National Gallery

(bells ringing) (floor polisher whirring) (whirring stops) (people chatting)

WOMAN

We know, but I think it's worthwhile trying to remember that the Middle Ages were religious, profoundly religious in a way that we can't really conceive nowadays. I want you now to imagine, if you can, that you are inside that church, which you see as a model, and into which this altar piece was once placed. So no big windows, obviously no electric light but a space like this with very narrow windows, the light would be filtering in. You're not in the National Gallery; you're inside that church.

Low light, maybe the sound of chanting, maybe the sound of prayers being spoken slowly, the smell of incense used to carry up the prayers of the faithful to the heavenly realm. And if you will now just imagine that you are looking at this painting by the light of candles, candles which flicker, candles which would shine against the gold. And you might think... Because remember, you can't read.

You can't write. The year is 1377. Your houses are too hot in summer, too cold in winter. Death is part of the frailty of everyday life.

People are dying all the time. You might think to yourself, "If I'm good, "I can perhaps get up to the kingdom everlasting, where all is good, great, and golden." And I think another thing might also happen. By the flickering candlelight, you might think that these figures were moving. If they were moving, they were real and could hear your prayer and intercede for you with Christ and the Virgin in Heaven.

So the painting would be acting as a sacramental channel from earth to heaven. And, in a sense, that's how this painting worked. I don't mean to make this sound as crude, perhaps, as I am, but if you will for a moment just imagine that I brought from my pocket a picture of a sweet, grey, fluffy kitten, and I pinned it here, and I said, "Here are the dots. Aim for the eyes of the grey fluffy kitten." It's just a bit of paper, but in some way you feel that you might, in a peculiar way you can't quite explain, be hurting some fluffy kitten somehow, somewhere.

So I'm not suggesting to you that in the year 1377 or anytime onwards, people felt, "Oh, they're moving. They're real, they can hear me." But with the same kind of grey fluffy kitten analogy, I am suggesting to you that there is a very strong attachment between representation and the thing itself. So we're now in the National Gallery having a look quite quietly, thinking about aesthetics and gold and colors made from ground pigment. But what we must remember is how this was originally intended to be seen.

So I've tried to sort of pool together my first thoughts, and I don't mean this to be a criticism... I'm quite keen on criticism. No, I'm just trying to be very open here. And I think what comes out of it is that as an organization-- I suppose that's probably a bit why I'm here-- our public voice is quite weakly represented when we have forums together and we're talking about things.

And I kind of tried to chunk this up this morning of how does that manifest itself? One is it just quite simply, I still find it quite amazing that we don't kind of really talk much about the public and the visitors. But actually, I don't think that when it comes to a lot of what we talk about in some of our meetings that actually are talking about communications out to the public, we're not necessarily focusing on those 5.2 million people and their needs as much as I think we could be and should be. It would be good to think that we could foster a culture where we focus a little bit more on what are our public needs and how we're meeting them.

Yes. And I was thinking, my next little diagram--

this was all 3

00 in the morning rites of consciousness sorts of stuff-- I was thinking, if we are at the National Gallery... And we were talking about old masters at our heart, and we are a number of things. We're conservation, research, preservation, heritage, all around the collection, an educational bit. We are also a visitor attraction.

I know that word's horrid, but we are also that. And if our mission is to make our old masters more central to modern cultural life, then I think there needs to be more of that dialogue around the audience as the center as well. Still having art at the center, but it's like another bubble that comes off where we're looking at those audience needs, and the conversations will talk about, you know, how people react to us emotionally in terms of their pleasure, in terms of intellectualism, in terms of the academic side, in terms of self-development spiritually. And those kind of conversations can then help inform the sort of decision making that we're doing in meetings like that tissue meeting yesterday.

And I thought that meeting yesterday was fantastic, and I think the outcome was absolutely right. But I think going forward, it would be good if we could have more conversation about the audience, what their needs are, and what our communications need to reflect going forward. Alongside, you know, what we want to say about the art, we also need to be thinking the end person that's going to see our communications. Yeah.

What are their needs? And I found some of the meetings that we have, particularly the sort of, you know, very large meetings where perhaps a curator is standing up and talking about a subject is fantastic, but there needs to be the other dialogue that goes on that then carries it on so we're not just seeing it from what's our perspective, but what's the perspective of the people that are actually going to see what we're trying to show them, as it were, through our exhibitions and marketing and stuff. So my hope-- and this is, you know, if there's this opportunity to talk about one's vision going forward with the trustees in June-- my hope is that we can make that dialogue more central to what we're doing at exec and in some of our exhibition meetings. And on my side, I'm trying to imbue, you know, the marketing and PR side with more of that stepping back and actually looking at things from the audience point of view.

So it's a question of balance. I'm trying to get perhaps a more balanced view, where our process enable us to look at the end users' needs sort of thing, alongside the curatorial needs. Well, I understand all this. I'd like to have some examples of where you felt we'd failed because we haven't, um...

done this. A lot of what we do is absolutely beautiful in terms of exhibitions, lovely when it comes to marketing, beautiful imagery, absolutely gorgeous high quality. But I think because we're sometimes not going through that process of thinking of it from the audience perspective, is we sometimes don't do what we crudely call in marketing a sort of call to action. We don't say, "This is the reason why you must come see it." Now, with something like Leonardo, it does it itself.

It just does it itself. Yeah, and you could argue we could have done less. No, no, so Leo isn't a good example. You've just got to put up that beautiful picture and everybody wants to come see it.

But other things, we need to actually make them come alive in a different way because people don't get it immediately. They don't understand, you know, what we offer. And it's part of that conversation we had a few days ago about what does the National Gallery represent? When you look at the research that we've done recently, people loved the National Gallery when they get here and they understand it, but to the average person on the street, as it were, they don't quite understand what we are and what we've got.

The fact that we've got these amazing paintings, they don't kind of get it, because we're quite discreet in how we tell them that. And I do have some prejudices to overcome. What I don't want is to end up with the Gallery producing things to the lowest common denominator of public taste. But I don't even want the kind of average...

I mean, I'd rather have spectacular success followed by, um... some sort of really interesting failure than have kind of average. But I'm quite in favor of those things going up and down. Okay, thanks.

WOMAN

I'm going to try something a little bit new today, which is because the painting is slight... is sort of rather more abstract than most of the ones we talk about. So we're going to have a bit of a go with some touch drawings. I sort of made a very sort of simple sketch of the main structures of the picture and then put it through this very exciting machine that heats it up, and then it all goes furry.

I don't know whether it's going to work for you, but I just thought it was worth a try, and that it might help some people get the overall structure of the picture, which is not a narrative painting or a painting with great detail. So the sort of abstract shapes within it are quite useful to sort of get a sense of. And then we'll move on to a normal reproduction as well. I'll pass those around.

Raised image here. Professor Witzig, I'll be back in a minute. A raised image here. So today, we're talking about Camille Pizarro's Boulevard Montmartre at Night.

It was made in 1897, so just over 100 years ago. Certainly the viewpoint he takes, which is a viewpoint from a hotel window high above, an aerial viewpoint of these streets adds to this sense of someone who's a little bit distant, whereas his colleagues would have a viewpoint like that but includes somehow a sense of themselves, even if it was just a bit of balcony or whatever. He... you get no sense of the window frame, no sense of his presence, and the whole thing is viewed, you know, at a distance.

And the particular painting we're looking at, though it was one of a whole series of 14 of the Boulevard Montmartre, he went for these big campaigns, painting a lot of pictures at once, trying to capture the changing light effect, so he might have several paintings on the go. But this is an exceptional one because it's the only nighttime one. His work's always a little bit dappled, you might say, and full of little brush strokes. But in this one, nothing is very clear because it's dark, and it's been raining, and all the sort of things that can be seen are sort of merged together in this great sort of watery pool of color, light, and shape.

What we're thinking about is the general structure of the picture, and we're thinking about it a bit like a flag. So you're seeing an aerial view of a street scene. At the front of the picture is an upside-down V going in towards the middle, so it's a flag divided into four triangles. The bottom upside-down V triangle is the street, so it's basically a great whoosh of space leading towards the point where all the triangles converge, which is exactly halfway down the picture, and then the right-hand side is a V with its apex meeting the disappearing point.

And then the left-hand side is a triangle on its left hand side. And then the top is a real V, and that, of course, represents the sky. Take both your hands and put them sort of at the top of the picture, and then come down a bit. If you go from the top corners and then down a little bit.

And then you move your hands inwards and downwards, following the diagonals. Can you feel the tops of the buildings? I've only put the main sort of forms in, and above that is an empty space, which is a beautiful, deep, soft, smoky, dark, blue-y mauve that dominates the painting. So that's the sky.

Take that line of the tops of the buildings and go to where the two lines meet. Do you see that they meet at a sort of bubble where the lines converge? Yes? So that's the sort of disappearing point, and he punctuates that with a tiny little dot of light.

So overall, it's a really dark picture. It's almost like a sort of semi-transparent curtain has been drawn over the whole scene, and it's very much nighttime, and yet it's punctuated all over the place by these flares of light. And they sort of emphasize the structure and give a sense of excitement of this sort of city scene, which is a great characteristic of this picture. So not surprisingly, the furthest light of a great line of streetlights, the furthest light is at the point where all these triangles converge.

It's almost like a sort of great symphony to light and darkness there. And there are all these people out there on the street. I've read people were trying to make something of this being something to do with his anarchism as well. Certainly in the paintings where you can see more clearly, the daylight pictures, he does make...

he does ensure that he defines the different people and their different social class. So you see people with top hats, you see people who are selling things, you know, you see all sorts. In this picture, you don't get that because it's all so ill-defined. But he is unlike many of his colleagues in that he does show all strata of society.

(woman talking, child babbling)

MAN

If you keep looking around you, always look around. Be careful, though. Let's go nice and slowly. Don't run.

I don't want you to fall over. It doesn't have a magic carpet next to it, but it is the painting. Please, have a seat. So this is the story of Moses.

It's a story about how a little baby boy is sent down the river and then picked up again, given to the princess, who gives it back to the mother, and he grows up to be an amazing and fantastic person. Now, if you like the story of Moses, you might like to see more stories about Moses. And there are lots of other stories about Moses in the National Gallery. But if you think to yourself, "You know, I've had it up to here with Moses, I'm sick of Moses, I want to see somebody else," there's lots of other stories that you might want to learn about in the National Gallery.

There are people writing. There are people eating and being surprised. There are people... you might not believe this, but there's an old man over there who's being fed by ravens.

There's a raven, little black bird, that's giving him his food. All these amazing stories in National Gallery paintings for you to see. This is a portrait which was commissioned by Henry to fulfill another one of his demands, really, to, as I say, to sort of almost meet Christina by proxy through the medium of the portrait so that he could decide whether he wanted to marry her. So Holbein is dispatched to Brussels in March 1538.

This is following the death of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, and Henry is sort of desperately trying to identify a suitable fourth wife. Holbein arrives-- Hans Holbein, sent by the King of England-- to paint a portrait on the understanding that if it satisfies the king, she's then going to go over to London and become the queen of England. Henry is said to have fallen in love with it and to have been very, very keen to arrange the marriage. But that doesn't happen.

