods and the banners that was all not as intended we have no idea what happened
to the pieces that they cut off they cut those p
ieces off because they thought they weren't
that important so um in all probability they just threw them out we have no idea maybe they'll
turn up sometime by the end of the 18th century rembrand was long dead and forgotten his remains
lost in a pora's grave his most important work butchered to fit its space in a gloomy Council
chamber it seemed this masterpiece must surely be consigned to history and yet there's an
extraordinary twist to the story still to [Music] come by the turn of the 1
9th century
Rembrandt's night watch the work he'd been most proud of the one he produced right at
the peak of his extraordinary career was hanging in an outof theeway Council
chamber a fraction of its original size but this all but forgotten Masterpiece
had not reached the end of the road just yet now among many other things rembrand was a
Storyteller and I think he would have been delighted that his greatest painting his most
complicated painting is not only valued around the world for it
s own qualities but also for the
extraordinary and frankly bizarre story behind it and the next chapter of this
canvas's tale begins 300 miles from Amsterdam in the world's
artistic Capital at the time Paris by the later 19th century a new
artistic movement was gripping the French the Impressionists a radical group of then Young
avangard Artists painting real life as they saw it they much preferred Rembrandt's work to the
cold academic traditions of their own City they loved the rich warmt
h of his Shadows the immediacy
and the realism of his sitters this new wave of painters felt a kinship with the Old Dutch Master
there's a real re-appreciation of rembrand and I think people like the Romantic wild side of
rembrand you know especially those late Works where he's really painting with very thick paint
what was once out of fashion becomes more loved certainly his Humanity in the pictures his talent
for getting through the surface to something deeper in the sitter and his compos
itions the
lighting and so forth has certainly impressed and influenced many artists van do called him a
magician writing rembrand says things for which there are no words in any language and as his
status and influence soared around the world the Dutch too began to notice the prodigal son was
at long last welcomed home he was rediscovered if you like and then became a national icon as the
archetype of dutchness he became the national hero and as rembrand came back in Vogue so too did
his
most patriotic painting a reminder of the days when the Dutch had fought an Empire to find their
citizens Republic in 1885 Amsterdam's brand new Reich Museum prepared to open to the public the
night watch was top of the curators priority list and they had a much more radical solution than
their 18th century counterparts about how to fit this enormous canvas to the wall they decided to
build it a whole new wing of its own this Gallery was specifically built for the night watch um
you know th
is kind of what resembles a church interior it's a gallery of honor and you walk in
a ceremonial way up to the high point which any normal Church be the altar at the end of the onad
is then The Great Masterpiece which is the night watch Rembrandt's Masterpiece was no longer just
being displayed it was being [Music] worshipped resting in the very heart of the new National
Gallery this painting was now a National [Music] Treasure rembrand painted the night watch
to to raise pride in anyone wh
o looks at it civic pride to be proud of your town proud of
your country and centuries later it still does that it does exactly that for Amsterdam and for
the rest of the Netherlands that painting is so loved by the Dutch because it's part of their
history and it shows you know we're heroes and we're here to protect and we're dashing and
we're frivolous and we're actionpack we're superheroes Night Watch Mania has has gripped
the Dutch Nation ever since nowadays Rembrandt's canvas is visited
by more than 2 million people
every single year it's so loved that when the Rees Museum reopened after Major refurbishment
Works in 2013 the painting was welcomed back on display with enormous Fanfare people go wild
the paintings paraded through the streets of Amsterdam there's tremendous Celebration The Night
Watch is transported in this huge wooden crate and there's children there waving flags and people
are throwing flowers and it's almost like the World Cup final footballers have arriv
ed home
and the extraordinary tributes to this beloved canvas haven't stopped there to Mark the Museum's
reopening this group of actors in southern Holland brought the night watch to a shopping center in a
way that would surely have made rembrand chuckle [Music] It's A Love Affair that shows no sign of abating it tells a story um in a way that no other painting has ever done it
tells a fragment of history with action it's crazy that a painting in the 21st
century is treated with such adorat
ion but this is such an iconic painting and REM bran is such
a symbol of Holland and Amsterdam that it holds a place like no other work can a national icon
absolutely but for me it's so much more the night watch is a painting about perfectly ordinary
people standing up to tyranny and that's a theme that can speak for everyone this is a picture
which comes out of the Dutch experience but it's not for the Dutch it's for everybody because what
does it show it shows a group of very human humans
strutting ridiculous absurd they are silly as I am
silly as you are silly but they're coming together for a common purpose they're all doing their
own thing in this picture but it shows the just before they do one single thing marching out into
the light together this shows what happens when a free people come together for the common good
it is therefore the greatest Republican painting ever made a great painting of democracy and
ultimately of Tolerance it shows what happens at that very m
oment when we stop doing our own little
self-absorbed selfish things and come together to do one big thing all together and at that moment
the encroaching dark which seems so scary which surrounds them and surrounds every one of us
suddenly doesn't seem quite so frightening after [Music] all next time T britan's most popular and
most haunting canvas this is not a pretty story it's a young woman's suicide
by Drowning a painting in which life mirrored art the fact that Lizzy Sidle did
suffer
whilst posing did inject that extra sense of realism and that even inspired
a grave robbing he claimed that her hair had grown so much it filled the whole
coffin the remarkable story of mil's opilia [Music]
Comments
Ordinary people standing up to tyranny. Love his take on that.