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(LIGHTNING CRACKS)

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Joseph Mallord William Turner
is regarded as one of

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the most original and influential
British artists of all time.

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His work was transformative.

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It shocked the Victorians
and paved the way for modern art.

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170 years after his death,

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Turner's influence
is still apparent today.

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MAN: His art was absolutely
transcendental

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and almost spiritual.

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NICK: He was the nation's
greatest landscape artist.

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But there's more to him.

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There's another layer there.

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He is a cryptic artist.

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ERICA: We have now found
hidden images that are electrifying.

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Despite having been viewed
by millions of people,

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previously unnoticed,
complex images

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painted with precision

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that have been overlooked
for 170 years

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have been found hidden
within the paint strokes

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of Turner's greatest works.

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Throughout a number of
the paintings, we found that,

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astonishingly, a bear appears
time and time again.

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And we've come to the conclusion

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that Turner represents himself
as a bear.

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There's this white flag
of Turner's emblem,

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which is a bear's head

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with a high collar
of the kind Turner wore.

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But there are other narratives
within this painting

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that relate to Nelson
trashing Napoleon's fleet.

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He painted the head of a goose,

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and we found this
in more than one Turner work.

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He's saying steam
is the golden goose of the future.

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It is going to produce
great wealth.

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Turner was a very tormented,
brilliant man.

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It wouldn't surprise me at all
that there are secret meanings,
codes, emblems.

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I've seen some of my own.

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Turner, he was a genius.

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Nick is giving
so many other layers of meaning.

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Oh! That is... Oh, my God.

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That is... What the...?
Sorry, I don't want to swear.

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Can you see a face,
a man's head, here?

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I'm going to say it looks more like
a chicken, actually, Nick, but...

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That looks like genitalia to me.

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(BOTH LAUGH)

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Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

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It's this amazing
kind of moment of...

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..of decoding.

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These groundbreaking discoveries

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are the result
of five years' extensive research

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and cast new light on Turner's
most famous paintings.

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It began with the purchase
of a painting.

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Within that painting,
we found some hidden images.

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And because of that, we looked
across to some works by Turner.

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And there, looking out
of the painting at me...

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..was Turner.

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Unbelievable.

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This is significant because there
is only one known self-portrait

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by Turner in oils,

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and we've found
a lot more smaller ones.

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We're very certain
that these are Turner himself.

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When I found one or two...

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quite large and impressive images,
I had to go and lie down.

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I hadn't experienced
anything like that.

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ERICA: There is a history of artists
hiding things in paintings.

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They've been doing it for centuries.

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There's Giotto,
who hid a devil in clouds...

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..Michelangelo, who outlined
a brain in the Sistine Chapel...

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..and Gainsborough
even hid genitalia.

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And these are becoming
increasingly researched now.

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But what we found in Turner,
nobody has ever discovered before.

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NICK: But it isn't
just about images.

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It's about really
the life and times of Turner...

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..expressed by him in paint.

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These hidden images
reveal new narratives

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where none has previously existed

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and have the potential
to rewrite the history

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of Britain's greatest painter.

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This will very definitely change the
way that we engage with his work.

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And in at least four paintings,

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we have a complete reinterpretation
of that painting.

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There are multiple instances

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of the same image
appearing across paintings.

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It's hugely significant.
We're in new territory here.

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Born in 1775,

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Turner is famed as Britain's painter
of land, sea and light.

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But Dr Nicholas Wilkinson
and his wife Erica

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think there is far more
to Turner's work -

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if you look at it in a new way...

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closely.

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ERICA: Nick has a doctorate
in physical chemistry,

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working on the molecular level,

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and this requires
three-dimensional visualisation.

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And that is how this relates
to his work on Turner.

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He sometimes has been obsessed.

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At home, there'll be computer
screens with an image of Turner.

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There'll be an iPad
with an image of Turner.

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Then he'll be sitting with his
iPhone with an image of Turner.

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And he was always blowing them up,

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reducing them and rotating them.

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We've had to keep this secret for...

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..five years,

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so it has been incredibly difficult.

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I worked in science for 15 years,

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but then we bought a painting.

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When I first looked at
this marine painting,

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there was a face looking out at me,

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a hidden anamorphic image,

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and I was quite shocked by that.

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I found it to be quite disquieting

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cos we were dealing with
such a famous artist.

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The Turner code

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started to emerge

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when I'd looked at 30 or 40
of his paintings

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and found new narratives and
recurrence between those paintings.

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There were definite themes
that started to occur

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that were not known
in Turner scholarship.

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First of all, his titles
are complicated and cryptic.

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They are a bit like the satirical
print titles of the time,

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which are in two or more parts.

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And part of that title is cryptic

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and it tells you
what to find in the painting.

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The second part of the code

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is anamorphic elements
in the painting

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to tell the narratives.

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And those anamorphic elements
are twofold.

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They are pareidolic.

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That means
taking something inanimate

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and turning it into
something animate.

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Or anthropomorphic,

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which means taking multiple elements

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and combining them
into a single hidden image.

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I think you need a fresh eye

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to see Turner in the way
that Nick has discovered him.

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I was a trained art historian

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and I didn't believe at first

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that Turner would do
something like this.

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But then the more I read
about his personality,

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I realised that would have been
entirely in keeping

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with the kind of person that he was.

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It appears
that he definitely wanted

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these hidden images to be found,

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but he camouflaged them so skilfully

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that they haven't been found
for nearly 200 years.

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What we would very much like to do
is to show these hidden images

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and all our theories to art experts.

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We'd like to get their reactions.

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In 1838, Turner painted
The Fighting Temeraire,

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showing an old battleship
being towed to be broken up.

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The ship had been part
of Lord Nelson's fleet

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at the Battle Of Trafalgar.

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Turner never sold the painting,

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which he called "my darling".

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Turner had grown up...

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as a boy,

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looking at these great ships
of the Napoleonic wars.

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You know, the heroic time of Nelson

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and, you know, Waterloo.

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In this picture, he's actually
painting the end of it all.

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This tug is pulling,
with steam power,

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the great sail ship of the past.

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And people who wrote
about the picture

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commented on how this squat,

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ugly, black, dark,
little horrible tug

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was pulling
this graceful, beautiful

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emblem of Britain's
glorious maritime past

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to destruction.

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Yet, at the same time,
I think Turner's not

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entirely lamenting it

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because, for me, Turner's
identifying himself with that tug.

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You know, Turner wore
this black top hat.

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He was a diminutive man.

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So the tug, for me, IS Turner,
and the tug represents

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modern vision as well as
the modern age of steam.

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So it's complicated, it's a lament,

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but it's also Turner saying,

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"If I had to choose my own side,

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my side is the modern."

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Dr Wilkinson wants to see
if he can convince

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one of Britain's
leading art historians

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that there is even more to the work

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than initially meets the eye.

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There is a strange image
on the left-hand side

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of The Fighting Temeraire...

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..and if you look at it carefully,

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it appears as a screaming head...

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with a high collar...coat on

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and it's impaled from above
by a wooden stake.

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And we propose that is Napoleon.

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That's great. So it's a bit like
Francis Bacon's screaming Pope,

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except it's a screaming Napoleon.

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To be fair, I CAN see
a shape like a cocked hat,

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and I can see where you would see
a sort of...

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I suppose it's almost like
Munch's Scream.

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What is it actually
in the illusion of the painting?

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It is a gun port.

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There are three gun ports.

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Two are his eyes and the other
is his screaming mouth.

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Right.

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He's created something
from those elements.

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In your interpretation,
I presume that would be a reference

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to The Fighting Temeraire's role
in the Battle Of Trafalgar.

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This is the ship that speared
Napoleon for once and for all.

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Absolutely. The British tactic

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was to fire into the hull
of the French ships,

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cause massive splinters
that disabled the crew.

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So, they actually speared
by great pieces of wood?

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They were speared
by big pieces of wood.

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Look at the top.

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Ships attached their prize to their
side and then sold it to market.

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So, this is a metaphorical prize
of Napoleon's head.

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I suppose, in a sense,
it's Napoleon's head on a stick.

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Wellington had a statue of Napoleon
placed in Apsley House.

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Wellington wanted Napoleon in
his house because he was his prize.

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"I am the man
who defeated Napoleon."

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It's the same thought.
Whether you see it or not.

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And people can choose
whether they agree

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with your anthropomorphic reading
of these things,

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and whether their eyes
are the same as your eyes.

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At least in the case
of this interpretation,

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it's not as if it's overturning
the meaning of the picture.

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Or it's not as if it's giving it
some kind of mad twist.

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It's actually reinforcing what
we know Turner probably thought.

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It's another layer
within the painting.

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But will other Turner enthusiasts
also concede

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that one of the world's
most famous paintings

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might have a screaming, defeated
Napoleon hiding in plain sight?

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On the side of the Temeraire...

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he's created...

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a head and shoulders.

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No... Surely he hasn't. Not on...

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Not on this famous,
most-loved painting?

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First of all, can you see...

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..that this is a screaming head,

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like Edvard Munch? Aaahh.

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Right...
Years before Ed Munch.

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Where's the mouth?
His mouth is here.

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The eye is here.
Yeah.

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The admiral's hat is...

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The golden braid
is on top of his head.

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He has...

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a big collar and shoulder here,

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and he's pinned to the side
of the Temeraire.

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Gee!

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Wow.
In fact...

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it is...

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we propose, Napoleon.
Can you see it?

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Of course.
(CHUCKLES)

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Wow. I think I need to have a drink

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cos that is just absolutely mad.

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If you look at the £20 note

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and you will see
Napoleon's head screaming

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on the side of the Temeraire.
I just can't believe that.

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00:14:11,680 --> 00:14:14,360
I can't believe
that's not been seen before...

254
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:17,440
because it's there
but visible and invisible.

255
00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:20,040
I like that expression.
It is both.

256
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:23,360
It is both. Yes.
It's deliberately invisible.

257
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:24,520
Yeah, but...

258
00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:26,800
But there is a challenge
for the nation

259
00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:28,520
to go find his hidden images.

260
00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:39,760
On the left-hand side,
beyond topographical form,

261
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:43,840
created from...

262
00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:45,560
A sort of skull.
..the angle,

263
00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:47,320
there's a sort of skull.

264
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,600
Yes. Yes.
I can see a sort of skull.

265
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:52,640
He's got a high collar coat on...

266
00:14:52,680 --> 00:14:54,160
Yeah.
..with a shoulder.

267
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:57,000
I can...
I can see what you're getting at.

268
00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:00,840
It even has a circular form
on the hat here.

269
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:03,600
I'm gonna suggest to you
that that's a cockade...

270
00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:07,960
..and that cockade is an emblem
of the French Revolution.

271
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,480
It's very interesting.
Once you see the shapes,
you CAN see them. But...

272
00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:14,240
Yeah.
I mean, whether...

273
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:16,600
whether that's what that is,
I'm not sure,

274
00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:18,360
but I can see what you're saying.

275
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:21,240
You may never wipe that
from your mind.No.

276
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:31,040
We suggest this is...

277
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:36,000
..Napoleon impaled to the side
of the Temeraire.

278
00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:39,600
He was a prize of the Temeraire.
Can you see it?

279
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:43,080
Yeah...

280
00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:45,440
It could be a unicorn, you know.

281
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:48,440
(LAUGHS) I think it's a unicorn.

282
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:52,440
I'm not sure if it's...
Napoleon impaled.

283
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:54,720
I can imagine he'd, like...

284
00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:58,160
enjoy the secretness of it all
and the fun of it all

285
00:15:58,200 --> 00:15:59,560
if he DID, you know,

286
00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:03,640
if he did imbue these paintings
with hidden symbolism.

287
00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:06,320
Yeah.But do you think
that was very much of the time,

288
00:16:06,360 --> 00:16:08,520
that's what people were doing
generally?

289
00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:10,440
No. Just Turner.
Just Turner.

290
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:13,880
You look at others,
there is nothing there.OK.

291
00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:19,760
What would you say about that image

292
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,200
in our proposal that it's Napoleon?

293
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:25,320
The first thing
I would observe is that...

294
00:16:25,360 --> 00:16:28,200
the bow of the ship
makes his hat.

295
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:31,160
And what I'd always thought
about this painting

296
00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:35,480
is that the perspective of the ship
coming towards the viewer

297
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:37,360
is a little odd.

298
00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:41,960
The fact that it is concealing
an image of Napoleon

299
00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:44,360
would explain that...