There's an anecdotal statement-- we don't know whether this is true-- that Christina herself said to the English envoy, "If I had two heads, one should be at the disposal of the King of England." So it seems that she herself had a sense that this wouldn't necessarily be a good match for her, and ultimately Henry gave up. This is a very sort of simple picture in its composition. The sort of frontal pose is very deliberate here, so that Henry could actually sort of see exactly what she looked like, no sort of profile view hiding any blemishes or imperfections. But the use of light across the features, again, is very, very subtle and carefully modulated so that there's a hint of an expression, there's a hint of animation in her features.

She seems to be ever so subtly sort of wryly observing the artist as she observes him, and I always feel looking at this painting, this portrait, that this really is a young woman fully in possession of her faculties, very intelligent, squarely facing the world and ready for anything that the world might throw at her. So I'll stop there and say thank you very much and goodbye.

WOMAN

How did Leonardo da Vinci start off with a blank panel and a palette of oil paints and create a painting of such sublime beauty? If you just look at that flower in the corner there, how did that happen? It's this wonderful mixture of observation and imagination. What was in the artist's...

What was Velazquez's intention on painting Venus with her back to us, but with that bewitching look in the mirror? And how did Stubbs achieve such an anatomically accurate representation of the horse? This painting is huge, so physically, there must have been great challenges in painting it, but artistically, look at the detail. Look at the observation that the artist was able to represent.

And what was in van Gogh's mind when he painted this glorious vase of sunflowers with its brilliant use of color to convey mood? Just look at the number of colors that are in this painting. It's really yellow and green, but with this amazing blue stripe through it and a blue frame to the vase. And how does that use of blue, juxtaposed against that great splurge of yellow, represent something in the artist's mind?

All of it really is about looking and about reflecting and about learning ways to decode paintings and understand what the artist's intention was. And however you look at a painting, whether it's through a very art historical perspective or whether it's through looking at its history and how it came to be at the Gallery or whether it's through looking at color or form or composition, this gallery provides you with wonderful opportunities to explore the human condition. And we hope with Take One Picture that it's not just about knowledge and learning. That's one half of it.

The other half of it is finding your own creative response to the paintings, finding ways in which these paintings have a relevance to you today. And I think many of you will go back into your schools and find a whole myriad of ways to give your pupils the chance to do this very same exploration.

MAN

It's nice to see it up here. I think that you should make a proposal. That it be cleaned. Well, that's...

Just state that it would benefit from a good cleaning and restoration. I'm bothered by all the retouching. Up here, I'm bothered by all the retouching, evident retouching in the mantle of the Madonna, the blue, but which is not nearly so, but I do see that. Her mouth is so...

And also, is this a retouching, or is it crazed varnish? Crazed varnish. That's just crazed varnish. Similar to here, around her mouth.

Actually, look, that's grand, that sort of honey color. Notice he's dragged a lot of color across, and there's an orangey bit in there. That's grand. Yes.

Not retouching. No. (indistinct chatter)

WOMAN

This is a story of Samson and Delilah, Old Testament story in which we are told how the Philistines want to bring down the power of the Israelites, and in particular, to break Samson. So they're going to advance their secret weapon, Delilah, and have her seduce Samson so that they can destroy the Israelites. So, in a sense, you've got a spy story. You've got the beautiful spy going off to sleep with the enemy.

And in the biblical account, we're told how time after time, she goes to his campaign tent all decked up and looking gorgeous, trying to find out where his strength lies. Time after time after time, he lies. But his desire for her becomes so great that bit by bit, visit after visit, he finally tells her. I want all of you to imagine that you are a spy, and that you have been sent by your people, your tribe, your nation, to be very nice and get secrets out of the enemy.

So first of all, the enemy is the enemy. But after you've had a drink or two, a meal, chat with the enemy and pretended to love the enemy, you are beginning to feel differently towards the enemy. And what has been pretended might become real. It messes with your mind.

And I think Rubens, who is this painter of great psychological import, has realized what's going on in the mind of Delilah. She has pretended to, and perhaps eventually come to feel, love. And she has finally slept with Samson. He has fallen asleep.

This can happen. (light laughter) And she knows that this consummation of his desire is going to lead directly to his death. The Philistines are emerging through the open door there, flames shining, reflecting on their armor. We've got this kind of hermetic sealant of curtain, purple, rich purple curtain hanging, the rich scarlet of her dress, the gold of her cloak making this hot and rich.

Various light sources are adding to this, plus the covert haircut. The candle is being held by this old woman, and very carefully, the barber is making his first incision. We're not looking at a Delilah triumphant. She's not going, "Yes, gotcha," is she?

She's looking ambiguous. She is bending tenderly over him with perhaps a look of dismay. I'm not going to tell you what you think she's feeling. We'll all read it differently.

But her body is leaning away. On the one hand, literally on the left hand, there's a tender gesture of hand on back, but the other hand is away from him. It really is on the one hand and on the other. She has, over the time that she has been trying to seduce Samson, as any human being would, gone through a series of mental transformations.

It must be very distressing now to realize that the man that she has just had these relations with is now going to die directly as a consequence of her actions. She has-- and I'm hesitating to use this word-- she has betrayed him. But then she must think to herself, "But no, I was working for my country. To have done otherwise would have been to betray my country." It's about betrayal.

It's about notions of one's tribe or people, and about what perhaps might be happening in the mind of anyone put into this kind of position. But imagine, if you will, now going into the house of the burgermeister and seeing this above his fireplace. And there you would be with the burgermeister with a rather large painting behind you of Delilah with her breasts uncovered. What would you say?

You have to view paintings, or narrative paintings, as early films and as forms of entertainment. So the artist has to decide at what point in the story are they going... is he or she going to focus on? So again, when you come to your work, when you've had all your different ideas, you have to sift through which moment, what point, what's the climax, what to you is the most important thing that you can communicate, and how can you interpret that form of encounters, experiences, or chance meetings the best?

Paintings are very, very ambiguous. You can look at them in one way, you can interpret them in another. And as your experiences change-- and I know because I come in here every day-- paintings change, and how you look at them changes as well.

MAN

Can we get straight on to the proposed sport relief? I don't see that the use of the portico for various purposes is much different from the idea of projecting things onto the front of the Gallery, which we've always resolutely objected to on the grounds that it's an opportunity for us, if we're doing something for the Gallery. I mean, there are various ways of looking at it, but I think that the right decision was that we should not have people projecting things using our faade as a billboard, if you like, when it diminishes the impact of any occasion where we wish to do it. But it also just looks as if we're up for sale, you know?

I mean, frankly. I mean, I know there's an alternative way of looking at it, which is that one gains publicity for the Gallery. But does it actually get the right type of publicity, the right type of recognition? This is the interesting question.

I'm inclined to say no, because obviously a very worthy charity, but is it more worthy than 100 other charities?

WOMAN

One of the things that we need to balance it, again, is the profile aspect of it. It's an opportunity for us potentially to take a little bit more involvement, if you like, in something that has the potential to be broadcast to 18 million viewers. And I think that's the balance, isn't it? You know, are we either happy not to align ourselves with these chosen charities, or do we think it's going to happen anyway?

Should we perhaps try and take a bit more ownership of it...

MAN

Sorry, what's going to happen anyway? Well, the event is going to happen anyway. We weren't consulted about whether we wanted something to obstruct the access to the National Gallery. We would never have said we want a marathon to end in front of the National Gallery, because a marathon, the end of a marathon involves people on either side, so you can't get into the National Gallery.

So someone else has made the decision we're a great place for the end of a marathon, and now it gets so we're told it's going to happen anyway. Well, I want to be involved in the decision as to whether the National Gallery is the right place for ending a marathon. And I'm not. Instead, someone else is making that decision, "We're going to end the marathon in front of the National Gallery," and then we're being told, "Well, since it's going to happen anyway, "no one's going to be able to get into the National Gallery, "can we in fact have a marvelous special opportunity "to show that, in fact, the National Gallery is all about sports relief?" That's my...

I mean, and also you say "chosen charities," but who's going to choose them? I mean, it's going to be a... I do have a hell of a lot of requests for using the National Gallery for charitable purposes. I mean, one problem with this of course is also that the whole question of a charity, which we are, using its services and everything for another charity, which the trustees are very concerned about, and you know, it's always been a worry of ours that, you know, when people have asked if they can have charitable events within the National Gallery, we've always...

WOMAN

We don't do that, but we appear in the backdrop with our banners, like it or not. And that's just part of London, that's part of our landmark. And so this race I imagine will end in Trafalgar Square, and I... You know, you can imagine the footage, the filming of an individual running up towards Trafalgar Square to the North Terrace.

We'll be in the backdrop. I just feel that the National Gallery closes a whole end of the square. All these events are going on, all these things are being planned without us being proper involved. And all we say is at the last minute, you know, "Well, it's going to happen anyway, so can we just use it?" Yeah, and I think we should use this, and Greg and I go back to Westminster and just use this as an example of things that they have to talk to us about and so we're much more joined up with them, because we need more notice than this.

So I think we should pick this up as an action point, if you support that. I totally do. And it would be a good example to be able to quote. I supported Julie when we first heard about this because I thought the exposure is fantastic, and it is very populist.

It actually gets us to 18 million people. And it's therefore a good association. And my only concern is that obviously, it is setting a precedent in terms of charities. So it does, you know, associate with charities to a degree.

And that was the only struggle I've had with this, of how to then actually say no to other organizations, whereas before, we could be very cut and dry on it. But outside of that, if we were able to get around that or felt that we could associate with it as a one-off and that we're not going to do this as a habit, I think it actually could be quite doable. I mean, I would have thought that at this relatively early stage, we'd be at a point where if we wanted to do it, we could work with them so they actually make it possible. So it's only a half hour shot of an interview, and maybe one can keep the portico open by having people directed through a different way.

I mean, I think if we believed in it, we could make it happen. And could you articulate what you think the National Gallery gets out of it? I think it's to associate... I think it's actually because we do appear rather on our pedestal, physically and literally.

It's actually a way to be there and seem to be part of common culture, and sport really has a massive following and is very much for the nation, as it were, and therefore it's associating with something that gives a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, is how I'd sort of rationalize it. But I do accept it is quite difficult in setting precedents with charities, and we do get many, many requests. I think what they're looking for is either a no or a yes, in principle. Whereas if the answer is yes in principle, then I or whoever can work to shape that, so that if we think then that we need to sort of get more out of it, if you like, we can be doing that, whether that's in terms of profile or actually financially as well.

MAN

Okay, what about Chinese New Year? Why shouldn't we be involved in that? I mean, would you say yes to Chinese New Year? Well, you don't have quite so much of a rationale in terms of profile, do you?

You know, it's a profile raising. It's different from other events that are happening simply because of the breadth of the reach you'd get. Well, that's one criterion, would be how many millions are going to be actually watching it?