300
00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:47,520
that Turner might have
adapted the perspective

301
00:16:47,560 --> 00:16:50,200
in order to accommodate
this hidden face.

302
00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:58,600
It appears to be a sort of
three-dimensional...

303
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:04,160
..entity on the side of the boat,
screaming in agony.

304
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:06,840
Can you see that at all?

305
00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:10,960
No, I can't see that.
I really can't.

306
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,960
I mean, you know, I understand
why Napoleon might be...

307
00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:17,040
..associated.

308
00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:19,640
The story's kind of...there.

309
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:22,800
It's imminent all the time
in that painting.

310
00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:26,120
I don't see why you would
then put more...

311
00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:28,080
more into it, more information.

312
00:17:28,120 --> 00:17:29,800
I don't think it needs it.

313
00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:33,240
I think it's a simple story
well told.

314
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:44,040
The Freudian theory was that you
may try to repress something,

315
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:45,920
but it will come out somewhere else

316
00:17:45,960 --> 00:17:47,960
because of strong,
unconscious impulses.

317
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:50,960
It will come out in art.
It will come out in your dreams.

318
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:52,760
It may come out
in the slip of a tongue

319
00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:54,480
in the middle of a conversation.

320
00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,680
So if Turner is hiding something
and has got a secret code

321
00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:02,240
and trying to send
an underhand message to the world,

322
00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:06,160
the deeper psychological question
psychologists would ask

323
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:08,120
is "What's his motivation?"

324
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:12,080
So, one reason why people
sometimes embed codes,

325
00:18:12,120 --> 00:18:16,200
or send signals in a hidden way,
is a mischievousness,

326
00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:19,040
a playfulness,
and a kind of showing off.

327
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:23,560
And if Turner had a strong sense
of superiority over other people,

328
00:18:23,600 --> 00:18:26,600
he may be showing off
if he tries to hide codes.

329
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:30,600
JMW Turner was indeed
a well known show-off.

330
00:18:30,640 --> 00:18:34,520
Every year at the opening
of the Royal Academy Exhibition,

331
00:18:34,560 --> 00:18:37,200
crowds watched him
add finishing touches

332
00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:39,560
that transformed his paintings.

333
00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:44,400
Turner was famous for turning up
and making changes that...

334
00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:48,280
..would seem to put
the artists around him,

335
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:51,560
and their paintings, down,
and make his picture pop up.

336
00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:53,560
So he's hugely, hugely competitive.

337
00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:56,560
I mean, Turner's personality
is a very strange one

338
00:18:56,600 --> 00:19:00,680
because on the one hand,
he was crude, he was rude,

339
00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:05,120
he was dishevelled, he was kind of
a complete mess of a man.

340
00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:10,520
He was also an extremely intelligent
and well-read man.

341
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:13,680
He was aware of modern science
and technology.

342
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:15,200
He read philosophy.

343
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:16,920
He composed his own poems.

344
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:19,160
He understood a great deal
about history,

345
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:23,000
and he cared deeply
about his own legacy.

346
00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:26,120
And he wanted his pictures
to be shown together,

347
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:28,160
exhibited together,

348
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:30,640
as part of his own legacy,

349
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:33,360
to be rooted in British history

350
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:37,520
in the way that his paintings
depicted British history.

351
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:41,440
After extensive research,

352
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:43,600
the Wilkinsons have concluded that,

353
00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:46,040
through a series
of concealed images,

354
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:49,000
Turner represented himself
as a bear.

355
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,800
If you look, he's resurrected
all the masts on the Temeraire,

356
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:57,600
but put no flags on them.

357
00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:01,120
But he's put this very prominent
white flag

358
00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:03,120
on the mast of the tugboat.

359
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:07,800
What do you see in the flag?

360
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:11,320
The flag is his emblem,
the bear's head.

361
00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:15,120
And that bear's head
is looking down at the Temeraire.

362
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:20,400
You would see ears in the top
left corner of the flag

363
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,400
and you'd see the bear's snout
in the bottom left corner.

364
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:24,840
Yeah.
Yeah.

365
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:28,080
I mean, I have to...
To me, I can see an animal,

366
00:20:28,120 --> 00:20:30,480
but that's the thing
about drapery in painting.

367
00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:32,160
Yeah.
But I'm gonna, you know,

368
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:36,160
if it sort of reinforces my idea
that the tug was Turner,

369
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:37,880
then, of course, I'm interested.

370
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:39,840
Within the Temeraire,

371
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,680
the only flag flying
is on the tugboat.

372
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:44,520
It's a white flag.

373
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:48,040
But when you look at it...
what he has done...

374
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:50,520
It seems completely
the head of a bear.

375
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,560
It's the head of a bear.
This one is incredible.

376
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:55,440
Are you able to see that?

377
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,840
The question is,
are we looking at something

378
00:20:57,880 --> 00:20:59,760
that Turner intended us
to look at,

379
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,440
or is this something that is
by chance

380
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,240
which creates this shape?
I'm not sure.

381
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:07,880
Why is Turner
sending these messages?

382
00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:09,240
What's going on?

383
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:13,880
Cos a Freudian theory would be
that he's repressed in some sense

384
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:16,600
or society is repressing him

385
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:18,720
and he has to get a way
of getting a message out.

386
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,240
To send a code,
you're hiding it from someone

387
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,880
and you want other people to see it.

388
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:28,680
One of the issues for Turner
had started early in his life

389
00:21:28,720 --> 00:21:32,400
when he was the president of
Perspective at the Royal Academy.

390
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:37,760
He presented lectures there and...
he was derided for that,

391
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:40,680
because his verbal style
was not comprehensible.

392
00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:45,080
And people joked at his expense
about that, unfortunately.

393
00:21:45,120 --> 00:21:48,680
I'd suggest he is
recording in paint...

394
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:53,320
..the narrative of his life
through a series of paintings.

395
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:55,400
But why do it in a coded way?

396
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:01,080
Maybe it's a sort of
parlour game approach.

397
00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,280
The parlour game was something
in the early Victorian period

398
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:09,120
for people to find hidden images,

399
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,040
to give them little clues
as to what it might be...

400
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,160
..and to give them an additional
level of looking at his work.

401
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:20,200
That painting
is beautiful enough as it is.

402
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,600
He doesn't have to put
a coded message in.

403
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:25,640
Once he starts doing that,

404
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:30,400
it begins to distract
from the beauty of that painting.

405
00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:32,680
You don't need a coded message.

406
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,800
If anything, the fact
there's a coded message in there

407
00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:39,080
begins to detract
or distract the viewer

408
00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:41,400
from the appreciation
of that painting.

409
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,880
That being so, if you don't know
there's a coded message there,

410
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:48,600
it is of no consequence.

411
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:51,680
OK. That's a very,
very interesting counterargument.

412
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:55,320
When Nick first said,
"Can you see a bear here?"

413
00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:59,080
I said, "Yeah, but so what?
Yeah, it looks like a bear.

414
00:22:59,120 --> 00:23:02,720
But prove to me
it's intended as a bear."

415
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:09,920
And only by looking extensively
across several paintings,

416
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,280
has Nick been able
to build up an argument

417
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:17,120
that has convinced me...
to quite a sufficient degree.

418
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:24,280
ERICA: We found out that the bear
is the Venetian painter Titian's

419
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,280
personal device,
which was illustrated

420
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,360
in the most wonderful cartouche,

421
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,600
a lovely she-bear.

422
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:39,120
And between her front paws
there is a lumpen block.

423
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:42,560
She is about to lick this block
into shape

424
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:44,560
to reveal a bear cub.

425
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:49,880
And the idea is that this
has a direct parallel

426
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:53,640
to the activity of artists.

427
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:59,320
Titian was regarded
as the great colourist...

428
00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:05,040
..and Turner saw himself
as Titian's heir.

429
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,320
Therefore, there is a good reason

430
00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:10,960
for him choosing the bear
as his personal emblem.

431
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:15,960
Dr Wilkinson believes that

432
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,520
Turner concealed
other controversial images

433
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,960
within The Fighting Temeraire.

434
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,520
The yellow and orange shape
at the end of the dirty plume

435
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,720
is actually a goose's head
looking down the plume.

436
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:29,840
It is an eye and a breathing hole.

437
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,000
That's how you can identify it.

438
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:36,640
And he's portraying steam as
the golden goose of the future age.

439
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,440
I can't see the goose.
OK.

440
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:43,920
I don't see this.

441
00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:47,280
This is like one of those Magic Eye
things that I just can't see.

442
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:51,000
I'm afraid I'm not convinced
by the goose in the smoke.

443
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:52,880
OK.

444
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:57,160
Now I'm going to show you
the head of a goose.

445
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,880
It could be a face of many animals.

446
00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:01,400
Yeah.
Actually.

447
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:03,680
But I'm thinking that
could also be...

448
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:08,000
For me, I can't stop seeing...

449
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,280
Sorry.

450
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,560
But...a pig.

451
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:13,400
(CHUCKLES GOOFILY)

452
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:18,040
TIM: I can see something that
could be interpreted like that.

453
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,240
Hmm.
But I'm going to say...

454
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:25,720
..I think it would change the whole
nature of the painting to do that.

455
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:27,560
Yeah.
Because he's a...

456
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,600
He's also an observational painter.

457
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,200
He's painting real things.

458
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:38,280
And why would he want
to jeopardise that,

459
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:43,160
you know,
powerful impression of reality.

460
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,960
I'm so curious
about this gigantic goose

461
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,240
kind of dominating everything.

462
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,520
I wonder what that tells us
about Turner himself

463
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,440
and why he chose these images.

464
00:25:54,120 --> 00:25:57,840
ERICA: We could see geese heads
time and time again,

465
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:02,120
so we came to the conclusion
this was a reference

466
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,360
to steam that was regarded

467
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,480
as the golden goose
of the nation's wealth.

468
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,280
A number of history's
most famous paintings

469
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,920
contain extraordinary secrets

470
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:19,680
that are still being uncovered
centuries after their completion.

471
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,120
I think it's wonderful,
this new kind of hobby

472
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:24,960
that seems to be sweeping the world,

473
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,840
which is people finding
secret symbols in paintings.

474
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,600
One of the great British painters
of the 18th century

475
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:32,200
was Thomas Gainsborough,

476
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,160
and one of his
most famous paintings -

477
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,800
it's one of the most popular
paintings in Britain -

478
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,040
is Mr And Mrs Andrews,
which is in the National Gallery.

479
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,280
People have loved this painting
for centuries,

480
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:46,360
but they hadn't really noticed that
at the very centre of the painting,

481
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:47,920
on Mrs Andrews' lap,

482
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:50,920
Gainsborough had actually drawn
a squiggle of a penis,

483
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:52,840
perhaps to get back at the couple.

484
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:54,560
We know that he
didn't finish the painting

485
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:57,120
because the relationship
with the patrons broke down,

486
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,160
and so perhaps
he was getting revenge

487
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,080
on Mr or Mrs Andrews by doing that.

488
00:27:01,120 --> 00:27:04,120
(LAUGHS) There's a far more
prominent male member

489
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:07,520
in Gainsborough's portrait
of Countess Howe in Kenwood.

490
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,680
And if you read
Gainsborough's letters,

491
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:11,760
why should anyone
be surprised about this?

492
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:13,920
He's constantly writing,
in his letters -

493
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:18,560
and indeed I think in his diary -
about how aroused he becomes.

494
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,960
Why should we be surprised?

495
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:30,160
One of the earliest instances
of Turner using hidden imagery

496
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:35,680
is in his 1829 painting
Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus...

497
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,600
and the clue is in the title.

498
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,440
It describes
the classical hero Ulysses,

499
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,000
taunting a giant Cyclops
called Polyphemus,

500
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:46,080
from which he has escaped.

501
00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:48,840
And though we can see Ulysses
on his ship,

502
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,600
Polyphemus is harder to spot

503
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,720
because he is made out of clouds.

504
00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:01,040
In this painting,
there are some known hidden images.

505
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,880
There's the title, which is
Polyphemus up in the clouds.

506
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:06,400
Have you seen that before?

507
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:10,440
Yes. Polyphemus is
relatively easy to see.

508
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,280
I think there are
the horses in the sun,

509
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,640
which are also fairly easy to see.

510
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:18,760
But you'd miss them
if you stayed at...

511
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,040
if you stayed at a distance of six
to eight feet from the painting,

512
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:25,280
which is - for a picture like this -
classically the correct distance.