WOMAN

I think it would be dangerous to suggest that we're going to be able to get a lot of coverage, per se. But on the other hand, if we feel that as per our corporate objectives, we want to be seen as more approachable in a very positive sense, it is one way of doing it for half an hour once a year. So, and if we said that's not something...

MAN

That's an interesting one, Jill, and half an hour every year, that's going to be one of our fences. Well, you know... No, no, seriously! We might say we would consider one thing a year that supports something that is loved by the nation and compatible and for everyone.

I mean, one could rationalize that. And then we'd decide if there wasn't an opportunity on certain years, we wouldn't do it. And we wouldn't do it if we believe it causes a lot of disruption to our public. But if there's something that's not going to, that we can work with sports relief to make it minimum disruption to our visitors.

Let's just talk about that for a bit, the disruption. Because we sat around this table, and we were all sure that we were going to work with Harry Potter to make it work. What actually happened was, in fact, the National Gallery was completely blocked and in as much as it wasn't blocked, people were just using the Sainsbury wing as a spectator point at the Gallery. I think the Gallery probably made the right decision about Harry Potter.

It was most unsatisfactory. But, in fact, none of the vulgarity we were talking about actually could be effectively implemented at the time. We're talking about a certain type of advertising. And when you see a football match on television and you see these huge signs, they're all about running shoes and things.

I mean, there's some sort of relationship. They're not about Goya and Picasso even. And so it seems to me the more disparity there is between the different types of public, which we have one thing and the other, the more it actually looks as if one's just short of cash. I mean, in other words, or is in desperate need of publicity.

I just don't know. I just don't see how it's seriously going to... The name "National Gallery" can be announced a lot, but what, in this context, would that do for us? What does that tell people about what the National Gallery really is?

Secondly, you've got to continue with these negotiations anyway. (footsteps)

WOMAN

One of the highlights of the Gallery, a painting that many people come along and see. At some point in 1533, these two men, meeting as they did, did what we might do were we to meet a fellow countryman in a foreign place. They had their picture taken. Clearly there's no handing camera to a passerby or a waiter.

The only way, until the advent of photography, to have an image is to have a painter paint you. They had money. They were wealthy. They could pay for the best painter living in England to capture their image.

And the top painter living and working in London in 1533 was the German painter Hans Holbein. And at some point, the three men-- Hans Holbein, Jean de Dinteville, Georges de Selve-- would have got together and discussed this composition. They're the ones telling the painter what to do. Probably Jean de Dinteville having the greatest say, because it was his painting.

He paid. It went back to his chateau in Polisy. And it could well be that Hans Holbein had no idea of the whole significance of everything he was being asked to make. I have a colleague who thinks this is all about a murder that took place.

And I look at it, and I see, but where, what? And he says, "I'm not telling you. You'll steal my idea and publish it." So none of us knows what it is. But all we have is what we can go on.

And there is the lute case, the box, the empty box, which perhaps reminds us of the coffin, of death, which is also alluded to here by this distorted skull. It's an example of anamorphosis. You look at it full on. From where you are, it's unreadable.

But from where you are, it reads as a skull. And we don't know whose idea it was. Did Holbein say, "Your Excellencies, "why not have an anamorphic skull? See, I have made one here." And they thought, "Oh, that's good." That will look really good back at the chateau at Polisy.

Or had one of these two men heard about it and said, "Master Holbein, can you fashion for us a cunning perspective?" We don't know. But all of you know that to put a skull, which is a symbol of death, into a portrait, is a strange and unusual thing, perhaps. Certain symbols, certain objects are multivalent. They carry manifold symbols, but not the skull.

The skull is always, is it not, a symbol of death. So perhaps the reading of this might be that death is ever present-- hiding, but ever present. You never know when it might occur. And, in fact, he didn't make old bones at all.

But perhaps carried within this was a message, which Jean de Dinteville could talk about when he showed anyone this painting in his house at Polisy.

Maybe the message was something like this

No matter how rich, young-- he was 29 or in his 29th year, he in his 25th year-- handsome, interested in and worried about the world you are, in the end it all comes down to the grim invincible, and the only thing to be considered in this world is salvation, represented by the almost hidden crucifix in the top left. (loud footsteps)

WOMAN

The brilliant thing about art, it encompasses everything. It's not just about either drawing or painting. It's about life. It's about music.

It's about film. It's about philosophy. It's about mathematics. It's about science.

It's about literature. Anything you are interested in goes into art. And that's why I became an artist. And that's what fascinates me.

It doesn't matter what you're interested in, it can all feed in. And I want to also talk about how we can use these paintings in the collection, because it might seem to you, "Hang on a minute. "We're looking at 17th century, 16th century, "19th century, what on earth use is that for us today in the 21st century?" Now, I don't make paintings. I do a lot of drawing, but I make installations.

So I make things that take over a room that people can interact with. And yet these paintings here give me a huge amount of inspiration, and I come in here almost every day. So I want them to do that for you. Now, I'm going to be sort of blunt about this, because it's important that you know this.

The collection is founded on slavery. John Julius Angerstein, who had the nucleus of the collection, worked for Lloyds, who were insurers against slave boats. And it's very important that people absolutely understand that the... a lot of the institutions-- whether you're talking Tate, whether you're talking British Museum-- a lot of these big institutions are founded from money, and it's something, obviously, that should never be forgotten and should always be understood.

And also Britain's very, very shameful part in that shouldn't, obviously, be forgotten either. Let's start first with Stubbs, the great horse painter. You look at this portrait of a horse, and it's hard to imagine that this is painted by someone that didn't really particularly train as an artist. He was largely self taught.

He established a career first as a portrait painter and as an anatomist. He studied anatomy at York Hospital and ended up actually drawing illustrations for a new book on midwifery. So he'd already established himself as an artist in one way. But then he set himself down for 18 months in a farmhouse.

This was in 1756, and devoted that time, a year and a half, to studying the anatomy of horses. He was close to a tannery that took the hides off of them, and they gave him the corpses of these horses. And he rigged up in this farmhouse a great iron bar and pulley systems, and he would put planks of wood underneath the horses' legs, so that he would suspend them literally from hooks on a ceiling, like a piece of meat, and then would start to go about drawing all of the muscles that he could see, and the tendons. And then he would scalpel away, lift away, another layer of muscles and draw what was underneath, until he eventually got to the skeleton.

And then he would animate that. He would draw and write notes. So this was big news, what Stubbs was doing. No photos, please, excuse me.

MAN

I'm very bad at maths. I was bad at maths at your age. I'm bad at maths at my age. And I will always be bad at maths, I think.

I'd like to change. And the reason why I like art rather than maths-- although they are connected somehow-- is that in art you can be right in lots of different ways, but in maths, you can only be right once, otherwise you're wrong. I do really like that about art. And one of the reasons why I wanted to show you this painting is to talk about saints and things, but it's to also talk about storytelling, because I think that's really, really important.

Think about the way that a painting-- whether it's this painting, this is by an artist called Bellini, or it's Diana and Actaeon, or it's Death of Actaeon, which you're going to be seeing, or it's Bacchus and Ariadne. A painting has got to tell its whole story in a single image. A book or a poem has time. The one thing that paintings don't have is time.

Do you know what I mean? So a film unfolds over two hours. You've got time to introduce characters. You've got time to show the plot going in and out.

A book, a huge book, can take you six months to read or longer, can't it? Can do, can do. That means you're living with the story for six months. And it goes in and out, it weaves around, new characters are introduced, different things happen.

That's got time, too. But a painting doesn't have time. A painting has the speed of light to tell you the story. It has the time it takes to see the painting.

So telling a story in a painting is incredibly skillful. So I want to think a little bit more, before we move on to Titian, which we will do soon, about how this artist tells the story. What else is in the painting? Can you think of a reason, because in the actual story, there's no woodcutters.

In the story there's just St. Peter Martyr and his assistant, who you can see there escaping, walking along alongside a wood near Milan in northern Italy, when they were set upon by assassins. One assassin killed St. Peter Martyr.

And as St. Peter Martyr was dying, he wrote "I believe" in blood on the ground. Now he's not doing it in this one. But there's another version of this scene at another gallery in London, a place called the Courtauld Gallery, where he is writing "I believe" in blood.

It's quite gruesome, isn't it? Quite a gruesome story, but quite moving as well. The other guy escapes. No mention of woodcutters.

Totally irrelevant. Why do you think he put them in? I mean, they take up so much space. The woodcutters and what they're involved with-- in other words, the wood-- take up most of the painting.

Why did he do that? Yeah? Maybe because it gives the painting a little more character? It definitely gives the painting more character.

It totally does. Think about this. A tragic event, perhaps made more tragic, if there are people around who don't recognize what's going on, who don't see it as a tragedy. I'm trying to think of an example.

I wonder if you-- you might know an example. I don't know. But it's something, it happens a lot in plays by Shakespeare, for example, that there are people who don't know what's happening, they go, "Oh, what's happening over there?" There's a lovely painting, which is not actually in this gallery, but it's a painting of the Fall of Icarus. Icarus is the one who made the wings.

You know the ones that made the wings of wax that flew too close to the sun? Fantastic painting where almost all of the painting is people not noticing what's going on, people out plowing the fields and doing lots of other things, while in the background he plunks into the ocean and dies. And there's a famous poem about that by Auden, which is a really good poem about how people don't really notice these things happening. I think these woodcutters are partly there to make it even more tragic, because they just keep going on and on and on.

WOMAN

It's amazing, isn't it, how it adds a sense of narrative as soon as there's an object, so you see about this pole, and you're seeing all sorts of paintings in the Gallery where there's sort of... sometimes there might be a sense of story woven into this pose. We can't help ourselves but add narrative when we're dealing with the human body. And if you want to include any elements from the room thinking about vertical lines behind, or horizontal lines?

Finding lines of connection. So try and-- so constantly looking at the relationship between the head and the shoulder girdle, between the shoulder girdle and the pelvis. Be brave and add that vertical line to contrast the curves of the body. And now that we're slowing down and really looking, so start to move more quickly around the body, making marks, and it's a continuous movement as you work around it with your eyes.

Leave a leg, move back to a shoulder. Go up to the top of the head, move very freely around so you get a sense of how this pose is working.

MAN

This hand should be big, because it's going to hide that forearm. Yeah, because it's the gap between it, the gap between the nipple and first knuckle of the hand. If you can sort of draw that gap, then you'll be seeing... So as you move...

It's that line there, right? That's that line. Oh, that's the line of the crease of her elbow. But I'm thinking about the actual bit of air between breast and fist.

Yeah, that space is in front of that. Yeah, so that it's trying to sort of measure that space, really, and place the hand so that it is like book ending, isn't it, the space in the middle. It makes sense. (chuckles) Easier said than done.

Yeah, got a hand in. I think I'm not sure I got the arm right. If you're wrestling with it, just draw it a few times on another piece of paper and then come back. Think about how you want to use your pencil to kind of work in cross hatching to build up tone.

You can start to smudge chalk, if you want to think about light and dark. If you're using the chalks, you might want to switch. If you're using the black chalk, maybe explore the red chalk as well, so you get the much softer mark with the red chalk. Black chalk's slightly more sort of bound together.