513
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:27,880
So it's...
Perhaps it's one of Turner's ways

514
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:31,400
of making you walk into his sun,
having those horses there.

515
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,760
So there are other images as well.

516
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,760
The flag
halfway up the flagpole there.

517
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,600
Are you aware that there is
a Trojan horse on wheels

518
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:42,520
sitting in the flag...

519
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:47,840
and then, behind, there are
buildings that are on fire?

520
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,320
But, yes, I do see what you mean.

521
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:51,960
Yeah.
And I'm absolutely

522
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,080
prepared to accept the possibility
that that might be there

523
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,000
because, you know,
something like a flag for Turner

524
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,320
is an opportunity
for these little graphic finesses.

525
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,400
Turner had this compulsive need
to put graffiti everywhere.

526
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,480
So that all over his paintings,

527
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:08,600
you find these sort of
secret messages and things

528
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,680
that are scurrying
almost half out of sight.

529
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,280
So, you know, absolutely,
I'm happy to see a Trojan horse.

530
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:15,080
I CAN see a Trojan horse
on wheels now.

531
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:16,960
Great. Lovely.

532
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,240
Finally, at the very top
of the mast there

533
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,640
is a bear's head
with a bridle on it.

534
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:28,720
His ear is attached to the mast,
and he's looking out right,

535
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,320
looking forward
in the direction of the ship.

536
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,440
Written on that...

537
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,640
..it's the word U-L-Y, "Uly".

538
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:39,760
Maybe you can see it. Uly.

539
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,480
So he's painted Ulysses...

540
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,000
..as a bear on the mast head.

541
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,640
I would suggest to you
that he saw himself

542
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,120
as a journeying Ulysses.

543
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,040
Why would Ulysses be
in the shape of a bear?

544
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,600
Is that because the bear
is Turner's own emblem

545
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:58,600
that he borrows from Titian?

546
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:02,160
In your personal mythology
of Turner, how does that work?

547
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,760
Correct. The bear's head
is Turner's self emblem.

548
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,240
It appears in many paintings.

549
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:12,560
I'm not sure about the bear's head,
but essentially,

550
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,280
I don't disagree with your idea

551
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,120
of Turner identifying himself
with Ulysses...

552
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,720
..the endless, restless traveller

553
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,440
who finds it so hard to settle

554
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:29,440
and whose life
is knocked awry

555
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,320
but his destiny
leads him always onwards.

556
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,360
Actually, Turner is part
of the ship, heading onwards.

557
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,800
If you look at the sail form.

558
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,880
It's got a big hooked nose
on the right-hand side.

559
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,000
And then there's an eye there
in the sail form -

560
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,040
and he uses sails as images -

561
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,280
is Turner's head surging forward.

562
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:51,280
Well, I must say,
if you're gonna...

563
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,560
The thing is,
for this kind of transformation

564
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,360
of something abstract
into an actual image,

565
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,560
you do have a very good precedent
in Leonardo da Vinci,

566
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,720
who says, you know,
"Look at the stains on a wall.

567
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,880
Look at the clouds in the sky.
Look at the drapery.

568
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:11,000
And if you see a shape in it,
make it the basis for a painting."

569
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:15,920
So this idea of seeing shapes
in clouds or in sail cloth

570
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:18,680
or in, you know, a bit of sea...

571
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,440
..Leonardo da Vinci said
that's what artists do.

572
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:34,880
The Wilkinsons' research
has taken them across the UK.

573
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,840
But there is one place overseas
that was special to Turner.

574
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:41,240
Venice.

575
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,760
He arrived here.
He was doing the Grand Tour.

576
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:57,000
He was always travelling.
He was a person very curious.

577
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,040
Turner, like so many British people,
was just obsessed with Italy.

578
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:04,800
It was the "golden ticket" for him.

579
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,320
He drew thousands of sketches
when he was in Italy.

580
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:09,960
He made hundreds of paintings
inspired by Italy.

581
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,480
And I think Italy -
and Venice in particular -

582
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,600
fundamentally transformed his art.

583
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:16,480
I think that
was what propelled him

584
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,360
into this journey towards
an art of light and colour.

585
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,200
Then he started
to understand the light

586
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,800
and the way of painting
of Titian and Tintoretto.

587
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,520
Dr Wilkinson is visiting some of
the sites Turner would have seen...

588
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,720
..viewing frescoes
by Venetian Renaissance artists

589
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,280
Titian and Tintoretto,
that Turner sketched.

590
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:46,800
And even the street
Tintoretto lived in...

591
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,040
..defined by its turbaned statues.

592
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,840
And the Palazzo del Cammello,
or Camel House, where he lived.

593
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:58,680
It's no surprise
that Venice is the setting

594
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,760
for one of Turner's
most cryptic paintings.

595
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,280
Exhibited in 1833,

596
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:11,880
it shows Venice
as the city of canals,

597
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,400
with its famous Bridge Of Sighs,

598
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,840
Ducal Palace and Custom House.

599
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,040
It also features an artist.

600
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,120
The traditional interpretation

601
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:28,000
is that this is the 17th-century
Venetian painter Antonio Canal,

602
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:32,360
known by his nickname "Canaletto",
which means "son of Canal".

603
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:40,120
But Turner's cryptic title
is not "Canaletto",

604
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:41,960
but "Canaletti".

605
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,080
FRANNY: Titles are really important
in Turner's work.

606
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,160
When he entitles
one of his paintings "Canaletti"

607
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,400
rather than "Canaletto",

608
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,760
I think Nick is right to think

609
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:57,760
this may be an invitation

610
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,160
to consider the work
as something of a riddle.

611
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,160
I think there is a clue
in that title

612
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:06,720
by using an Italian plural.

613
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,160
NICK: His title is cryptic.
"Canaletti Painting"

614
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:17,680
suggests to me "sons"

615
00:34:17,720 --> 00:34:20,080
and it suggests to me
"sons of Canal".

616
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:24,000
To me, "sons of Canal"
means "the sons of Venice",

617
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:25,800
because Venice is canal.

618
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:27,880
And what you find
in this painting -

619
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,520
I am going to propose to you,
and I welcome your thoughts -

620
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:36,880
that he has taken this painting
and painted in the sons of Venice.

621
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:38,680
Wow.
All right?

622
00:34:38,720 --> 00:34:42,560
So we have great famous
Venetian people in here.

623
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:47,080
I think there's a son of Venice
represented here in general

624
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:51,640
by the sublime painting
of the buildings.

625
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,000
If you look at the painting
as a whole,

626
00:34:54,040 --> 00:35:00,040
the top two thirds
is of a Canaletto-style painting.

627
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:01,800
It rivals Canaletto.
Yeah.

628
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:03,400
And he's, in a way,

629
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:06,000
competed with Canaletto
by presenting this,

630
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,360
but has paid homage to him
as a son of Venice

631
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:13,040
in the nature of the painting of
the buildings in the background.

632
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,560
I would put this proposal to you

633
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,960
that the artist
painting at the easel,

634
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:21,960
it isn't Canaletto painting.

635
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,280
This is actually Titian painting.

636
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,480
He's wearing a Titian-red coat.
Yes.

637
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:34,080
You look and it is known that
this painting is amazingly framed.

638
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,080
Yeah.
Right? With a guild frame.

639
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:41,280
And the actual painting image
that looks out at you

640
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,000
is a bear.
Two eyes.

641
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:45,920
Two eyes and a muzzle is a bear.

642
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,120
Now, the bear was Titian's emblem.

643
00:35:51,720 --> 00:35:54,720
Beneath Titian,
reflected in the water,

644
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,400
is a caricature image,

645
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:58,680
self-image of Turner.

646
00:35:58,720 --> 00:36:03,120
Turner is looking
at the painting of the bear.

647
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:05,840
Oh, with a big nose.
With a big nose.

648
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:09,040
And the head. Here is the eye.
Yeah.

649
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:13,000
This is opening a completely...
another point of view

650
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,320
of look into the Turner paintings.
Yes.

651
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:18,400
There are things
that I never thought.

652
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,040
No, there are clever, hidden things,

653
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:24,680
but they have
symbolic meaning to Turner,

654
00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:27,000
and he wants to convey them

655
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:29,960
to the readership,
the audience, as well.

656
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,400
Through different anamorphic images,

657
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:34,840
he creates interest in the painting.

658
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,760
But he never gave it away
in his lifetime.

659
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:40,120
He never said it?
No, he didn't let people

660
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:41,680
see him painting.

661
00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:44,080
Probably because he was
doing some of this.

662
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:46,200
This is quite powerful.

663
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,800
When you look
at all these cloths here,

664
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,400
piled up on the boats
in the middle of the painting,

665
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:56,840
there are three heads there.

666
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:00,800
And in the middle of them...

667
00:37:00,840 --> 00:37:02,720
is an animal's head.

668
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:05,240
The dark head is a camel's head.

669
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,360
And then we have
three Moorish heads.

670
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:12,680
Right?
Ahh.

671
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,600
So there is a meaning
of the three Moors

672
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,040
that are near the house
of Tintoretto?

673
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,520
Yeah. That is a locational
representation of Tintoretto,

674
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:23,160
cos that's where he worked.

675
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:28,160
Let me show you
this unusual front of a boat here.

676
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,040
You see that shape

677
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,640
and you ask yourself,
"What is he doing there?"

678
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:35,760
My proposal to you

679
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:41,160
is that that is a representation
of Vivaldi.

680
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:45,400
And here we have
a red cello with a neck,

681
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,760
and he even has tuning plugs on it.

682
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:49,760
Can you see?
Completely.

683
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,760
Yeah? So my proposal to you...
You agree with that?

684
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:56,520
You've never seen that before.
No, I never know this.

685
00:37:56,560 --> 00:38:01,160
So, Canaletti in the sense
of the sons of Venice.

686
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:02,880
Yes.
So it's not only one?

687
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:04,480
No, there are multiple.

688
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:08,640
The painting features
Venice's prison,

689
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:10,400
known as "The Leads",

690
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,840
from which the famous Venetian
lothario Casanova once escaped.

691
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:17,840
And Dr Wilkinson thinks Turner

692
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,080
may have referred
to this event, too.

693
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:24,520
But now we go on to another one,
another type.

694
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,040
And this is Casanova.

695
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:32,920
And here, Casanova
escaping from The Leads.

696
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,400
He climbed down from the prison.

697
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:36,680
Yes.
Yeah?

698
00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:41,920
And he was met by a gondola
that whisked him away.

699
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,880
Here is Casanova
sitting, smiling in the gondola

700
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,440
with his feet up.

701
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:48,960
Oh, fantastic.

702
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:55,720
I think the other invitation to
consider the painting as a riddle

703
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,000
is something that academics
have always picked up on

704
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,480
and never really cracked,
which is...

705
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:06,320
..you can see an artist
to the left of the canvas,

706
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,600
painting at an easel,
but he's painting...

707
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:11,960
a painting that's already framed,

708
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,200
which of course,
no artist ever does.

709
00:39:14,240 --> 00:39:16,880
They may paint
a bare canvas unframed.

710
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,440
And so I think this
instantly is asking us

711
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,040
to look at the whole painting

712
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:24,120
as a riddle about painters.

713
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,560
If Turner has called a painting
after Canaletto,

714
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,560
why would he NOT depict Canaletto?

715
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:37,840
Why would the main figure
be Titian?

716
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:39,640
Scientists have taught us
to be sceptical.

717
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,200
To the right
is a caricature image...

718
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:45,080
..in profile, of a man's head.

719
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:47,480
That looks like genitalia to me.

720
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:49,080
(BOTH LAUGH)

721
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,000
That's not a credible man.
(LAUGHS)

722
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,040
With a humongous nose.

723
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:57,960
Sorry, I'm not mocking you, but...

724
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,960
He could be a cartoon man.
He could be a cartoon man.

725
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:03,320
But why would Turner
paint a cartoon man?

726
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:06,040
Mm.
I don't know.

727
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,200
This was the golden age
of English caricature.

728
00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:12,640
Mm. I just think he would be
a bit more virtuoso about it

729
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:14,880
if he was going to do that.

730
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:18,080
You know, that doesn't
feel like a credible head.

731
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:20,760
But that's ME.
Everybody's subjective, I think,

732
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,040
and you will see
something different than I do.

733
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:25,120
Nick's thesis

734
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,080
is that some of Turner's
references to popular culture,

735
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,200
to pantomime, to caricature,

736
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:36,120
things that are a kind of litter,
references do occur

737
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:38,640
and he just had that tendency

738
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:42,640
to try and put a bit of everything
in a work.