See if that changes the way that you draw. Just have another 30 seconds on this drawing. So if you're working your way around the figure, just see if you want to, in very brief strokes, complete this pose. (siren wailing) (indistinct chatter, laughter) (car honks) (telephone rings) (bird screeching is distance) (footsteps) Does that mean they'll be able to tell us?

No, she's gone to check and see how many they have left. (crowd murmuring) (crowd murmuring) (crowd murmuring) (indistinct chatter) Even while the exhibition's been open, have there been insights that you've been getting into the work of Leonardo? One of the things that you do as you start working on an exhibition is to think about what the whole narrative will be. But you're also cataloging each work individually.

So at a certain point it becomes a mosaic, perhaps, rather than a seamless narrative. And obviously that remains the case to some degree. But at the same time you are beginning to see these works together. You're beginning to be able to appreciate what makes them very special as a kind of viewing experience.

And I suppose what I've been struck about... I suppose what I've been struck by over and over again is this quality within these works, whereby the paintings show figures that are incredibly present, incredibly vital, and yet extraordinarily remote and other, as if they... and that's something that for me is very much a unifying factor. So I suppose what I've been doing is seeing the works together, thinking about what makes them a complete oeuvre by a single artist, what makes them Leonardo.

And it's really, I suppose, I've been struck over and over again by the quality of thought allied with a kind of pitch of emotion and an intensity of craft. And it's that, really, seeing the pictures together has made me understand about this extraordinary artist. And have there been any insights, anything you've learned that surprised you particularly since the work has been gathered here? What I've been amazed by is how profound and layered and endless the viewing experience is with Leonardo, how you always feel that this is an artist who goes on giving with each of the works.

And, in fact, one of the ways I think you can distinguish a Leonardo painting from one by a member of his workshop is this process of endless revelation, whereby it's almost as if sort of onion layers are being peeled away, and yet you never, ever quite get to the core. Leonardo's capacity to paint the invisible, the just out of reach, is really extraordinary. And that's been... that's been the revelation.

But it's not about, you know, who painted what, or anything of that kind. It's really about the personality of the artist. I think for what it's worth that it's this spiritual quality in Leonardo's work that has raised this exhibition to the event it's been, in the sense that it's not just about the name. It's about something to do with the way in which these pictures speak to people across time.

Leonardo created a kind of archive of drawings, and they're about invention, and they're about observation, and they're about looking and thinking and so on. And he kept some of those. And they go on being an extraordinary point of reference for each new stage. He's an artist who constantly refines, revisits certain themes over and over again.

And really, as I say, in doing that, each of these works becomes ever more considered, ever more felt as well. And that's the difference between him and his pupils. It's really in his, it's really in his... That's the difference between him and his pupils.

It's really in his pupils' work that you just don't see that. You can see motifs being repeated. You can see beautiful craft. But you don't see that exquisiteness of thought.

(indistinct chatter) Okay, great thanks. Great, thanks so much.

WOMAN

I've already taken some samples. I took a couple to look at the varnish, because as you can probably see with a bit different angle, there's a varnish layer, which shows up quite clearly. It doesn't come all the way to the edge. Okay.

There's a sort of drip of it that's running down here. It stops there, does it? Yeah. So I've taken some to look at the varnish.

And then my other samples mainly concentrate on this brown layer, which is the layer that seems to have contracted and pulled, and which has reticulated across the surface. What's interesting, I suppose, from my point of view, is how that layer relates to the paint below and how it sits on the surface, whether it's separated from the paint by anything in between, and if we can see a bit more about the layer in the cross section, whether it's got pigment in it. So those types of things would be very interesting about our sample, our cross section sample. So given this varnish there goes to the border, I think it would be perfectly all right.

We could take... To look at that border. You need a place where there's a damage, really. I'm sort of looking up there in a way, because although there's this large loss here, that may not actually have that layer reaching that point.

But up there, I think it probably does. Do you think we perhaps should... That might be worth looking at. And I think the corners all have damages and wear in the past from framing, problems that might be worth looking up there.

But for the complete sequence of layers, probably one's best confined to that part because, you know, as you say. So really, let's take a little look up at the top. Get the microscope. Because there are these damages here.

It could probably be quite safe taking some here.

MAN

As a preliminary, that's the thing we ought to look at, really. I think that should do it, actually. So that's a very tiny bit just from the edge. This will be on the side of the damage, and you can see it, actually.

It will make it a bit easier for me to do my analysis. (laughing): Right, okay, good. Fantastic, thanks very much. So I'm putting this note down where this comes from, I think.

I'll put it on this one. Okay. Okay, thanks. (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) Excuse me, is it possible to buy tickets...?

(indistinct answer) (beeping) That's okay. That's okay? Yeah, don't worry. (couple speaking foreign language) (crowd murmuring)

WOMAN

The main challenge that we're dealing with is that our income and what's available to us to spend is �3.2 million less next year than it was this year. So it's a significant reduction in what we have got available to us to spend. Now, of course, some of the income we had this year was exceptional from Leonardo, and our costs will go down as well next year. So we're spending less on exhibitions than we were this year.

We're also spending less on our capital program next year, so we're �1.5 million down, because we're spending a million less on the capital, and we're spending half a million less on exhibitions. Also this year we've been able to afford the compensation payments to a range of staff who have left, which was in the region of �700,000. So all of those costs won't appear again next year. But that still leaves us about a million short, and the way that we have managed to break even for next year is because of the savings we've made in staff costs.

So that has enabled us to present a balanced budget. So the work that we've done this year, we've changed the invigilation arrangements and in the posts that have reduced, has enabled us to balance this budget. And there's a little bit more detail about that later on in the paper, which I'll come to. One of the big risks that we face over the coming years is the likelihood of further cuts, which although I'm hopeful that won't be the case during 2012/'13, it's not impossible that there will be another spending review in 2012/'13, which will reduce our grant-in-aid still further in the following two years, '13/'14 and '14/'15, which can be by as much as five percent each year.

And that's just what they've told us about. So and things have worsened considerably since the spending review 18 months ago.

MAN

Are we being too cautious on that front? Is it so, you know, only at �1.7 million of new income, when the last couple of years they've gone way over that and way over our budget figures. Are we being too careful with that figure? It's best to be cautious, because there are things that we don't know about.

For example, I've only budgeted in here for one percent increase in staff costs on the basis of the autumn statement. Now, we don't know what the payrolls will actually be, and in recent years they've actually been, provided flexibility that puts us under pressure to actually pay more. So there are... and then there are uncertainties over energy costs, which can be very volatile.

And there's the possibility of further cuts. So I would prefer to budget cautiously and know that we may well come in in a better position, which will provide us with the opportunity to cover such eventualities if we need to. Last year, or this current year, we budgeted for �2.8 million, and as of December, you were at �4.9 million, not including �1.1 of campaign income. So you're at six altogether.

And now we're budgeting for �1.7 million, no one's going to really look that closely at this, but I mean, it looks like we're spending 53p for every pound we raise, and what we have in our budget, is our budget really realistic, then? It's cautious, but is it realistic when we're raising twice what we put in here, historically? This is reflecting what we would expect to bring in. You're right.

It's very cautious. But it enables us to balance a budget that has accommodated the costs that we consider to be reasonable to do what we want to do next year, and it provides us with some flexibility to cover eventualities that we can't predict, and also new projects that might come up during the course of the year. So we could include more income, but then we'd be including a much bigger contingency, which I'm not sure is a brilliant message.

WOMAN

Here is the decline of the Empire. Here something terrible has occurred. It's the end of Carthage, their overthrow by Rome. The men are all being taken off, prisoners to Rome.

The women are weeping for them. Here the sun is descending, I think, in the sky. It's a very dramatic sunset, with quite a lot of red in it. Turner himself referred to it as an ensanguined sunset, ensanguined sky.

And here these rough brush-- marks of the brush in a dark red. I think if you go into the exhibition, you'll see it is a dark brownie red, almost perhaps like encrusted blood. So this is a very dramatic view of empire. So here I think Turner really starts to detach himself from Claude in many ways, because these are not tranquil depictions of classical subjects.

These are reflections of history, and Turner was immensely interested in and influenced by history. He also wrote poetry on this subject. And he can't have avoided, of course, the events around the painting of these compositions in 1815, and this one in 1817. It was, of course, the very end of the Napoleonic Wars, the end of the Napoleonic Empire, and by contrast, the rise of the British Empire.

But Turner took a very long view of these things. He was interested in the rise and fall of empires over hundreds and thousands of years.

MAN

Do come in. So welcome. Now, you're looking at a picture of Frederick Rihel painted in 1663. It came into the National Gallery in 1960.

It had been quite obscured by lots of accumulated yellow varnishes. The picture was restored not that long ago, but the varnish that was used was very, very degraded. And what you're seeing now is a picture where I've done quite a lot of cleaning, and that means using solvents to reduce or remove discolored varnishes from the paint over most of the surface area. There is an area roughly corresponding to here where I haven't cleaned, not yet.

It's a little hard to see the differences, I suppose now, but I can tell you it looked much worse. No, I think the interesting thing about a yellow varnish, everyone understands that a yellow varnish makes, you know, shifts all the colors towards the warmer end of the spectrum. Blue becomes green, and I'd say a yellow film over a yellow color doesn't change it much at all. And so you might wonder about a picture like this, which is mostly warm colors-- you know, white, red, brown, yellow-- about the distortion.

I mean, there are two things I would point out that have changed quite a lot. And you can distinguish some quite important things that are going on in the picture, the differences between the yellow and white impasto was very typical of Rembrandt, was completely impossible to see. I mean, the sleeve and the sash were more or less the same color. But the other thing, I think, an important thing to think about, why we clean pictures that people often kind of underestimate, is the fact that varnishes not only change color, they often go a little bit foggy.

They develop a fine craquelure, and they scatter light. And it's really on a microscopic level, like looking at a shattered windscreen on a car. There's still a film there, but you can't really see through it, and that really changes the way you see the darker colors. So they become much lighter.

And so you can't see the distinctions that are in the painting between, say, quite dark, very dark and extremely dark. And that's really important with a picture like this, where there's so much going on that's about distinctions between brown and black, and really the illusion of depth and volume and spatial recession is the key gain I think from this picture. I think the kind of investigation I was saying before that we do as part of any restoration, even preliminary during the restoration, has shown some other interesting things about this painting, and I'm going to take my one visual aid here. We-- sorry about that-- sorry, we normally take-- do x-radiographs of pictures like this before we start restoration.

So here is a typical X-ray where you can see the denser pigments. The ones with the heavier atomic weights show up white. And luckily it just so happens that lead white, white pigment, is actually one of the heaviest pigments. So you can see the distribution of some of these things.

And it tells you very important information about how a picture is planned. For example, you know, the sky is sort of painted around the head. The head isn't on top of it, because you don't see that going through. And you learn all kinds of interesting things that are often very revealing about a particular painter's way of working, certain mannerisms of how he might handle impasto and all the rest.