739
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:44,760
You don't often spot the litter.

740
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,240
Often you have to look quite hard
for it, but it'll be there.

741
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:52,760
Early on, Turner is doing
a lot of work with printmakers,

742
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,120
both in terms of
the reproduction of his own work

743
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,560
and in terms...in his earlier youth,

744
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,480
of learning from people
who are in the print trade.

745
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:05,320
Seems to me entirely natural

746
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,040
that Turner would know
his print trade inside out

747
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,960
and that an awareness of caricature
would be a part of that.

748
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:16,400
One of the most exciting
innovations, I think,

749
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,760
that the satirists pioneered was
their use of quite surreal imagery.

750
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,000
They loved hiding images
within other images.

751
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,160
Or they loved hiding characters
within particular shapes.

752
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:29,200
That's what's fun
about these images -

753
00:41:29,240 --> 00:41:32,320
at one glance you think
you've worked it out already,

754
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,320
and then you look
a little bit closer

755
00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:38,120
and there's this peculiar, bizarre
image that you're looking at.

756
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,800
I think it's exciting
that we're looking at Turner

757
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,280
in light of these caricatures.

758
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,040
As you move into the 1830s, 1840s,

759
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,440
to the final couple of decades
of his life,

760
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:53,680
he develops what we call
his late style.

761
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:55,920
And in that late style,

762
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,760
the paintings become
more and more indistinct.

763
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:00,960
The figures and the forms
begin to dissolve

764
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:02,720
and everything becomes dominated

765
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:07,240
by this...diaphanous
sheets of colour and light.

766
00:42:08,240 --> 00:42:11,000
His work evolves constantly

767
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:14,200
and it just becomes
richer and richer.

768
00:42:15,240 --> 00:42:19,040
He becomes very interested
in a concept called the sublime,

769
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:20,920
which is the opposite of beauty.

770
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:24,480
It's when you see something
that terrifies you
and you quite enjoy that.

771
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:26,320
This is a sort of way for him

772
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,840
to start pushing away
from visual accuracy

773
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,520
into something new
and something different.

774
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:36,160
CORNELIA: Turner was
way ahead of his time,

775
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:39,040
and his late work
was very impressionistic.

776
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,520
Monet and all the Impressionists
looked to him

777
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:44,880
and had been in London
and looked at the work.

778
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:46,640
And so I think he was a catalyst

779
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,680
for that whole era
of French Impressionism.

780
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,240
Claude Monet,
who came in 1872 to London,

781
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,760
he saw Turner's work
and he was forever altered.

782
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,320
And very early in the history
of Impressionism,

783
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:02,120
he and all the other Impressionist
artists wrote a letter -

784
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,920
a public open letter -
thanking Monsieur Turner

785
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,240
for having paved the way
for Impressionism,

786
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:10,480
and pointing them
in the direction of painting light.

787
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,920
Monet spent the rest of his life
pretending he'd never
written that letter

788
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,120
and pretending that he wasn't
absolutely in thrall to Turner.

789
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:21,000
In his later works in particular,

790
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,280
Turner described his art
as indistinct.

791
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:25,280
"Indistinctness is what I do."

792
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,760
Sort of this wonderful mix
of colour and swirl.

793
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,480
And then when you get up close,
you can see these little details.

794
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,480
So I think he's being playful there

795
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:36,640
by suggesting that somehow
he is ALWAYS indistinct.

796
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,520
I think anyone who's actually
studied Turner's paintings up close

797
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:44,200
and looked at them, can start to see
those little details ping out.

798
00:43:44,240 --> 00:43:47,360
So I think he's both indistinct
AND distinct at the same time.

799
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:51,480
What I think there is...
is another way of looking at Turner,

800
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:56,040
and I think within the context
of a single painting,

801
00:43:56,080 --> 00:44:00,720
he uses discreet,
sometimes camouflaged, imagery

802
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,760
to enhance the meaning
of that single painting.

803
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:07,200
And it does seem to occur in
the later part of Turner's career,

804
00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:09,160
where he's more confident, perhaps,

805
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,520
where he cares less
about what people think,

806
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,960
where perhaps he has become
more prepared to be playful.

807
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,000
As Turner developed
his indistinct style,

808
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:27,120
he also turned
to new, modern topics,

809
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,000
which created a stir.

810
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:33,720
His contemporaries thought
he was a bit strange and he was.

811
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:37,720
Why would you paint a steam train
rushing towards the audience

812
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,600
as if to run them down?
This is an amazing thing to paint.

813
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,440
This is something of our time.
No-one else is painting it.

814
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:47,120
Because the Industrial Revolution
was such a shocking thing,

815
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,760
nobody painted it.
It's like, "don't mention the war".

816
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,480
But Turner DID paint it.
He painted smog.

817
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,120
No-one else did that.

818
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,600
And the public does respond,
as you can imagine.

819
00:44:57,640 --> 00:44:59,840
They go, "Wow!"

820
00:44:59,880 --> 00:45:03,040
I mean, it's like lobbing a bomb
into a gentlemen's club...

821
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:05,440
..a Turner painting.

822
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:08,400
I mean, it's this astonishing
explosion of light.

823
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:12,680
If you had to boil down to,
as it were,

824
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:15,680
one sentence, the meaning
of rain, steam and speed,

825
00:45:15,720 --> 00:45:18,280
it's saying
"this is the modern world".

826
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,400
Here it is, a steam train
rushing towards you

827
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:26,480
across a viaduct,
that's blurred by speed.

828
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:28,400
And all around it,

829
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:32,680
are these little images and emblems.

830
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,200
There's this little boat.

831
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,880
A road bridge...but no coaches.

832
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:48,120
There's a hare scampering
out of the way. Nature - forget it.

833
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,000
A farmer with his plough
and two horses.

834
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,080
But they're like ghosts
cos, of course,

835
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,040
ploughs drawn by horses

836
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,000
are soon going to be
a thing of the past.

837
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,480
And again, that train...

838
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,440
..roaring towards the future,

839
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,560
roaring into
some kind of visionary...

840
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:11,760
..maelstrom of imagining.

841
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,200
To me, that's Turner.

842
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,200
You know, that's little Turner.

843
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,280
That's what the image is to me.

844
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,440
But Dr Wilkinson thinks
this painting

845
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:26,720
is not just celebrating steam power,

846
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,720
but specifically
the man who developed it...

847
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,760
..the engineering genius
Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

848
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,560
He had built
the new rail infrastructure,

849
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:38,200
designed railway bridges

850
00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:41,200
and a revolutionary
kind of steamship,

851
00:46:41,240 --> 00:46:43,120
the SS Great Britain.

852
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:47,200
He's painted on the front here -
and you can see at the bottom,

853
00:46:47,240 --> 00:46:49,480
below the train,
there's a curve there.

854
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:53,760
And it's actually a red wine bottle
that's on the front of the train.

855
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,520
Do you mean the whole front
of the train IS a red wine bottle?

856
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:57,680
Yes.
Yeah.

857
00:46:57,720 --> 00:46:59,640
And there is a reason for that.

858
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,280
On the 19th of July, 1843,

859
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,440
Brunel conducted the train,

860
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:08,400
with Prince Albert on board,
to Bristol.

861
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:11,720
The purpose of the visit
was to float out

862
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,400
the greatest marine technology
innovation of the day -

863
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:17,600
the SS Great Britain.

864
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,240
So why is the wine bottle
significant?

865
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,880
So, a red wine bottle
was used to launch a ship...

866
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:26,800
..in those days.
It wasn't champagne.

867
00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:30,440
The real issue
in this painting, though,

868
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:34,600
is that he has put
the SS Great Britain ship in

869
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:37,160
and it is beneath
some waving people.

870
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:38,880
If you look on the river,

871
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:43,320
you will see a ghost ship
with its prow to the left.

872
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,680
There are six ghostly masts

873
00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:48,720
and the people who wave
and draw you into it

874
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:52,040
we're actually those people
at the floating out ceremony.

875
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,720
So, in your interpretation,
this is a sort of ghost indication

876
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,240
of the future destination
of the train,

877
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,160
which is to the launch of a ship?

878
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,040
Correct.
And it's sort of there, floating.

879
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,760
Cos I'd always thought
that those figures dancing

880
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,440
somehow might represent
the muses or...

881
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:12,240
It's almost as if Turner's saying,
all of that mythology of the past,

882
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,760
that's really fading
and fading and fading away

883
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,640
cos the new mythological beast,

884
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:20,360
the great sort of minotaur of now,
is the steam train.

885
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,080
So it's a bit of
a different interpretation.

886
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,880
The steam train has been trumped
by the SS Great Britain.

887
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:27,680
Well, I mean, I think...

888
00:48:27,720 --> 00:48:30,440
You know, I personally think
the train's enough.

889
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:35,120
But...you know, I mean,
you know, it's interesting.

890
00:48:35,160 --> 00:48:38,200
It's the sort of theory
that can't be denied

891
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:41,280
because what you're seeing,
or claiming to see,

892
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:44,640
is, you know, a persuasive
intellectual pattern.

893
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,240
Whether it's REALLY there,
we'd have to get Turner

894
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,320
out from the grave
and say, "Is he right?"

895
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:55,040
And whether he'd tell us
the truth anyway, how do we know?

896
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,520
I do feel the idea that the painting
is a homage to Brunel...

897
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,320
..I find that entirely persuasive.

898
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,720
Whether it's a red wine bottle,
whether there is a ghost ship,

899
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:06,840
I'm not...you know,
I can't say I'm sure.

900
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:08,720
I can't say. "Yes, I agree.
I see it.

901
00:49:08,760 --> 00:49:10,600
I can understand the meaning."

902
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,040
But you've clearly
done your research.

903
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,520
(TRAIN WHISTLE TOOTS)

904
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:26,680
Of course, Turner was
travelling around Britain

905
00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:29,920
and his journeys
were absolutely transformed

906
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:32,920
by the arrival of the trains
and the railways,

907
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,120
and that enabled him to travel
to different parts of the country

908
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:38,960
in ways that he hadn't done before.

909
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,760
Turner was born
in the late 18th century,

910
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,640
when the only modes of transport
would have been horse and horseback.

911
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:49,280
The Firefly so brilliantly depicted
in Turner's painting

912
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:51,600
would have been
absolutely revolutionary.

913
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,280
The iron horse
had replaced the horse,

914
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:56,800
and the Iron horse
was the Firefly locomotive,

915
00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:00,040
capable of reaching
these extraordinary speeds

916
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,960
and in fact,
shrinking the entire country

917
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:06,440
to what he would have grown up with
as a child and as a young man.

918
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:09,920
(STEAM ENGINE HISSES)

919
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,000
(WHISTLE TOOTS)

920
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:17,760
(STEAM HISSES)

921
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:22,480
Well, Rob, thanks for joining us
here on the platform

922
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,600
in front of
a fantastic steam engine.

923
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:27,680
It IS beautiful.
Historic steam engine.

924
00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:29,440
No matter how many times I see it,

925
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:32,560
it always makes me smile when
I come past this Firefly loco.

926
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,320
Magnificent. Yeah.
I wanted to just run past you

927
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:40,880
some images that we've found
in a painting by Turner

928
00:50:40,920 --> 00:50:43,240
called Rain Steam And Speed.
Lovely.

929
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:47,520
There are some strange images
around the front of the train here.

930
00:50:48,680 --> 00:50:52,080
Bright-coloured...
People think it's a fire box,

931
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:54,880
but you can see
the fire box is HERE.

932
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,040
That should be
the front of the boiler.

933
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:00,600
Yeah. And something strange hanging
off the side of the train here.

934
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:03,040
This looks like the head of a man.

935
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:04,560
It's a nose and so on.

936
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,520
And he's looking down at the bridge
as if to inspect.

937
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:12,000
So what's the thinking here?
That this could be Brunel himself

938
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,440
coming across,
inspecting his handiwork,

939
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:17,080
inspecting his...
his controversial design,

940
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,280
but knowing that he was right?

941
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,400
Yeah. Yeah.

942
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,320
I mean...I love that.

943
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,800
And it is exactly...
From what I know about Brunel,

944
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:28,480
it's the kind of thing
that he would probably love to do -

945
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:31,000
go out inspecting
the beauty of his work.

946
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:35,080
Another image associated
with the front of the train.

947
00:51:35,120 --> 00:51:38,040
There are some lines
coming down here

948
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:39,720
and then you follow them up

949
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,920
and it comes to the neck of a bottle
and the top of a bottle.