But the fascinating thing about this picture, which many of you may have already worked out, is that if you turn it sideways, there's another picture. And this is very unusual for this kind of picture. Rembrandt did this a great deal, something like a quarter of his self-portraits are recycled and reused. But it's very unusual in the context of an important commission.

This is not painting for the marketplace. This picture was for a rather important client. So we can't be absolutely certain about this underlying painting. I think it's fair to say it's the same sort of body type and general characteristics as Frederick Rihel so you might say that he may have changed it in response to this event that happened, is one theory.

This in itself is quite a bold and very unusual composition. There are more or less no full length portraits after his experiences with the reception of The Night Watch. So that in itself is unusual. And to have this great empty space with what looked like trees and the rest coming through is quite fascinating.

But for whatever reason, of which we can't be certain, this picture, which is probably not entirely finished, but very far along, was changed. And then we get into some interesting things about what happened when it was changed because he, amazingly enough, just turned it sideways and started again. There's no priming in between the two paintings. There's a brown quartz sort of sandy ground, very typical of late Rembrandt underneath the first composition, but he just turned it and started right on the other canvas, as best we can tell.

And away he went. And it's interesting to think about that, because oil paint becomes more transparent naturally over the centuries, slightly more transparent, and so that's why you can often see pentimenti changes that were not intended to be seen. Everyone thinks about the horse's legs on Velazquez when you see three or four of them, he's adjusting it, and you can see them coming through. And there's a fair bit of that happening in this picture.

I know the light's a little low in the evening, but here, for example, is the hat of the standing man, and his face is here. So you can see a little bit of the pink showing through. And then it's some odd kind of shapes coming through the horse's belly. And they have to do with the underlying composition.

Now, we're getting into interesting problems of restoration history, because as I said, what you're seeing now is a picture that's largely cleaned, at least in the first sense of the varnish coming off. So you can see the kind of damages that are very typical of a picture. Actually, this picture's in a pretty good state for its size and its age. There are certain losses, but who knows what the reasons are.

But there are other problems with this picture that I think result from previous restorers' confusion about what was going on. It's important to remember that sort of before the mid-19th century, the kind of materials available to restorers to thin or remove varnishes was fairly limited. They were fairly blunt instruments. You couldn't really have the distillation of organic solvents that you could know their reactions and really predict and understand the chemistry of what was going on.

So there was often issues with overcleaning. And I think what may have happened here is that if you think about Rembrandt and his characteristic accents of very thick impasto that create this wonderful relief, there was a bit of that going on from the underlying composition. And I imagine if you're cleaning brown varnish off a brown painting, and you suddenly start to see some very exciting impasto that is Rembrandt, it is quite exciting. And we can't be absolutely certain, but for example, this ornament on the boot-- I think I've asked you about this before, haven't I-- that it's unlike any...

he's basically wearing a kind of fancy dress hunting outfit, very typical militia kind of party gear with a vaguely martial idea. And so this boot is along those lines, too, and it has this odd ornament of a type that I've never seen anywhere else, and if you then refer back to this X-ray... Let's see. Let's see, where am I?

Hello. There we are. So it's this thing on his boot is actually the top of this kind of... he's wearing a kind of tabard, jerkin kind of hunting, riding...

funnily enough, he seems to be in riding gear, the standing figure as well. Maybe it's just sort of a country squire look. But that's a detail of his underlying costume. Now, it could be that Rembrandt just fortuitously thought, "That's rather good, I'll use that." But it does seem a little odd to me, because it's this perfect triangle.

It doesn't really curve. And the whole idea about this picture is, with a very limited palate, he's created this amazing thing of the horse coming out at a diagonal. Even the boot is twisting out and coming up. And if you think the thing should be probably a meter and a half higher, it's really coming down, looking down in a way that they kind of...

well, equestrian portraits of this type are supposed to sort of create this kind of grandeur and authority, if not power. Think of the Velazquez Olivares, or something like that. So this doesn't seem to square with that, to me. But we'll be looking at that very closely.

I mean, we'll take... look with a microscope, and take some samples and see. It looks to me like you can see traces of this kind of mouse colored brown-gray paint within the impasto of the boot ornament, which suggests to me that this is an earlier misguided cleaning. That's something quite different than, say, the natural increase in transparency.

There are other evidence, there's other evidence of very harsh cleaning in this picture anyway. This kind of broken-up islands look a bit like, sort of, I don't know, fractoids, or sort of steamy-looking thing. That's very typical kind of result of undercutting with harsh solvents or reagents. So this picture has suffered a bit, and I think there was much more confusion in the lower areas where there is sort of brown on brown on brown, and it's a little confusing if you're not really aware of what's happening.

(beeping) (camera shutter clicking) (beeping) (camera shutter clicking) (scraping) (clanging) In what sense does the work that you do feed into the exhibition, beyond the fact that it made the restoration possible? In order to conserve a picture, you have to understand the materials in which it's made, how it's painted, what its condition is, and most of all, how it's going to behave towards any proposed conservation treatment. All that means is that we can only touch a picture if we can do it safely. And one of the reasons why pictures are investigated so carefully for their physical and chemical state is for the scientists at the Gallery to be able to advise restorers on the kind of conservation treatment they intend to use on the picture.

And most of all, so that we can guarantee that what is done to a National Gallery picture is absolutely safe for it. How has our understanding of Leonardo changed now, having got to the end of this exhibition? Well, there are in fact very few paintings by Leonardo extant that have come down to us. And so the study, the intense study of one of them, the National Gallery's Virgin of the Rocks, provided the most complete information about Leonardo's painting technique.

We know quite a lot about the way he drew on paper. But before this exhibition, and before the studies were undertaken, quite little was known about the actual way in which Leonardo painted, and now we know a great deal more. And what is it that we know? Well, that is...

(laughs) Well, we know every detail of this picture. It's one of the most intensively studied pictures in the National Gallery collection. So we know how Leonardo prepared his panel, what kind of ground he used. We know that there were two phases of drawing on this picture.

In fact, it went through a radical transformation from an earlier design to the design that you now see expressed in paint on the surface. And what that means, in fact, because of that transformation of design, it means that the picture's actually very complicated in its manner of painting. So we've been able to analyze what we'd called the layer structure, the picture, all the different layers of paint that Leonardo applied in working towards the first composition, and then his second finished composition. And we also know in doing that a great deal about the materials-- for example, the pigments he used, the binding leader he used, and so on.

So we can provide a very complete description of how this work of art was created. All right, that's perfect. I'm working down from there, all right? What did we not know before?

When you plan the exhibitions, you think about the different works that you want to bring together. You go and look at them, of course, and you're very familiar with every individual work, but you never actually see them together. And that is a magic of any exhibition, if it works, that there's a magic that all of a sudden happens when works start talking to each other. And sometimes it doesn't happen, and then you know that you failed as a curator.

But when you see that it does happen, there are relationships that all of a sudden start to become more evident. There are new themes that you discover, even during the exhibition. You spend so much time preparing for an exhibition, writing a catalog, thinking about each individual work in detail, but it is only when you see them together in the same room that things start to become apparent. So for us over the last three months, living with these works together in one space, we have learned a great deal about how Leonardo really developed as a painter, how his students were responding to him in Milan, how others did not really respond to him and just continued to do what they were doing before, how he was working with his workshop, how he collaborated with his students.

And there are still very many open questions, and I think we have also learned a great deal about the two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks, and still, it is a bit of a puzzle. Art historians have thought about it for I believe over 100 years, and they've tried to work out the chronology and the relationship between these two paintings, a commission that is very well documented, but yet, we don't quite know why there are two pictures and who painted them and when.

WOMAN

Originally, it was only men were allowed to model. Early Renaissance artists were drawing from men only, and then having to sort of adapt those drawings for the women in their paintings. It was definitely a male profession, because women would be seen as... It just wasn't the sort of thing women could be seen to be doing.

But then it is always... it's a decision, isn't it, when you're making a drawing. You have to sort of either go for it, because if you skirt around it, you end up with a very strange figure. It's there, isn't it?

It's there, it's just part of everything, as everything else. But yeah, you're right, you don't see in the Gallery, I can't think of many examples. I think it's a very healthy thing, to have life drawing. Yeah, it's liberating, isn't it?

Of course, I've never done it, but if I did it when I was younger, it might have changed my outlook. It just reminds you that... It's freeing, isn't it? Exactly.

To see it for what it is. And it's stripped of everything. And it's the sort of safe environment as well, isn't it? It's sort of an encoded environment...

No people start giggling. Yeah, and it's just celebrating just how beautiful it is and how beautiful we are. It's a really good thing to just focus on, isn't it, and then it's just to say, it changes you. (shouting)

MAN

All right, you (no audio) off! (indecipherable shouting) You (no audio) idiots! (cheering) (cheering) (bells ringing) There's this question of what's the water doing. If you could just nail what the role of the water is.

We're saying here how he's doing the thing that we've already talked about, and that will be about endings and... Just help me with one of the things....the crossing, yeah. Help me with one thing. Cuyp, let's say, has cows, tree, grass, light.

If Cuyp's work... is Cuyp's work a metaphor? Or is it just a cute picture of a cow on grass? No.

Nor is this, we're just saying it is. Well, what I'm getting at is, basically, if that weren't water, if that was a field... How is the water metaphorical, you're saying, yeah? How does it help him generate metaphor?

Do you see what I mean? Yeah, but let me do it, then. I see what you mean, I'm now going to do it. Are these your glasses?

No. They're mine. They're mine, thanks. Okay, got it.

Sound. Action! The Fighting Temeraire. How different the mood would be if it weren't for the accent...

Probably get in the booms just a little. Still set. Action! The Fighting Temeraire.

How different the mood would be if it weren't for the accent of that black buoy. But how exactly Turner gets the balance between the two blacks, the buoy and the tug, with that precise sense of space between them, the massive heavy treatments of the sunset and then the subtle glow beneath. It's very hard to say where light meets darkness, so subtle is the grade. How he gets all those things is the essence of the success of the picture.

Water becomes a metaphor for feeling, for yearning, the sense of loss, the depth of emotion that his subject is about. A metaphor is a literary thing that comes from the mind, but the painting is made powerful

by what's actually in it

the precise shapes of those sails with the light shining on them. And then they repeat in the sliver of light by the black buoy. And then the wonderful, lively fullness of that sunset, and the placid shimmer of the blue cityscape on the horizon. It's through the doing and the redoing of all those calling and answering elements that Turner makes light on the Thames into such a tremendous metaphor.

MAN

Okay, that will work. (metal clanging) (whirring) (indistinct chatter) That's it. (whirring) It's around 120. Go all the way up.

Okay, good. Obviously it's not a problem, because of that shadow. That's right. How about the right wing?

Did, um... Would these have adjusted down on auto? The new fittings that you've added will stay 100%. But the other fittings that were in the room previously will have dropped, possibly.

Maybe what we should do is close the blinds again and set everything back to the full output level. But these should be at 100. Exactly, yes. Darren?

Yes? Come back to the light on the center panel. Can you see enough from up there to see what's happening? Yep.