950
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:46,320
It looks almost like a wine bottle.

951
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:48,040
OK.
Can you see?

952
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:49,600
Yeah, I can see that now,

953
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:51,760
with the chimney being
the neck of the bottle.

954
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,240
Yeah. On the opening.
The chimney of the loco.

955
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:55,760
Yeah. Right.
OK.

956
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:57,520
What are we suggesting here?

957
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:59,800
Brunel wasn't an alcoholic
as far as I know.

958
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:05,000
No. We're suggesting
that this might be a wine bottle

959
00:52:05,040 --> 00:52:08,280
travelling on...
in the direction of Bristol.

960
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:11,840
Let's try another one.

961
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,240
If you look down
the side of the train,

962
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:18,880
it's arranged rather as if
it's a banqueting table.

963
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:20,680
Can you see that at all?

964
00:52:20,720 --> 00:52:22,720
Looking along that perspective?
Yeah.

965
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:24,960
With dinner plates as wheels
along here?

966
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:26,440
Yeah, yeah.
OK.

967
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:28,720
Yeah?
I can see that. Yeah.

968
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,440
A man with sideburns and a bald pate

969
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,840
looking down as if Brunel
is having a banquet...

970
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,920
Mm.
..which he did many times.

971
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,840
He used it
as his influencing method.

972
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:42,280
Yeah, I can see...

973
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,000
That's the clearest one
you've shown me so far, I think.

974
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:46,840
I can see that very, very clearly.

975
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,840
Can I say about that as well...
Yeah. Please.

976
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:52,120
Because of the style
of the rest of the painting,

977
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:54,480
and the locomotive
and the carriages behind,

978
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:56,240
there's not that much detail,

979
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:58,480
but it does strike me

980
00:52:58,520 --> 00:53:01,120
that those wheels -
or dinner plates, perhaps -

981
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:05,000
are quite well defined,
which you wouldn't expect
in the style of the painting.

982
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,400
So there's something
slightly at odds there, I'd say.

983
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,600
It's quite extraordinary because
that painting's so well known.

984
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,440
It's, you know,
one of Turner's masterpieces.

985
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:17,360
And to think that thousands -
or millions - of people

986
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:20,200
have looked at that painting
and not seen that hidden imagery

987
00:53:20,240 --> 00:53:23,880
is quite extraordinary, especially
as it's an homage to Brunel,

988
00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:26,040
that Brunel himself
is hidden in that painting.

989
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,280
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was probably
one of the most influential

990
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:35,840
and revolutionary engineers
that Britain's ever had.

991
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:39,640
To think that he himself is hidden
in that painting is extraordinary.

992
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:43,400
He's there in the foreground,
conducting that train,

993
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:45,280
you know, going towards Bristol,

994
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:48,400
where the SS Great Britain
is being launched, you know,

995
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:50,840
the greatest ship of all time
at that time.

996
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,320
It's these dancing people
on the banks of the Thames.

997
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,160
Beneath them on the river...

998
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,160
..there is...

999
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:24,720
floating, a big boat with six masts.

1000
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:29,840
It could be.
My eyesight is not as good as yours.

1001
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:31,800
So it could be the SS Great Britain.

1002
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:36,080
Could he be painting here,
the floating out day?

1003
00:54:37,240 --> 00:54:39,520
Is certainly...
It's certainly possible.

1004
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,000
Whether or not... One thing we don't
know is whether Turner was there.

1005
00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:45,520
It was widely reported
in the papers of the time,

1006
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:47,680
so he would have known about that.

1007
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:59,240
And the people waving on the banks
of the River Thames here...

1008
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:01,560
if you look directly beneath them,

1009
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:05,560
you will see
what I term a "ghost ship".

1010
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:07,720
And it's got six masts.

1011
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:09,960
Can you see it at all?

1012
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,240
I mean...

1013
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:13,520
yes.

1014
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:16,800
It's interesting.
For me, the challenge is that

1015
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,040
I think of Turner as such a...

1016
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,600
He was a kind of pre-impressionistic
painter and a romantic painter.

1017
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:24,960
And so I think of his work
as so gestural

1018
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:28,520
and so much about a kind of
immediacy in his mark-making,

1019
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,920
that, you know,
the idea that there's this

1020
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,120
other image in there is a challenge.

1021
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:38,320
But then when I look at the figures
and the way that they're reproduced,

1022
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:40,200
I mean, I can see a form there

1023
00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:44,040
and, to me, it looks
a little bit more like a fish.

1024
00:55:44,080 --> 00:55:47,080
These dancing people on the bank

1025
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:51,120
and beneath them
is a ghost ship with six masts.

1026
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:53,040
It looks like it is, for me...

1027
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:55,680
It looks like it is a representation

1028
00:55:55,720 --> 00:56:00,000
of some ships that are,
you know, on the river...

1029
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:01,960
and there's figures above them.

1030
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:06,040
But I don't...
I don't see that as a HIDDEN thing.

1031
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:08,120
I think it's quite visible.

1032
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:10,760
Wow. Really? OK.
Yeah.

1033
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:14,240
The idea of having different
time frames in one painting,

1034
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,760
I find interesting.

1035
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:19,920
The boat's there
but it's in plain sight.

1036
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:21,920
You know, he added
those kind of details.

1037
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:23,760
That's what was
a bit of his trademark,

1038
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:28,160
really, to come in and whack
a few people into a painting.

1039
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:32,720
This is, of course, what Turner
always said was his speciality,

1040
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:35,480
being indistinct,
making people look,

1041
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:39,720
inviting people to ask whether stuff
is there or perhaps it's not.

1042
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:41,960
Again, I think this is
part of a game

1043
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:43,720
where nothing is entirely clear

1044
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:45,680
because of the complexity
of the world.

1045
00:56:45,720 --> 00:56:51,200
A group that was long considered
to perhaps be...dancing nymphs,

1046
00:56:51,240 --> 00:56:52,720
Nick has now proposed

1047
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:58,120
that those are actually people
waving off the SS Great Britain.

1048
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:00,840
And, yes, actually,
if you look carefully,

1049
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,880
indistinct, there is a ship

1050
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:07,880
perhaps a little bit like
the SS Great Britain.

1051
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,080
And I think the key to all this
is "indistinct".

1052
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:14,240
These aren't images
that Turner wants to...

1053
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:17,800
be projecting forcefully
from the paintings.

1054
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:20,640
They're things that sort of
come through the mist...

1055
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:25,080
the longer you look at them
and contemplate them.

1056
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:29,240
I think it's really important

1057
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:32,080
we look closely at pictures

1058
00:57:32,120 --> 00:57:34,920
and especially
with great artists like Turner,

1059
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:37,720
we will always find
new things if we look.

1060
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:47,000
Over the last ten years or so,
a number of studies have examined

1061
00:57:47,040 --> 00:57:49,080
how long most members of the public

1062
00:57:49,120 --> 00:57:51,960
spend looking at
individual paintings in galleries.

1063
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:53,960
The results
are pretty extraordinary.

1064
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:56,720
What they found is
that the average person spends

1065
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:00,760
25 seconds
looking at a given painting.

1066
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,240
Now, that really isn't a lot.
If you compare it...

1067
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:06,200
We dedicate three minutes
of our time to a pop song,

1068
00:58:06,240 --> 00:58:09,120
40 minutes to a symphony,
two hours to a film,

1069
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:12,960
two or three weeks to a novel,
but only 25 seconds to a painting.

1070
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,280
And that means that we're really not
looking at great works of art

1071
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:17,960
for long enough to absorb them,

1072
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:20,400
and certainly not
looking at them long enough

1073
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:22,560
to discover new things about them.

1074
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:25,080
I think if you DO look at paintings
more closely

1075
00:58:25,120 --> 00:58:28,880
and you take your time, you can
discover extraordinary things.

1076
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:30,880
There were no galleries in the past.

1077
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:32,600
If you wanted to see a painting,

1078
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:34,640
you would have to go
to someone's house

1079
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:37,360
and you would go
and inspect the paintings

1080
00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:39,640
and you would spend time doing that.

1081
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:42,960
You wouldn't look at them
for 60 seconds and walk on,

1082
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:44,520
which is what we do now.

1083
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:48,800
I also think people aren't confident
looking at paintings.

1084
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:52,240
When we go into a gallery, we're
very often looking for guidance.

1085
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:55,560
And I think it takes
a lot of courage

1086
00:58:55,600 --> 00:58:58,560
to actually say what YOU see,

1087
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:01,680
regardless of
what you're being TOLD to see.

1088
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:04,240
I think it's also important
that a broader range

1089
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:06,800
of perspectives is brought
to the history of art.

1090
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:10,520
It shouldn't just be established
art historians and curators
looking at works of art,

1091
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:13,400
but sometimes people from
a very different background

1092
00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:17,160
can see things and notice things
that other people haven't noticed.

1093
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:20,600
So I think that what Nick Wilkinson
has found is fascinating.

1094
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,360
I think he's clearly
looked very deeply

1095
00:59:23,400 --> 00:59:25,560
and very carefully
at these paintings.

1096
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:29,240
And it may well be that some of
the things he's discovered are...

1097
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:31,400
were intended by Turner,

1098
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:34,520
but it's also possible that none
of them were intended by Turner

1099
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:37,160
and those things
have been placed there by Nick

1100
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:40,560
in his own determination
to find those symbols.

1101
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,160
What's brilliant about Nick
is he's just come from left of field

1102
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:48,160
and anyone who comes from
left of field, there's a shock

1103
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:51,760
and you think, "Really?
Can this possibly be true?

1104
00:59:51,800 --> 00:59:54,360
Could we have missed all this
for sure?"

1105
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:57,080
I think he is controversial...

1106
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:00,800
..and a lot of people
won't want to see that.

1107
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:04,120
Whether you agree or not,
it's up to you.

1108
01:00:04,160 --> 01:00:06,800
But at least we can have
a nice debate about it.

1109
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:16,000
In 1822, Turner painted
The Battle Of Trafalgar

1110
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:18,960
celebrating
Admiral Lord Nelson's triumph

1111
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:21,800
over Napoleon's warships in 1805.

1112
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:25,640
The painting shows
Nelson's ship the Victory

1113
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:30,200
sending out a signal flag saying
"every man will do his duty".

1114
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:35,240
But it also contains symbols
relating to Nelson himself,

1115
01:00:35,280 --> 01:00:37,200
who died in the battle.

1116
01:00:37,240 --> 01:00:40,200
One of the paintings that Nick
has really focused on

1117
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:43,440
that I DO find really intriguing,

1118
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:46,360
is Turner's painting
of The Battle Of Trafalgar,

1119
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:47,840
cos that has always been

1120
01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:50,800
just a weird painting
in Turner's repertoire.

1121
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,000
It's an odd painting, full stop.

1122
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,680
The Battle Of Trafalgar
is a very strange painting.

1123
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:59,240
It's not really
a very Turnerian picture

1124
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:02,720
because although it's magnificent
and highly accomplished,

1125
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:05,800
and full of extraordinary detail,
it's quite static.

1126
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:08,440
And of course,
like so many of Turner's pictures,

1127
01:01:08,480 --> 01:01:10,840
it is filled with symbols -

1128
01:01:10,880 --> 01:01:12,960
a flag spelling out the word "duty"

1129
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:15,920
and Nelson's motto
hidden beneath the water.

1130
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,000
It's a strange, bizarre painting,

1131
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:32,560
and I've never really understood
why it was static,

1132
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,040
why the sails were so Baroque.

1133
01:01:35,080 --> 01:01:36,560
All sorts of things.

1134
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:40,760
And in a way,
Nick's findings have really helped.

1135
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:45,640
This is Turner's
only royal commission.

1136
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,160
Commissioned by George IV.

1137
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:51,480
And it's got a low perspective

1138
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:55,640
with Victory centre stage,
looming large.

1139
01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:59,960
In the foreground, you've got
a scene of the chaos of battle

1140
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:03,080
and death - drowning sailors.

1141
01:02:03,120 --> 01:02:06,360
It's already loaded with imagery.

1142
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,680
Does the falling mast
indicate the death of Nelson?

1143
01:02:12,960 --> 01:02:15,640
His signal flag
is still flying there.

1144
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:18,280
"England expects every man
to do its duty."

1145
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,240
So he's really hammering home
the patriotic.

1146
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:31,200
The Wilkinsons think
that there are many more images

1147
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:33,640
than have been spotted so far...

1148
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:38,680
and also ones that tell
a bigger story about Nelson himself.

1149
01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:41,040
I want to go through
some hidden images

1150
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,480
and just get your reaction
to that, really.

1151
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:46,160
There is a dark falling sail.

1152
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:51,640
That sail has the form
of a death mask.

1153
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:54,800
Could well represent
the death mask of Nelson.

1154
01:02:55,560 --> 01:03:00,360
There's a rather strange
triangular bicorne hat.

1155
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:06,840
And then, finally,
there is a skull wearing a coronet

1156
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:10,160
of the kind that you find
in the Order Of The Bath.

1157
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:14,000
It's a sort of cone-shaped coronet.

1158
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:19,440
What we suggest is that these
are all tokens of Nelson's death.

1159
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:23,040
I think if the falling foremast
is often thought

1160
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:26,560
to represent Nelson himself
falling to the deck,

1161
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:28,840
then there's a degree of sense

1162
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:34,040
that those elements would be
further down from the mast.

1163
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:36,560
I can certainly see the bicorne hat.

1164
01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:38,160
I hadn't noticed that at all.

1165
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:39,960
Certainly there's a connection

1166
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:43,000
between the traditional
interpretation of the painting

1167
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:45,400
and what appear to be
some hidden forms.

1168
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:48,720
Nelson was a celebrity,

1169
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:50,800
his love life in the public eye.

1170
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,040
Famously, he had a mistress,
Emma Hamilton,

1171
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:56,200
while still married.

1172
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:58,520
If you look at the correspondence...

1173
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:01,880
..between Nelson and Emma Hamilton,

1174
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:05,240
they referred to his wife,

1175
01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:08,880
Frances Nisbet, as a..."Tom Tit".

1176
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:11,480
Right.
Right?

1177
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,200
If you look at the prow
of the Victory...

1178
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:19,160
..and the way that sail's...

1179
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:21,840
very neatly curved round...

1180
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:25,040
Oh, yes.
There's an eye and there's a beak.

1181
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:26,400
Yep.

1182
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:28,280
A bird, a tom tit.

1183
01:04:28,320 --> 01:04:31,640
They called her a tom tit
because she had rheumatism.

1184
01:04:31,680 --> 01:04:33,880
She moved around erratically.

1185
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:37,320
That's why they did it.
It was rather harsh and unkind.

1186
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:39,440
How do you feel about that?

1187
01:04:39,480 --> 01:04:41,480
Well, it's a lot to take in.

1188
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:44,720
In what's a familiar...

1189
01:04:44,760 --> 01:04:46,400
familiar painting,

1190
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:51,000
why insert
these additional meanings?

1191
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:54,640
If you look - and it's best
to see it from a distance -

1192
01:04:55,360 --> 01:05:01,320
you see the sea form
forms the bosom of a lady.

1193
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:04,440
And then there is a face

1194
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:06,360
looking out at you

1195
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:09,440
with a particularly prominent eye...

1196
01:05:10,960 --> 01:05:13,080
..and her chin here.

1197
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:16,240
And she's got a white sheet
behind her.

1198
01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:20,880
This, we suggest, is Emma Hamilton.

1199
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:22,920
Ah.
OK?

1200
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:37,000
HMS Victory,

1201
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:39,360
which is behind us here now.
It is.

1202
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:41,480
Pristine condition.

1203
01:05:44,640 --> 01:05:47,600
But I'm gonna draw you
to the foreground here.

1204
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:51,320
Floating in the sea here,

1205
01:05:52,040 --> 01:05:55,520
supine in the sea,
looking upwards...

1206
01:05:55,560 --> 01:05:57,600
in death,

1207
01:05:57,640 --> 01:06:00,600
we propose, is the head of Nelson.

1208
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,680
Oh, yes, I've got it now.
Yes. It's there, isn't it?

1209
01:06:03,720 --> 01:06:06,760
I can see his nose quite clearly
and grey features.

1210
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:09,520
Very appropriate for somebody
who's dead, I suppose.

1211
01:06:09,560 --> 01:06:11,560
Isn't that incredible?
Yeah.

1212
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:14,320
That your relative, Turner,

1213
01:06:14,360 --> 01:06:16,880
has painted the dead Nelson

1214
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:21,800
supporting the British nation
after his death at the battle?

1215
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:23,840
Yes, it's remarkable.

1216
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:26,400
I'm assuming he intended to do that

1217
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:29,440
and it's not an optical illusion,
basically.

1218
01:06:30,760 --> 01:06:33,840
Dr Wilkinson thinks
the figure of Nelson in the sea

1219
01:06:33,880 --> 01:06:36,080
may refer to Nelson's funeral,

1220
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:39,080
where his coffin was placed
in a model of the Victory.

1221
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:43,000
I don't see that there.

1222
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:45,880
It's not convincing to me at all.

1223
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:49,400
I understand the imagery
in the painting,

1224
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:51,640
but then I don't
buy that particularly,

1225
01:06:51,680 --> 01:06:54,520
because I think it's too disruptive

1226
01:06:54,560 --> 01:06:57,280
of the coherence
of the original image.

1227
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:03,240
So I don't see why he would then,
you know, over-egg it a bit.

1228
01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:09,040
You told me there were death masks
and yes, I can see them.

1229
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:12,680
In the context of what this painting
was trying to achieve

1230
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:15,920
by somehow
embodying the life of Nelson,

1231
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:18,800
I'm prepared to buy it.

1232
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,400
There is already,
in the sort of academic field,

1233
01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:25,640
some sort of understanding
that there are hidden messages.

1234
01:07:25,680 --> 01:07:28,680
But, yeah, it was only
when I looked through YOUR eyes

1235
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:33,200
I saw this very strange composition
at the bottom.

1236
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:37,400
You know, you do see
a face lying in state,

1237
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:39,960
and I had never considered that.

1238
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:46,800
It's here.
His hair is sort of floating off.

1239
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:49,200
Is this his mouth?
That's his mouth. Yeah.

1240
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:52,880
I think it's a bit of caricature.
I don't know if that's a face.

1241
01:07:52,920 --> 01:07:55,520
But don't you think
you could take any painting

1242
01:07:55,560 --> 01:07:57,400
and zoom in on it and find faces?

1243
01:07:57,440 --> 01:07:59,320
I mean,
I used to do this as a child.

1244
01:07:59,360 --> 01:08:01,680
We had very...
I lived in a 400-year-old cottage

1245
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:04,760
and it had very bumpy walls
and was very badly painted.

1246
01:08:04,800 --> 01:08:09,200
I remember I used to have to count
50 faces before I fell asleep.

1247
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:14,720
The tendency to perceive
images or objects

1248
01:08:14,760 --> 01:08:18,360
where they don't exist
is known as pareidolia.

1249
01:08:20,880 --> 01:08:22,440
Pareidolia is a strange name,

1250
01:08:22,480 --> 01:08:25,240
but it actually describes
something we all do every day.

1251
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:28,800
It describes the way
we see images in things.

1252
01:08:28,840 --> 01:08:30,720
So every time you look up
to the clouds

1253
01:08:30,760 --> 01:08:33,840
and you see a face in the clouds,
or you see a face in your coffee,

1254
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:35,440
that is a pareidolia.

1255
01:08:35,480 --> 01:08:38,880
Probably the best known example of
pareidolia is the Man in the Moon.

1256
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:42,200
We look at the moon
and we think that we see,

1257
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:46,000
in the distant craters,
a human face.

1258
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:51,280
My viewing experience of something
will be informed by what I know.

1259
01:08:51,320 --> 01:08:54,920
Your viewing experience of something
will be informed by what YOU know.

1260
01:08:54,960 --> 01:08:57,400
Many people think that
the famous cave paintings

1261
01:08:57,440 --> 01:08:59,240
that you find
in the Upper Paleolithic

1262
01:08:59,280 --> 01:09:01,520
are also themselves pareidolia,

1263
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:03,720
and that the artists
that made those images

1264
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:06,040
weren't simply putting images
onto the cave walls

1265
01:09:06,080 --> 01:09:07,880
but were seeing images

1266
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:10,240
in the shapes and the shadows
of the cave walls.

1267
01:09:10,920 --> 01:09:14,360
Renaissance artists
exploited pareidolic effects.

1268
01:09:14,400 --> 01:09:18,200
Correggio shows a nymph
embraced by a cloudy Jupiter.

1269
01:09:20,040 --> 01:09:23,400
Mantegna's sky
features heavenly faces.

1270
01:09:24,480 --> 01:09:27,840
Accidental things can occur
in the making of works of art,

1271
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:29,680
which artists then embrace.

1272
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:31,880
It could be that it began
as an accident,

1273
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:34,000
and it was then something
that he tweaked

1274
01:09:34,040 --> 01:09:37,120
in order to make it appear
more intentional.

1275
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:42,360
I think it's highly likely that
that was part of his process

1276
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:44,400
of producing these hidden images,

1277
01:09:44,440 --> 01:09:48,480
and we know that that is an
established form for producing art,

1278
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:50,520
which dates back to...

1279
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:53,800
The earliest account we have
is in 11th-century China.

1280
01:09:56,920 --> 01:10:00,000
In Turner's day,
he and other landscape painters

1281
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,960
were taught using
an inkblot technique...

1282
01:10:03,000 --> 01:10:07,240
which encouraged them to find
imaginary scenes in wet paint.

1283
01:10:08,040 --> 01:10:10,840
OK, so in terms of watercolour...

1284
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:15,280
..and what you might call
the inkblot technique,

1285
01:10:15,320 --> 01:10:16,880
Turner would have used...

1286
01:10:16,920 --> 01:10:19,600
Obviously, he was
a great master of watercolour.

1287
01:10:19,640 --> 01:10:22,400
In his later years,
when he was very free

1288
01:10:22,440 --> 01:10:26,800
and loose with his application -
especially with watercolour...

1289
01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:32,640
it would...he would flood it on
with a brush like this.

1290
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:34,600
So it's often thought

1291
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:37,360
that he might simply
start something like this

1292
01:10:37,400 --> 01:10:40,000
and then develop a watercolour

1293
01:10:40,040 --> 01:10:44,840
from the suggestive properties
of the blotch.

1294
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:48,840
And, of course,
this was something that...

1295
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:50,600
uh...

1296
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:53,120
is mentioned...

1297
01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:58,320
Leonardo da Vinci mentions this
as a way of generating imagery

1298
01:10:58,360 --> 01:11:01,920
and as a way of understanding
the natural world.

1299
01:11:01,960 --> 01:11:07,840
So he would advise his pupils to...
to look at...

1300
01:11:09,680 --> 01:11:12,120
..stains on walls...

1301
01:11:12,160 --> 01:11:14,920
as a way of emulating

1302
01:11:14,960 --> 01:11:16,440
the kind of

1303
01:11:16,480 --> 01:11:19,920
shapes and forms
that that happened in nature.

1304
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:28,120
So we might sort of suddenly
think, "OK, well, there's a bit of,

1305
01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:31,840
perhaps, a horizon line...
developing here."

1306
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,440
And this is entirely speculative
what I'm doing.

1307
01:11:35,480 --> 01:11:38,160
I'm just following my nose a bit

1308
01:11:38,200 --> 01:11:41,680
and reacting
to what I see in front of me.

1309
01:11:42,560 --> 01:11:49,000
What these blots and blotches
might suggest.

1310
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:51,920
What Turner is such a master at

1311
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:54,880
is being responsive to his medium...

1312
01:11:55,760 --> 01:11:59,400
..and working
within the limits of it,

1313
01:11:59,440 --> 01:12:01,320
but pushing the limits as well.

1314
01:12:08,240 --> 01:12:11,120
He did everything in spades
that they pretend

1315
01:12:11,160 --> 01:12:14,480
the artists on the Turner Prize
shortlist are doing every year.

1316
01:12:14,520 --> 01:12:16,760
But that kind of idea
of an artist as someone

1317
01:12:16,800 --> 01:12:19,840
pushing the boundaries, somebody
making you see the world afresh,

1318
01:12:19,880 --> 01:12:22,560
it didn't exist
in Victorian England.

1319
01:12:22,600 --> 01:12:25,720
In Victorian England, the job of
the artist was to paint myself,

1320
01:12:25,760 --> 01:12:28,720
my wife, my horse, my dog,
my country estate.

1321
01:12:28,760 --> 01:12:31,080
Maybe paint a bit of mythology.