We've got a huge frame shadow. I don't think there's gonna be anything we can do about that. It's because the frames are causing it to sit behind the glass so far back. But do you have your card handy?

Put your card over the first fixture. Take it away. Again. Take it away.

Take it away. Tweak that one up a wee bit, too. There you go. Okay, move along to the next.

Take it away. Again. Take it away. Let me let my eyes adjust a moment.

I forgot my sunglasses this morning. I always bring my sunglasses up. Kevin? That's 150 at the top.

All right, there, we're more in line now. Good, good. Let's check the center panel again, because we've added this light. It's 140.

And now the left wing. It's a shame about the shadow, but I'm afraid there's just nothing... I'll just have to live with it. Not without backing it uncomfortably.

Well, there's no more room, is there? There really isn't. You've been heroic. With the exception of the shadow, it's a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

So thank you guys very much. (voice on walkie-talkie) I'll take you through an extreme example. We were discussing natural light and how now no one notices where the lighting is in the painting. Like, where is this one lit from?

WOMAN

Top left?

MAN

Top left, yeah. And it's a fact that in the 17th century, we know people were much more aware, but when van der Doort wrote the inventory for Charles I, he recorded every painting and said whether it was lit from the left or the right, which you just don't even do now because we're so used to electric light coming down and doing it all for us. We don't realize it's important to record how it was. And I assume he did it because he was going to hang the paintings according to which way they were lit.

If this was in a big church, and you could probably find actually which chapel it was, sit there and see where the light was during the day, how it worked, what was the optimum time for it to be viewed. So he probably never imagined that it would be shown in this kind of context, with electric lighting and... No, and that's something that you are going to address, in a sense. And we don't address it.

We say everything needs to be designed to be seen dead front on, evenly lit. I can give you one, because we're nearby, let's go to the Rubens gallery first. I'll show you an extreme example of that. This is exceptional, because we know where this painting was, and it still exists, the actual venue.

It was in Rockox's own house, and it was above his chimney piece. And chimneys in the 17th century weren't like these little, miserable things we get now. The height of a chimney's always about here. That's the top ledge of it.

So it would have been at least that high. You've got to imagine you're going to have to look down on the... You know, the painting's way above you, and you're looking up. You could actually walk in the chimneys in the 17th century.

And you can guess, the lighting's on the left, okay? That's where the windows were. The windows were quite high, too. It has one immediate effect which you don't get now when you light it evenly, is the lighting is stronger on the left, because that's the source of the natural light, and therefore it picks up her very strongly.

And the five figures in the doorway look very faint, and that's worth noticing, because you wouldn't expect that. In this light, they look almost as if they're competing spatially in a very bright... You know, the guys coming in to arrest him. But when you actually put it in its original place-- and we did this a couple of years ago-- switch off all the electric lights, which always takes a little persuading to do it, you'll find the painting clicks and pops because those guys fade back into the distance, and this stuff that almost looks too harsh because the light's stronger, it becomes much smoother.

He must have known he was doing that, because he's made the contrast. See the grounds sneaking through between the white? You can see the warm ground? So he's made it to catch the light, and so this is the focal point.

WOMAN

And would he have painted it in the same light as it would have been displayed? Yeah, he probably painted in situ. I mean, there's quite a lot of evidence that artists did go and paint paintings in situ. Rockox was a friend of his.

And if not, he would have touched it up. And that brings you to a different problem. What happens, having used tinted varnishes, which we know existed from Pliny's time in antiquity, because he would have thought, "Oh, that bit's now too bright." And, of course, we clean them off. We think we're very scientific.

We strip all the varnish off, and so we destroy any of that evidence. Even when we find original varnish, we tend to get very excited and take them off. And so that's something we'll never know, how much the artist toned it back. But you can see in this painting, I think the painting's much finer over here.

If you come here, see, it's just on zigzags, hasn't bothered to do any real modeling at all, because you notice, this is a dark corner. And he also knows it's above your eye height. And so you see these differences. And he also knows the window lets in the breeze, so he's made the candle blow from the left.

Yeah, that's quite lovely.

MAN

So you lose all that. I mean, context is almost kind of crucial for a painting like this. And you read a lot of rubbish because people say it's above a fireplace. "Well, it's the flickering firelight." Well, if you actually look at a firelight, it doesn't reflect back.

The thing that light reflects off is floor. And so I mean, if this was a palace, for instance, and we can try it when we go to the banqueting hall and switch off all the lights, how much light do you get from the windows bouncing off the floor and illuminating the ceiling? And you can test it. The only place I know it really works well is Palazzo Barberini.

Anyway, thank you very much.

WOMAN

Yes.

MAN

See you. (whirring) (whirring) (banging) (loud drilling) The Titian cuts across here. Okay. So this would be one wall.

Right, I get it. So it's within that space. So it's not a very big... And how far do you have to be from the paintings?

The barrier there. The barrier, that's just the barrier. And what is the barrier? It's just a little...?

It can be up for grabs, but it would be like... probably like a rope thing. Okay. I think it's fine, space-wise, I don't think it's a problem, but what's the floor like?

It is concrete with wood over the top. But maybe you could put some vinyl or something. It's this, actually, this is the floor. Can we just have a look at the floor?

WOMAN

There's concrete underneath. It's oak, I think, over concrete. I mean, I think we just have to look at what we want the visual aesthetic of the thing to be in front of the Titians. I just think if you brought a floor intervention on there, it might look a little bit artificial.

And actually, I mean, if it was an ed person, you could ask him if you would dance on that. It's a question. Or Carlos, you know, it's a question. Would you mind......dancing on that?

Yeah, and they would have a point of view, and we'd respect it. So I think the question would have to be asked. I don't think it would be a problem, because it's not like we're going to be doing massive... They're not going to be doing leaps....jumps and leaps all around.

Even Carlos. Yeah, even Carlos. But I think, you know, the line... put in just danceable.

Like, a line is no use. Is no use, okay. So you'd have to build a floor which is sprung, and then you get into a whole other kind of dynamic. I think coming into a gallery to dance in front of the Titians, that's what the nature of the event is, so one has to find what would be the most appropriate thing.

Okay. Good morning everybody, and thank you so much for coming this morning. Titian called these works something special. He called them poems, poesie, and that was the first time that an artist had referred to his works in a way comparing himself to the intellectual capacity of poets, of poets of the ancient times.

And, of course, Titian's favorite poet, who he was very familiar with and was able to read in the many wonderful vernacular translations that were circulating at that time, was Ovid, who of course was a Roman poet and who wrote the wonderful Metamorphoses. Ovid told these tales of the gods from the Greek Pantheon with such a mixture of humor and levity, and at the same time acknowledging the tragic elements of human beings sort of tangled up in the loves and affairs of the gods. And it was these subjects that Titian chose to send to Philip. And I now just want to look at the picture and see all the different tools that Titian has used to bring the story to life and to make us really feel all sorts of different conflicting emotions, just as Ovid did.

And I think the reason that Titian loved Ovid so much was that he was tragicomic, yes, but he was also a poet that really used words in a very, very visual way, whereas Titian was a painter who could conjure up poetry visually. And that's why in this famous letter to Philip, he called these works poems. And I think as we sit there and feel that lyrical quality emanating forth, that we can understand why that was and why they're still called poesie to this day. Today's ten-minute talk is on Michelangelo's Entombment, this large painting behind me.

This is quite an extraordinary example of the National Gallery's collection. I don't know if any of you were looking at it and thought that it looked a bit odd. There are some really quite unusual features in this painting. It's perhaps not the most typical way, for example, to represent the subject.

And also, well, I suppose what I most notice about it is its unfinished state. That's quite a curious aspect of what's going on. I don't know what you think, but for me, it's really great to have mysteries and questions hanging over paintings that are 500 years old, because sometimes, we tend to look at them and think, because they're 500 years old, we know everything there is to know about them. And, of course, that's not the case, and every single one of us as an individual brings a different story to a painting like this and sees something different.

I absolutely do see someone texting on a mobile phone. Of course, that's probably not what everyone else sees at all, but that's actually what can help keep these paintings alive for us, the mystery around what the artist is intending, because it's not always completely obvious. I'm going to stop there. If you do want to ask questions, please do.

MAN

Something all artists are interested in is how painting can kind of freeze reality. So someone who died a long time ago is still here looking at us. This lobster, which existed a long time ago, which now doesn't exist at all, of course, is here preserved, amazing preservation, and here it is. The drinking horn still exists.

It's probably the only thing in the painting, I imagine, that does still exist. But it's that idea of something being ephemeral, something like a lemon. And artists are really intrigued by the idea that they could do that, preserve something forever, really. Well, it won't last forever, but it will last longer than us, barring some disaster, and that's an interesting idea.

I'll tell you a joke about Moses. He goes up-- this is not true-- he goes up onto the mountain, comes down with the Ten Commandments, and he gathers the Israelites around him, and he says, "Okay, guys, I've been up there. "I've had a word with Him. Do you want the good news or the bad news?" And they say "Good news." "The good news is, I've got Him down to ten.

The bad news is, adultery is still on the list." (laughing) Anyway... This painting got vandalized a couple of months ago. Some crazy guy came in with a red aerosol. Luckily, they got the restoration team in straight away, took it down, took it away, worked all night, and I came in the next morning...

Oh, so it was really overnight. It was back up there, cleaned up perfect. And sadly, these things happen from time to time, but you just have to learn to live with it. Now, let me show you the last Claude, because there's a nice little story attached to this one.

Going back to that research on Watteau was fundamental. Bringing the works together was also an important element. Now, we will see from what will come out of the copy... Of the study of the petition.

I have ordered a big electronic copy of the petition, and we have sent it to William Christie, who believes, and I think all scholars believe, that Watteau represented very accurately every movement, musical movement. So it's not, um... Well, we've consulted a number of musicologists ourselves, and the consensus now is that is not a real... A real petition?

Is not a real piece of music. Probably an energetic restorer. Well, yeah, whatever. I mean, I haven't compared the music in the painting with the music in the print line by line.

That is something I must do. But I'm told that it's not a guitar piece, because you'd expect a number of chords. It's not a singing piece, because there are no words, other than there's what appear to be the remains of the title, though we can't actually make out what that is. It's impossible to read, and we've looked at that quite carefully.

Yeah. So if it's not a guitar piece and it's not a singing part, I mean, what is it? We conclude that it might be... The only possibility is that it is music for the guitar, and that she is rather awkwardly holding it like this so he can actually see what he's playing.

But, in fact, he's not playing. (laughs) At that particular moment. So he's just chording his guitar, do you think? Tuning, yeah.

Tuning, sorry. Or is he playing, because...? But he could be... I don't know, he could be about to tap it.

And on these, there's some written documents now from the different musicologists? I've got letters or emails. That can be... That's incorporated into a draft catalog entry which I wrote last year.

Okay, we could use this information. You could use this information. Okay, because it would be interesting to see who are these musicologists, and seeing if we build, as I would say he's more a musician that a musicologist would say. The drawings I saw in Berlin, there we discovered that we...

that we know which music is performed at the place, and it's so complex in the positions on the instruments that he must have known music, because that's still also an element that was not clear. In these drawings, it cannot be otherwise that he knows how to play, and knows music. And that's also an element... Well, that's an important thing to prove.