1322
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:34,040
The idea that you'd paint
the meaning of the universe -

1323
01:12:34,080 --> 01:12:35,960
because that's Turner's subject,

1324
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:39,520
he is actually taking on
the meaning of the universe.

1325
01:12:39,560 --> 01:12:42,240
He's pushing towards the point
that Einstein reaches

1326
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:47,000
considerably later - namely the idea
that somehow, in light,

1327
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:48,800
in the perception of light,

1328
01:12:48,840 --> 01:12:51,920
the secrets of the universe
lie encoded.

1329
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:59,720
Artists have long tried to give
multiple dimensions to their work.

1330
01:13:00,960 --> 01:13:04,000
17th-century painters
made landscapes

1331
01:13:04,040 --> 01:13:06,200
that transformed into people.

1332
01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:14,200
And perhaps some of Turner's
landscapes conceal people, too.

1333
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:17,560
Does his painting of
St Catherine's Hill in Guildford

1334
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:20,160
hide a head and shoulders
of the saint?

1335
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:22,240
If you track through
the history of art,

1336
01:13:22,280 --> 01:13:25,760
what you find is that this idea
of hidden images

1337
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:27,880
is a fundamental part
of the history of art.

1338
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:32,400
Whether it's these distorted skulls
in the backgrounds
of Renaissance vanitas paintings,

1339
01:13:32,440 --> 01:13:36,280
whether it's the double images of
Salvador Dali and the surrealists,

1340
01:13:36,320 --> 01:13:37,920
the idea of disguising

1341
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:41,120
and putting images
secretly into other images

1342
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:43,800
is a fundamental technique
in the history of art.

1343
01:13:43,840 --> 01:13:46,200
It's a very fascinating territory.

1344
01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:49,280
The whole beauty of them
is they're hidden.

1345
01:13:50,280 --> 01:13:53,400
Probably one of
the best-known examples

1346
01:13:53,440 --> 01:13:55,800
in a British public collection

1347
01:13:55,840 --> 01:13:58,280
is in Holbein's Painting
The Ambassadors,

1348
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:00,440
which is in the National Gallery
in London.

1349
01:14:00,480 --> 01:14:03,680
This is a full-length,
full-sized portrait

1350
01:14:03,720 --> 01:14:07,440
of two French ambassadors
to the Court of Henry VIII.

1351
01:14:07,480 --> 01:14:10,800
The Ambassadors is famous
for its hidden symbolism.

1352
01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:13,800
And it's famous above all
for this anamorphic skull,

1353
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:15,680
this...stretched skull,

1354
01:14:15,720 --> 01:14:18,000
that when you look
at the painting straight on,

1355
01:14:18,040 --> 01:14:21,080
you just think, "What's that mark
at the bottom of the canvas?"

1356
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:22,920
But when you actually
go round to the side

1357
01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:24,640
and you look at the painting down,

1358
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:26,880
or when you go to the other side
and look at it up,

1359
01:14:26,920 --> 01:14:28,760
that whole "smear", if you like,

1360
01:14:28,800 --> 01:14:31,320
condenses into
a perfect painting of a skull.

1361
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:34,880
So that's a classic example

1362
01:14:34,920 --> 01:14:38,200
of an artist hiding symbols
in plain sight.

1363
01:14:41,400 --> 01:14:45,280
The idea of hiding imagery
in paintings

1364
01:14:45,320 --> 01:14:47,600
was very well established.

1365
01:14:47,640 --> 01:14:51,520
But as a young man,
Turner lived in Maiden Lane.

1366
01:14:51,560 --> 01:14:54,760
The area was full of theatres
and print shops

1367
01:14:54,800 --> 01:14:58,600
and places where he would have seen
satirical images,

1368
01:14:58,640 --> 01:15:02,280
often had concealed
anthropomorphic images within them.

1369
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:06,360
So all of this is in Turner's
kind of visual vocabulary

1370
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:08,680
from a very early stage.

1371
01:15:08,720 --> 01:15:12,240
I think it's entirely plausible
that he would have continued

1372
01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:15,720
to deploy those techniques
throughout his career.

1373
01:15:15,760 --> 01:15:18,440
And the other thing,
I think, that anybody knows

1374
01:15:18,480 --> 01:15:21,920
from having discovered
a hidden or anthropomorphic image

1375
01:15:21,960 --> 01:15:24,360
is that when we DO
notice these things,

1376
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:26,000
they have a very profound

1377
01:15:26,040 --> 01:15:28,480
and memorable effect
on our consciousness.

1378
01:15:28,520 --> 01:15:31,600
I can see why he would have used
this technique

1379
01:15:31,640 --> 01:15:33,760
to make a political statement.

1380
01:15:39,840 --> 01:15:42,600
And Turner DID make
political statements.

1381
01:15:43,440 --> 01:15:45,680
In his painting entitled Slave Ship,

1382
01:15:45,720 --> 01:15:49,880
Slavers Throwing Overboard The Dead
And Dying - Typhon Coming On...

1383
01:15:51,000 --> 01:15:53,800
..he shows the practice
of offloading human cargo

1384
01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:55,560
as a storm approaches.

1385
01:15:56,640 --> 01:15:59,120
You look at it
and you go into the painting.

1386
01:15:59,160 --> 01:16:02,000
It doesn't come out to you.
You have to go into it to find it.

1387
01:16:02,040 --> 01:16:04,480
And that's what I love about it
as a work of art.

1388
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:07,160
Now, the story it tells
is quite dreadful.

1389
01:16:07,200 --> 01:16:10,800
These were people methodically
thrown overboard over three days.

1390
01:16:11,400 --> 01:16:15,560
142 lives. Men, women and children
were thrown into the sea.

1391
01:16:15,600 --> 01:16:18,320
Apparently, one of them
actually made it back...

1392
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:19,840
such was his will to live.

1393
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:28,840
The painting immortalised
the 1781 Zong Massacre.

1394
01:16:29,960 --> 01:16:32,080
The ship was sailing to Jamaica.

1395
01:16:32,760 --> 01:16:36,840
Beneath the deck,
over 400 suffocating human beings

1396
01:16:36,880 --> 01:16:40,360
were being held captive
in horrific conditions.

1397
01:16:47,040 --> 01:16:50,400
These ships were not designed
to carry so many people

1398
01:16:50,440 --> 01:16:55,360
who would have been having less than
a coffin space to circulate in.

1399
01:16:56,080 --> 01:16:58,480
Some figures go up to 470,

1400
01:16:58,520 --> 01:17:01,560
and maybe we won't ever
really fully know,

1401
01:17:01,600 --> 01:17:04,200
simply because the records
are incomplete.

1402
01:17:07,720 --> 01:17:09,840
There was a so-called slave ship.

1403
01:17:09,880 --> 01:17:13,240
They set out en route to Jamaica,

1404
01:17:13,280 --> 01:17:16,640
but due to miscalculations,

1405
01:17:16,680 --> 01:17:18,880
they passed Jamaica

1406
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:23,680
and they began to run out
of food, water.

1407
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:26,520
The ship captain -
somebody called Luke Collingwood -

1408
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:30,960
orders the crew
to throw overboard...

1409
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:33,240
the surplus Africans.

1410
01:17:36,720 --> 01:17:40,520
Just even talking about it
is really difficult.

1411
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:48,920
For many of those who were
trying to stop slavery,

1412
01:17:48,960 --> 01:17:52,680
including abolitionists -
and African abolitionists -

1413
01:17:52,720 --> 01:17:58,600
the way in which they were able
to impact social consciousness

1414
01:17:58,640 --> 01:18:02,720
and to change and transform
hearts and minds

1415
01:18:02,760 --> 01:18:05,560
was through works of art

1416
01:18:05,600 --> 01:18:09,240
that we don't often see
as having a political value.

1417
01:18:09,280 --> 01:18:12,920
But they would have had
such a political impact.

1418
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:19,840
But here's the thing. I think
that this painting is being seen

1419
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:22,800
as Turner having a bit of guilt.

1420
01:18:22,840 --> 01:18:27,480
He'd invested in a share
in a sugar plantation in Jamaica.

1421
01:18:28,520 --> 01:18:33,520
So he was part of the transatlantic
slave trade movement,

1422
01:18:33,560 --> 01:18:37,200
but at the same time was able
to kind of see the horror

1423
01:18:37,240 --> 01:18:40,920
and the barbaric nature
of this practice.

1424
01:18:40,960 --> 01:18:43,720
So, in a way,
it's like his painting speaks

1425
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:46,320
to his kind of personal guilt,

1426
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:51,000
but also speaks to the activism,
or the activist, in him as well.

1427
01:18:51,040 --> 01:18:53,880
With this painting,
Turner was compelling people

1428
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:56,880
to campaign with the abolitionists.

1429
01:18:59,400 --> 01:19:03,960
Dr Wilkinson has identified
new images concealed in the work

1430
01:19:04,000 --> 01:19:08,360
that speak further
to Turner's abhorrence of slavery

1431
01:19:08,400 --> 01:19:10,880
and his own sense of personal guilt.

1432
01:19:12,280 --> 01:19:18,120
The first image that you find in
here is a large, quite diffuse one.

1433
01:19:18,160 --> 01:19:20,480
What you see on the left side,

1434
01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:24,880
the storm coming in
to overtake the slave traders,

1435
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:27,800
is an image of Zeus himself...

1436
01:19:28,480 --> 01:19:31,680
..using his trademark thunderbolt.

1437
01:19:32,720 --> 01:19:34,640
Can you see that image?

1438
01:19:35,440 --> 01:19:37,280
I can.

1439
01:19:37,320 --> 01:19:44,120
What this painting conveys is how
Turner is totally going against

1440
01:19:44,160 --> 01:19:47,920
what becomes
rationalisations for enslavement.

1441
01:19:48,800 --> 01:19:50,880
That it was legal,

1442
01:19:50,920 --> 01:19:52,920
that somehow it was acceptable.

1443
01:19:53,600 --> 01:19:56,840
And clearly,
for Turner to be painting this,

1444
01:19:57,440 --> 01:20:00,120
he's really trying to convey
that underbelly...

1445
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:02,560
..that is not spoken

1446
01:20:02,600 --> 01:20:07,840
and really flying in the face
of all of the rationalisations

1447
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:10,960
and the justifications
that continue to this day.

1448
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:15,800
And it brings, I think,
a whole new sort of level...

1449
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:19,440
in terms of analysing
what's in this painting

1450
01:20:19,480 --> 01:20:23,360
and what messages
he was conveying for the times,

1451
01:20:23,400 --> 01:20:25,440
but also timeless messages.

1452
01:20:27,520 --> 01:20:29,920
It looks like we've got a god here

1453
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:32,840
throwing in thunderbolts
at the slave traders.

1454
01:20:33,600 --> 01:20:35,920
What do you think about that?

1455
01:20:35,960 --> 01:20:38,080
You can see
there IS something there.

1456
01:20:38,120 --> 01:20:41,040
There's something...big,

1457
01:20:41,080 --> 01:20:44,920
powerful, dramatic,
rising out of the sea.

1458
01:20:44,960 --> 01:20:47,160
But they're only there
because you told me.

1459
01:20:47,200 --> 01:20:49,880
I know there's something there
and I can guess...

1460
01:20:49,920 --> 01:20:51,800
I can see where you're coming from.

1461
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:55,080
Turner has put
some powerful image there,

1462
01:20:55,120 --> 01:20:57,040
some monumental image.

1463
01:20:57,080 --> 01:20:59,640
Whether it's Zeus,
I don't fully resolve it.

1464
01:20:59,680 --> 01:21:02,960
But I can see...essentially intense,

1465
01:21:03,000 --> 01:21:07,280
the intent of something overbearing
about to descend on the ship.

1466
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:10,560
But could the figure in the clouds

1467
01:21:10,600 --> 01:21:13,440
also refer to a famous poem
about guilt?

1468
01:21:14,360 --> 01:21:17,400
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.

1469
01:21:18,320 --> 01:21:21,400
It relates how,
when a sailor shot an albatross,

1470
01:21:21,440 --> 01:21:23,080
his ship was becalmed...

1471
01:21:23,760 --> 01:21:27,200
..idle as a painted ship
upon a painted ocean...

1472
01:21:27,240 --> 01:21:29,240
under a hot and copper sky.

1473
01:21:30,960 --> 01:21:32,720
The crew died of thirst.

1474
01:21:32,760 --> 01:21:35,280
Their souls sucked up
into a creature in the sky

1475
01:21:35,320 --> 01:21:37,120
called Life In Death.

1476
01:21:37,960 --> 01:21:42,840
Nick's observations about
Turner's use of pareidolia imagery,

1477
01:21:42,880 --> 01:21:47,120
imagery concealed in clouds,
or mountains, or sails,

1478
01:21:47,160 --> 01:21:52,080
made me think about The Slave Ship
again and look at the clouds.

1479
01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:54,320
And for the first time,

1480
01:21:54,360 --> 01:21:59,240
I could see a figure in the clouds,
hovering above the ship.

1481
01:21:59,280 --> 01:22:03,800
And that was consistent with two
things that the painting references.

1482
01:22:04,640 --> 01:22:09,000
It's consistent, in my view,
that there might be a reference

1483
01:22:09,040 --> 01:22:10,760
to the Ancient Mariner.

1484
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:12,880
And when I went back

1485
01:22:12,920 --> 01:22:16,560
and read that poem
through Nick's lens,

1486
01:22:16,600 --> 01:22:20,240
I indeed could see a lot of imagery
in that painting

1487
01:22:20,280 --> 01:22:23,040
that seemed to relate
to the poem as well.

1488
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:24,520
And with good cause,

1489
01:22:24,560 --> 01:22:27,040
because that poem does speak

1490
01:22:27,080 --> 01:22:31,080
to the death of people
on board a ship,

1491
01:22:31,120 --> 01:22:33,360
to their souls, rising...

1492
01:22:33,400 --> 01:22:37,560
this figure Life In Death
who sucked up souls towards her.

1493
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:41,040
But the title also talks
about Typhon...

1494
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:45,480
..who is a mythological monster

1495
01:22:45,520 --> 01:22:48,000
who has a great battle with Zeus.

1496
01:22:49,120 --> 01:22:52,200
He loved those great
sort of mythological battles

1497
01:22:52,240 --> 01:22:53,720
between good and evil.

1498
01:22:57,520 --> 01:23:01,560
By 1846, Turner meets Sophia Booth,

1499
01:23:01,600 --> 01:23:03,840
and they take
a little cottage in Chelsea.

1500
01:23:03,880 --> 01:23:07,280
This becomes a place that's really
Turner's private world,

1501
01:23:07,320 --> 01:23:11,280
and he's known locally
as Admiral Booth or Mr Booth,

1502
01:23:11,320 --> 01:23:16,880
so he's adopted HER surname
to really hide from the world

1503
01:23:16,920 --> 01:23:19,360
and just be the man he wants to be

1504
01:23:19,400 --> 01:23:21,800
when he's not being
The Great Turner.

1505
01:23:24,560 --> 01:23:27,720
Towards the end of his life,
when his health started to decline,

1506
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:30,040
he found this house
on the river in Chelsea.

1507
01:23:30,080 --> 01:23:33,240
What he liked about it
was it had this secluded terrace

1508
01:23:33,280 --> 01:23:36,960
where he could paint the sky
but not be seen by the public.

1509
01:23:37,000 --> 01:23:39,800
By this stage, Turner was
an absolute wreck of a man.

1510
01:23:39,840 --> 01:23:42,200
He stank. He was dishevelled.

1511
01:23:42,240 --> 01:23:43,680
He was anonymous.

1512
01:23:43,720 --> 01:23:45,480
People didn't really know
who he was.

1513
01:23:45,520 --> 01:23:47,600
His neighbours didn't
really know him.

1514
01:23:47,640 --> 01:23:50,000
They thought he was
a sea captain or something.

1515
01:23:53,640 --> 01:23:56,280
He took her name
because he didn't want to be known

1516
01:23:56,320 --> 01:23:57,880
as Turner, the great painter.

1517
01:23:57,920 --> 01:23:59,560
So he called himself "Puggy"

1518
01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:01,800
cos he's only four foot nothing,
as we all know.

1519
01:24:01,840 --> 01:24:04,160
So when he did sit with the guys

1520
01:24:04,200 --> 01:24:07,800
or the dockers or the sailors,
he would say, "I'm Puggy."

1521
01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:09,640
He was a very secretive man.

1522
01:24:09,680 --> 01:24:13,000
Turner and Sophia Booth stayed
together for the rest of his life.

1523
01:24:13,040 --> 01:24:15,520
It's a relationship that lasts
nearly 20 years,

1524
01:24:15,560 --> 01:24:20,560
and he actually dies
at their cottage in Chelsea in 1851.

1525
01:24:25,800 --> 01:24:27,800
One of the things
I love about Turner

1526
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:30,440
is actually he donated
all of his paintings,

1527
01:24:30,480 --> 01:24:32,840
all of his works, to this nation.

1528
01:24:34,080 --> 01:24:36,840
It's unusual for Turner to have left
all his work to the nation,

1529
01:24:36,880 --> 01:24:39,840
but it was a very clever thing
for him to have done.

1530
01:24:39,880 --> 01:24:43,480
Part of the reasons
why he has endured, really.

1531
01:24:43,520 --> 01:24:47,360
It still remains, I think,
the biggest single artist bequest

1532
01:24:47,400 --> 01:24:49,520
to a British institution.

1533
01:24:51,520 --> 01:24:53,720
His legacy
is absolutely extraordinary.

1534
01:24:53,760 --> 01:24:58,640
I think he remains the greatest
British painter of all time

1535
01:24:58,680 --> 01:25:01,000
and his name is still remembered.

1536
01:25:01,040 --> 01:25:03,480
Think of the Turner Prize,
which is still going.

1537
01:25:05,720 --> 01:25:08,880
The Turner Prize began in 1984

1538
01:25:08,920 --> 01:25:12,920
to celebrate the most compelling
contemporary visual art.

1539
01:25:12,960 --> 01:25:15,440
It's become associated
with a kind of radicalism,

1540
01:25:15,480 --> 01:25:18,520
and Turner himself was associated
with a kind of radicalism.

1541
01:25:18,560 --> 01:25:22,560
It's deliberately named after Turner
because many people

1542
01:25:22,600 --> 01:25:26,240
consider him to be
the first modern British painter.

1543
01:25:28,200 --> 01:25:30,880
Turner invented the idea
of the artist

1544
01:25:30,920 --> 01:25:32,440
as someone who challenges,

1545
01:25:32,480 --> 01:25:35,360
you know, if you wanted to be
really radical as an artist now,

1546
01:25:35,400 --> 01:25:38,680
you'd be utterly conventional
because no-one else is doing that.

1547
01:25:42,240 --> 01:25:44,200
Is there a Turner code?

1548
01:25:44,240 --> 01:25:48,320
Nick is suggesting that some images
skip across paintings.

1549
01:25:48,360 --> 01:25:51,560
Bears...geese.

1550
01:25:51,600 --> 01:25:53,520
Is that a code?

1551
01:25:53,560 --> 01:25:58,040
Maybe. If it's a code,
it's a slightly indistinct code

1552
01:25:58,080 --> 01:26:02,760
in a way that only Turner
could provide an indistinct code.

1553
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:05,200
I think he's keeping us guessing.

1554
01:26:05,920 --> 01:26:09,200
ERICA: The Turner code signifies
an enhanced way

1555
01:26:09,240 --> 01:26:13,160
of looking at and analysing
Turner's paintings.

1556
01:26:13,200 --> 01:26:16,640
NICK: First of all,
the fairly high intensity recurrence

1557
01:26:16,680 --> 01:26:19,720
of personal emblems -
the bear's head

1558
01:26:19,760 --> 01:26:24,520
and a floating head with a large
nose, almost caricature like.

1559
01:26:24,560 --> 01:26:27,680
And we find this recurring
across paintings.

1560
01:26:31,000 --> 01:26:33,520
Do you think that there could be
a Turner code?

1561
01:26:35,000 --> 01:26:36,800
It could be.

1562
01:26:36,840 --> 01:26:40,040
It could be...
because he was a genius.

1563
01:26:40,840 --> 01:26:43,200
I'm not denying that there are
other narratives

1564
01:26:43,240 --> 01:26:46,400
going on in some of these paintings.
You can see that.

1565
01:26:46,440 --> 01:26:48,920
Where you have
these images appearing

1566
01:26:48,960 --> 01:26:51,720
and they're enigmatic and fugitive.

1567
01:26:51,760 --> 01:26:53,960
You know, he painted these things
for a reason

1568
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:57,000
and I can see that you are
hunting after those reasons.

1569
01:26:57,040 --> 01:27:02,000
Once you realise he's got
this ability to paint miniatures,

1570
01:27:02,040 --> 01:27:03,920
you will find about 200 of them.

1571
01:27:03,960 --> 01:27:07,360
The curators have been looking
at these pictures

1572
01:27:07,400 --> 01:27:11,280
for a couple of hundred years
and haven't actually spotted it.

1573
01:27:11,320 --> 01:27:14,160
Neither have the public.
But it's an addition.

1574
01:27:14,200 --> 01:27:18,280
Is not a criticism
that people haven't seen it before.

1575
01:27:18,320 --> 01:27:21,120
They haven't had the machinery
to see it before.

1576
01:27:21,160 --> 01:27:25,040
It's hard to be sure that Turner
would have intended people

1577
01:27:25,080 --> 01:27:28,480
to have seen them, because
I think some of them are so vague.

1578
01:27:28,520 --> 01:27:31,120
It's also not impossible
that he would have left

1579
01:27:31,160 --> 01:27:33,200
a trail of clues in his work.

1580
01:27:33,240 --> 01:27:36,040
I think, as we begin
to look again at these works

1581
01:27:36,080 --> 01:27:39,320
with Nick's images in mind,
I'm sure we'll come up with

1582
01:27:39,360 --> 01:27:42,200
some slightly different
interpretations.

1583
01:27:42,240 --> 01:27:44,920
Or perhaps there will be
a degree of incredulity.

1584
01:27:44,960 --> 01:27:48,120
I don't know. We'll need to see
how the things pan out.

1585
01:27:48,160 --> 01:27:52,120
I think, if people are
being encouraged to look again,

1586
01:27:52,160 --> 01:27:54,320
look more closely at Turner...

1587
01:27:54,960 --> 01:27:57,880
..see things that perhaps
they haven't been seen before,

1588
01:27:57,920 --> 01:28:00,080
then clearly
there will be an interest

1589
01:28:00,120 --> 01:28:02,880
to come and view this great work.

1590
01:28:02,920 --> 01:28:06,160
Some of them I can see,
and some of them I can't see.

1591
01:28:06,200 --> 01:28:09,200
I find the idea
that Turner would include...

1592
01:28:09,960 --> 01:28:13,040
..little secret images
and symbols...

1593
01:28:13,080 --> 01:28:15,520
in a certain hidden
graphic language...

1594
01:28:15,560 --> 01:28:17,880
I don't find that
totally surprising at all

1595
01:28:17,920 --> 01:28:20,560
because I think he was
a man with secret meanings.

1596
01:28:20,600 --> 01:28:22,680
I think that the way
that you're looking

1597
01:28:22,720 --> 01:28:24,600
and thinking about Turner's work,

1598
01:28:24,640 --> 01:28:26,800
whether those images
are in there or not,

1599
01:28:26,840 --> 01:28:29,720
is the way that I think
we should look at art.

1600
01:28:29,760 --> 01:28:32,400
And I think it's the way
artists want us to look at art,

1601
01:28:32,440 --> 01:28:34,440
because I think it's about,
you know,

1602
01:28:34,480 --> 01:28:37,120
trying to find the clues
and trying to find

1603
01:28:37,160 --> 01:28:39,600
what's in the painting,
what's in the image.

1604
01:28:39,640 --> 01:28:42,320
And, of course, you can bring
scholarship and knowledge

1605
01:28:42,360 --> 01:28:44,400
and all of these
other disciplines to it,

1606
01:28:44,440 --> 01:28:46,640
but you should always
return to the painting.

1607
01:28:46,680 --> 01:28:49,040
And if these things
are starting to come out,

1608
01:28:49,080 --> 01:28:51,880
I also don't think
it's a leap of the imagination

1609
01:28:51,920 --> 01:28:53,520
to imagine that Turner would be

1610
01:28:53,560 --> 01:28:55,640
playing with all these
different codes.

1611
01:28:55,680 --> 01:28:57,280
Well, I've made the leap,

1612
01:28:57,320 --> 01:29:00,600
and it's taken 200 years
to get there on a lot of this,

1613
01:29:00,640 --> 01:29:02,760
so we'll see how it's received.

1614
01:29:08,040 --> 01:29:10,680
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