Yes, and that's also the element of the drawings which are in the Kupferschmid cabinet by Doctor... in Berlin. The drawings, I saw there last week. And so from the work that was done by Bill, he knows now that being in the different drawings, there's one of a oboe, and another one of viola da gamba, and there's no scores there.

It's only drawings of positions. They're convincing, yeah. Yes, and also how the complexity of... We were there with several musicians, also for the Berlin Philharmonic together who came to see, and everyone is convinced you cannot draw if you do not know music.

It's like we would say in (unintelligible)... photography, in film, to make just that moment. No, I think everybody accepts that Watteau knew musicians, and he knew his musical instruments. I mean, that represents the type of music...

But it was not clear that he was knowing music. That's not clear for me in the drawings. Well, it's not clear that he actually plays music himself, which is a different thing. That represents a guitar of a type that was being made in Paris around 1700.

That's pretty accurate. Did they say the black's been strengthened or not, because black's the most soluble paint, and she's missing a few fingernails, which makes you wonder, did they also take off a few notes? And you've got to be very careful interpreting what is now musical notes. It's good to see, good to hear a case.

You were a surprise visitor. And good luck with your exhibition, whatever happens. Thank you.

WOMAN

This is a beautiful one.

MAN

Well, I think, and I know I'm biased, I think it's the most beautiful room in the Gallery. What are you going to say, though? Look at this. I mean...

That touch is a very delicate touch. And she can't believe... She's just totally in love with this shepherd boy, and she just can't believe how beautiful he is, and she's got to just touch him to make sure that he's real.

WOMAN

That he's real. And the dogs, that dog is amazing. Anyway... Well, I'm glad.

I mustn't keep you. That's fine. It's lovely to be back. Well, you must come and see us more often.

And in the middle of the 16th century, we have something called the Counter-Reformation taking place in Italy in response to the challenge of Luther as he challenges the Catholic Church. And one of the things that comes into question is the value of images. Are images dangerous because they are likely to be understood as replicants of God or replicants of figures from the Bible? Or are they important as a way into understanding the word of God as it was written?

So this is a debate that's taking place. And what happens in Italy is there is a proliferation of images. In other words, the response is to make more images and to make them as emotional as possible so that you feel a sense within yourself of what is happening. And the message is one of fraternal love.

It's a universal message, and it's something that we can all relate to. And the idea is that you go away from the experience of viewing feeling more love towards your fellow man.

MAN

I guess all I would like to point out here is that having seen the issue with the blanched ground downstairs and how that disrupted that space, I think you might have your eye on enough to start to recognize that here-- and the more dramatic examples are something like this, where you've got parts of the table-- again, this isn't him correcting something, but the actual paint he subsequently applied on top of the ground is very close in color to what that would have been. He certainly didn't intend a great blotchy space. And again, we have more and more empirical evidence about that, beyond just looking at the material itself. This rather pale thing is absolutely, it's a strong shadow cast from her arm.

You see it the way it goes up the side of the table and makes a sharp angle. It's the cast shadow of the arm falling. And so, obviously, that must be a darker value than this. And see, that gets to the core of what I was saying downstairs about when the pigment change is so localized that it's really quite disruptive to understanding what the thing is.

That is a different kind of argument about what you might do as a restorer to correct that, or at least to reduce the effects of problematic effects. One of the most fundamental issues... Well, I wouldn't say problematic, but certainly an open question where this picture is concerned, and it has to do with the basic construction of this space, where the wall is. Is that a window?

Is it a picture of a picture? All those kinds of issues. Anyway, the evidence provided by the ground and the shadows suggests that this table is right up against the wall. You have a painted shadow here in black paint of the fish's head against the wall, which tells you that it's quite close.

And the fact that that's cast there I think is also pretty important in fixing where that thing sits in space. Again, this kind of ground color here, and then mixed with a bit of white and applied shadow, it all kind of starts to make sense. This has still got quite a bit of retouching that needs to be done. And you can see the brush markings here that are partially covered in ground colored paint by Velazquez, and have been exposed by old cleanings.

And you have the basic ground color, a darker shadow, and what would have probably been an even darker one leading to the table. It all starts to make sense if you start to substitute this color. But I think you... I hope you might agree that this, then, is pretty fundamental to understanding what's going on.

Similarly, this area of the old woman's chin, it sort of comes forward now in a sort of cubist way, and that's again because of blanched ground. It should be much darker. So if you start to, wherever you see this, substitute a darker value, I think all kinds of things start falling into place about the way that the elements are modeled and where they are in relation to one another. And it's such a limited palate and such an austere kind of image, I think these issues are really pretty fundamental to your reading and understanding of the picture and what he's trying to do.

So that's why we might take a slightly different view about how to approach its retouching. Everything that Larry is now doing in terms of retouching is on top of a layer of varnish that once it's cleaned, it's varnished, and then Larry works on top of the varnish so that all the work that he does, the tens if not hundreds of hours that goes into restoring a picture, the next time it's cleaned, it comes right off. The basic principle of modern conservation is that anything that we do should be reversible, that the next generation can reverse it very easily. Months or years of work is gone in 15 minutes.

But that's okay. It gets to the core of how you feel about whether this is document or a kind of archeological thing, or whether you want to restore it as an image you read, and how confident you are in what you're doing. It's not just because Dawson and I scratch our heads and think, "Wouldn't it be lovely if that was this or that?" It's based on an understanding of the material, historical sources and comparative images, and evidence, as I showed you downstairs, of Velazquez himself mixing colors to match the ground that he used. So it's important to remember that, too.

There are really good reasons for the decisions we take in matters like this. I just want to also make sure that you understand what Larry has been saying about him using the ground color in the modeling. That it was the original ground color, that he trusted and he thought, "Oh, that looks just right in that shadow." He doesn't cover it. And this isn't just Velazquez.

There are lots of painters who use ground color in modeling as a kind of mid-tone, sometimes. Caravaggio does it, for instance. It's not at all uncommon. The intent is to restore the thing as a work of art that you read.

At the end of the process, that wall should more or less carry on across going from light to dark in a way that I hope you won't be able to see. I don't want to leave the impression that we believe that our retouchings and restorations make the picture look as it did. We're just trying to help you understand what it is and maybe what it was, but it's a balancing act. A restoration is not a renewal.

No. Of course, they're physical objects made of organic materials, and the second they're finished, they start to age. And that's just that. We haven't really talked about the meaning of this.

It naturally invites some consideration of the relationship of religion to contemporary life. The two women in the foreground are clearly figures from contemporary life, and one has to wonder, what's this really about? Are they simply serving people, and the meal is going to go through the hatch and be served in the other room? Or do they in some way represent a modern day Mary and Martha?

Do you remember the story? Christ comes to visit Mary and Martha, and Mary sits attentively at Christ's feet and listens to his teaching, while Martha makes herself very busy, going about all the chores, and then comes to complain that she has been left to do everything and Mary isn't helping. And Christ chides her and says, "Martha, Martha, you're concerned about so many things, "but Mary's really taken the better path in allowing time for her spiritual development." And so we have to ask ourselves, is this Martha and Mary in the foreground in contemporary guise, with the old woman chiding with that gesture, saying "Hurry up"? Or is it maybe the worker preparing the garlic mayonnaise, so busy at work, and the older, wiser woman reminding her to allow time for her spiritual life?

They're the great words used often in relation to this painting of St. Teresa of Avila. The Lord walks even among the kitchen pots, helping you in matters spiritual and material. We have to go over to conversation studio number two.

(baby crying) (piano playing) (piano playing continues) (piano playing continues) (piano playing continues) (light chatter) (cheering) (music playing) (excited chatter) (light chatter) (light chatter) (light chatter) (excited chatter) (light chatter) Good to see you! (faint chatter) Ebony frames are, of course, interesting. World first. I want to explain where I think the ripple molding come from.

These moldings, called ripple moldings, this wave pattern, are very interesting. They're really the only ornament, frame ornament, that does not ultimately come from antiquity. It is a non-classical ornament. And I think it came about because of the way the ebony is worked with, because when you work with ebony, it is not carved or planed like other woods.

It is scraped with a scraper at right angles to the wood, like something like this-- the metal scraper that is scraped across the piece of wood and lowered incrementally. But the process of scraping is very... The forces are quite... The wood is very hard, and it's quite difficult.

You only scrape a tiny bit off each time, and in the process, the whole apparatus that you use tends to vibrate, and what you have is a ripple effect on the straight molding. This was just done straight, and I'm not sure if we can see it in the light, but you can certainly feel it, that there is a ripple that is involuntary. That's a ripple that just happens when you try to scrape it straight, and then you have to sand it out and straighten it out. But I think that this type of ripple, out of this accidental ripple, and then this is done, run over a track that goes up and down.

The knife goes up and down, or the wood goes up and down as it's scraped along. Normally, I'm against illuminating the way frames are made, because it somehow doesn't seem important. If you've got a Rembrandt exhibition, nobody's going to tell you how the canvas is prepared and the paint's made and all those technical bits. But I find it interesting with the ebony frame, that I think it is accidental and a discovery from the making of the frames.

Oh,

it's 8

45 already. There's plenty of room for you all now, and it's time for me to begin. I'm talking about the strangely named Triumph of Pan. Poussin has reconstructed these really recondite elements of ancient art.

That is one explanation for his way of painting. He may have thought that painting in antiquity was closer to sculpture precisely because so much more sculpture had survived, and he could only reconstruct ancient painting in that way. But it's curious that so many of the things that attract him about the ancient world, and which he puts into this strange, strange painting, are actually unnaturalistic. So he knows, for example, that ancient statues of Pan, as indeed is the case of figures in worship, their faces were actually coated with special substances to make them seem more animated or just as a type of offering.

So the red color, it's very, very extraordinary, but what makes it extraordinary, of course, is actually that the rest of the sculpture appears to be made of polished brass. It means that Poussin actually thought, "It may be in antiquity they did not patinate their sculptures." And he was very, very learned and in touch with all the most erudite students of antiquity in his day. Some of these things that I've been mentioning aren't actually mentioned even by modern art historical commentators on this painting, but they would be of great interest to-- and these subjects are of great interest, the coloring, faces, and so on-- to archeologists today. But I don't think it's quite adequate, as an explanation of this picture, that Poussin has just become that much more obsessed by the antique.

I think the clue to the stylistic character of this work lies in the fact that Poussin must have known that he was painting pictures which would hang beside old paintings by Montaigne. Montaigne and Poussin are the two European artists who are most interested in trying to put something sculptural into painting. And this becomes particularly interesting in the context of this so-called "paragonia," the contest between the arts. Tedious to us to try and work out whether painting or sculpture is the greatest art.

But within that, the structure of that argument, people thought very intelligently about what could painting do that sculpture couldn't do. And you could always say of sculpture that movement is frozen, that space can't really be represented. How odd to find a painter who's actually deliberately imitating those precise qualities in sculpture in their painting. It's a kind of reversal of what everyone else was doing.

And I think it's the reversal which is done for people who think about art in a very, very sophisticated way, people who like turning on its head the priorities and values of other people, as well as the people who are not only learned, but like to exhibit their learning. In short, this picture is very, very elitist. Making it accessible is quite hard work. It's worth doing, of course, but it's really hard work because it was painted, I think, not just as a subject, which was for very, very learned people who like to be more learned than other people and show it, but also its style is painted for an extremely sophisticated and probably very small public.

I'm really thrilled we have it in the National Gallery. I personally don't know whether I like it or not, but I certainly think it's one of the most fascinating paintings in the National Gallery. It's very, very extraordinary. Thank you very much.

WOMAN

Part of the appeal of Vermeer's paintings and other paintings like them in the 17th century is that they create an ideal world, an ideal image that is seductive and absolutely pleasant to look at. You're drawn into the beauty of it. I think it's not just us in the 21st century that the painting has that impact on. I think it was exactly the same in the 17th century.

Part of that, of course, is in the way in which Vermeer paints. He has an absolutely unique style that somehow finds a balance between realism and abstraction. From a distance, even short distance, you're struck by how realistic this is. You think, "Oh, wow, that woman, I want to step closer and get to know her." But as you get closer, just like impressionist paintings, that sense of realism dissolves into abstraction, and it remains forever elusive, again, creating a barrier between our world and this ideal world represented in the paintings.

I think that is intentional on Vermeer's part, to emphasize and to maintain the perfection of the world that he's created. It's also, as so many of Vermeer's paintings, a very ambiguous painting. Because of the woman's restraint, because of the absolute regularity and almost austerity of the composition, it's hard to tell exactly what the painting is about, what might be going on in this painting. Art historians can go on endlessly about the symbolism of the painting in the background, and the angle of this and the juxtaposition of that, but how do we know that that's entirely what Vermeer had in mind?

And, of course, as any other art historian, I've written, you know, "This means this, this means that," but there's always an element of ambiguity, a question there that I firmly believe is absolutely intentional on the part of the best artists, because it's designed to keep you intrigued, to keep you coming back, to keep your attention on this painting, and each time you come to the painting, depending on your mood, who else is in the room, what you had for lunch, it's going to look slightly different. It's going to appeal to you. You're going to engage with it in an entirely different way.

MAN

It's a very, very interesting relationship between his painting technique and the things that we value and prize

about Caravaggio

the immediacy of the affect of the models, the dramatic lighting. A lot of the things he does in his working practice as well as his application of paint are all kind of inextricably bound with what we treasure in them. So I'll start off with Boy Bitten by a Lizard. And the main thing I'd like to convey about this picture is to get you understand a little bit about how he's using his priming, his ground.

That's the layer he puts on the canvas before he starts painting the figure. In this case, it's a kind of rich, kind of bricky red brown color. This is something that he's exploiting, then, in the subsequent buildup of the paint. The brown color is left exposed quite deliberately to help him evolve the modeling of the flesh tones.

Bellori, an important critic writing in the 1670s, was already writing about this, how he leaves the ground exposed to give the middle colors of the flesh painting. And you can see that in the shadow sort of around the breast and the shadowed part of the cheek, the shadowed part of the hands, and quite a lot of the drapery painting is essentially the ground color. And it's a very economical way of proceeding, because once you establish the figure, you use the ground, you can put a very thin translucent brown color to push the shadows back. And then when you build the lighter colors up, when you're mixing the light colored paint and putting it on top of a darker ground, it gets very opaque very quickly.

And so it's extremely economical. I mean, the dark grounds are things that were evolved and used more and more frequently in Italy throughout the 16th century, particularly in North Italy, where he was formed. And I think, however, that he managed to exploit this technique and kind of make it his own and bend it toward his purposes in a very characteristic way. We, with Renaissance paintings, have the ability, generally, to look with infrared reflectography and see evidence of initial drawing, and that's based on, say, a carbon-containing charcoal or something drawn on top of a light ground, and so the contrast is something we can pick up with infrared.

Now, with these pictures, traditionally with the dark ground and whatever kind of paint that might have been used to draw, you really don't see anything with that technique. So it's always been a great mystery about Caravaggio. Did he draw? And in what sense did he do preparatory drawing, because we don't have really drawings on paper.

He's playing a bit of a game with you about what skill is and what craft is and how speedy and confident he was. There's a kind of... seemingly a taste or a desire to look, to have that kind of sprezzatura, the brio, the ability to do something, to knock it off very confidently. But like many things in Caravaggio, what may seem-- what is indeed-- revolutionary, is still grounded in a very careful and considered use of his materials, and somebody who always, whatever the sordid details of his personal life, somebody who always was in really fantastic control of his materials and understanding of how the paint worked.

So I think that's the thing I'd like to leave with you.

MAN

What's going on here? What's happened in my absence?

WOMAN (laughs)

In your absence.

MAN

Well, we've done a bit of a rehab, as you can tell. Definitely. It's changed a lot. Yeah, only two or three pictures haven't actually moved.

But I mean, so what we've... Basically, what we've had to do, we had to find a spot for the Virgin of the Rocks. And here it is now. And what do you think?

I was thinking that it looks strange, actually. That changed a lot from before. First reaction. It's something that I think is visual.

Isn't it? With the... It's another world of color. It's a completely different work.

And we saw it downstairs in the exhibition, how nicely it worked with the other later Milanese pictures, and that the composition may be Florentine, but the whole painting is Milanese. Yes, there is a theoretical issue that, as you said, it's a Milanese painting, but also visually, I think that is something a little bit puzzling, isn't it? Because the drawing probably is Florentine. Well, the idea, the composition is Florentine, and, of course, you know, and now you have...

It's a difficult picture to find a place for, actually, in the Gallery. And there is an argument to be made, and I think in a way, it works. And you show them together with the Verrocchio, with his teacher, and side by side. But yeah, it doesn't sing as nicely.

It did sing downstairs. The only thing is it might be instructive seeing how Leonardo's evolution is completely different... Yeah, how it moves into a different direction. If you put it in relation with his old Florentine friends, that is quite extraordinary, but actually is a contrast, the way of seeing the hanged display in a room that is...

I think it's quite strange. But there's something quite nice about this being situated in the corner, because you enter the sanctuary and then you kind of meander throughout the rooms, and then you discover the Leonardo in the corner, almost as if you'd discovered this little kind of grouping in the cave, which is quite nice. In Titian's letter, he says, "I am painting Diana, "surprised by Actaeon, and Actaeon," what's the word he used, "lacerated by his own hounds." So originally, these two pictures would have been the pair that he wanted to send to King Philip. This painting remains in Titian's studios, never finished by Titian, and is bought from his studio after his death.

So he decides not to do this, and instead he produces Diana and Callisto as the pair. So you have two... Completely on a different level. Yes, it's different, but they both show Diana as taking sort of vengeance on a mortal, and also the moment of...

Interestingly, they're kind of opposite pictures, because here, the pregnant nymph Callisto is being exposed, and Diana realizes she's pregnant. Here, it's Diana who is being exposed by Actaeon. And here, there is a female victim of Diana, and here a male victim, and they probably hung opposite each other. So we've tried to suggest that by putting them a little bit differently, but we also want people to see this with that.

This picture we acquired 25 years ago. From? From Lord Harewood. It was in England.

In England, from the Earl of Harewood, had the painting from Lord Darnley, whose great-great- great-grandfather purchased it at the Orleans sale. How it got to the Orleans collection, it got to the Orleans collection because it was one of the pictures that, um... The queen of Sweden acquired it on her way to Rome, I think. Yes, that's the best explanation.

And then these pictures were actually presented by the Spanish crown to I think the French ambassador, who was acquiring them for the Regent of France, who was, of course, a very, very great art collector. Painted in the 1550s, sent to Spain, stayed in Spain until... A couple of hundred years. A couple of hundred years, and then go to France, into the semi-royal collection of the Duc d'Orleans, and then to England.

I'm very fond of the Duc d'Orleans. He was a really good guy in his... And he was also, you know, he was an amateur cook. He loved...

He was one of the first very, very princely or noble people who is known to have liked to do his own cooking and experiment with cooking. What he did after dinner is a different matter. (laughter) But anyway, I think it's nice that he did his own cooking. That's a common habit.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, but he loved, also, we know he liked arranging his own paintings. But what amazes me about him is that when he got the great collection of the queen of Sweden from Rome, she took ten to 15 years to negotiate. He then hung...

he wanted to see the paintings. Obviously, he would have new French frames made for them, of course, because everyone would do that. But before he had the frames made, he wanted to see them in the frames which that cette grande princesse, the queen of Sweden, had seen them in. I think that's fantastic.

Right, okay. I'm going to read a poem called "Callisto's Song." Callisto was the nymph who was then turned into a bear, who ended her life flung up into the heavens as a constellation. She became the Great Bear. So in order to write her poem in her voice, I had to imagine how a constellation might sound.

So on the page visually, I've translated her noise, her song as a star into every word being divided by an asterisk so it looks like a constellation. In my head, I feel if I can read it as I hear her, there would be kind of a white noise star crunching, crackling noises between every word. But I can't really do that, so probably the most you'll hear is a little syncopation. "Callisto's Song." Stars, stars stars, stars And I am made of them now, looking down on myself then, a colorito woman, yes.

That was me in my red sandals, the great outdoors curtained, goldened, embroidered and heat shimmer above blue mountains. Nothing vertical, not even the plinth and no speech, no names, then, just a cry as the busybody nymphs strip me because we all had rounded bellies then. But nine months gone, so my navel curved like gash and oh so noticeable among all the diagonals and everyone looking a different way, looking a lot, especially the goddess, her arrow arm pointing, bow-mouth strung and dogs crouched because they sensed consequences and gods arriving and doing what gods do upstairs. And the artist's finger loaded and the paint alive, alive with stars, stars, stars, stars, stars.

So can we start off by talking about the painting? Diana's such a powerful figure. She's female, but full of fire and strength. She's very intriguing.

Her reaction to Callisto is fascinating, because Diana is, of course, the goddess of chastity. She's actually faced with another female at the kind of maximum moment of fecundity, so there's a tension and a kind of fury in Diana that you feel goes beyond anything that Callisto's done, because after all, in a sense, Callisto's been raped, and now in this revelation, she's raped again by the pointing finger. So, I think it's the dynamic of these different sides of femaleness, of womanhood, that come through in the story as Titian tells it. If you like, every poem is a kind of crude translation of something else.

Our poems never, never reach what we want them to. We're always in a way hampered by language, and that's what's wonderful. Yeats talks about the fascination of what's difficult. The fact that language isn't perfect, the fact that when I say the word "hand," it is not my hand, is really beautiful and poignant to me.

So in a way, all of my poems are efforts to translate something else, and they never quite do. but the gap is... the meaning is all in the gaps. And I felt that with "Callisto's Song" that I'd set myself, you know, not just a gap, but several light years to straddle between what she might sing and how I might transcribe it.

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