All language subtitles for Sheila Hancock Brushes Up The Art of Watercolours 1080p BBC

The world's most spectacular landscapes

have always inspired painters.

And over three centuries,
British artists travelled the globe

in search of the most thrilling perspectives.

They chose not to paint in oils,
but in watercolours.

I'll be following in the footsteps
of Britain's most famous artist,

JMW Turner.

But I'm also on the trail
of some amateur painters,

who recorded their travels.

The art of watercolours
is the perfect medium

for capturing
the beauty of the world.

As well as its dangers
and tragedies.

Watercolours can have the reputation
of being cosy and wishy-washy

but I want to take you back
to a time

when they were on the cutting edge,
the photography of the day

and painters risked life and limb
to capture an exciting image.

At home in London I have a small
collection of watercolours

that are extremely precious to me.

This, I think, is St Paul's

with a rather misty,
clever effect at the back.

Now here are
a couple of boat scenes.

The reason I like these pictures is
that they were done by my father.

And they hung in various
houses and pubs where he worked

and that's why presumably
the frames are a bit tattered.

I love the fact that he's signed it.

EC Hancock, Enrico Cameron Hancock.
SHE LAUGHS

This is particularly
interesting, it's...

an exotic scene somewhere in Morocco
or something like that, or maybe he
copied it from a postcard.

But the thing that comes out
of this is that I realised

that watercolours could take you,
to all sorts of different places.

And also the other nice thing is
that, an amateur like my father

could come up with something
really rather presentable.

The story of the British love affair
with watercolours

began 250 years ago

with a bold young artist called
John Robert Cousins.

Like many painters of his
generation,

he'd grown up painting
classic British views.

But he was hungry to find
new subjects to make his name.

So in the 1770s,
Cousins waved "Goodbye to England"

to travel to the continent.

He wanted to go to places that no
artist had ever been to before.

And oils weren't good for his
purpose because they're heavy and
awkward to use and very expensive.

So the medium he chose because it
was portable and very cheap
was watercolours.

This was Cousins' destination -

a small town, nestling amongst
the Alps.

Today Chamonix attracts thousands
of visitors from all over the world.

But when Cousins first arrived in
the Alps,

towns like this were
far from the tourist trail.

Nobody wanted to come to The Alps.

All the guidebooks described it as

a "dreadful place
full of unmitigated horror."

The mountains were, "areas of dread,
full of wolves and bandits."

And some people even said
they saw dragons.

But Cousins wasn't to be deterred.

He was determined to climb the Alps
to get the most dramatic views.

And in those days there was just
one means of transport.

Donkeys were the only
way of ascending the Alps

but there were terrifying stories of
their little legs getting stuck in
the snow and them being frightened

of the height and throwing
their riders off.

I hope that's not going to happen.
"Come on, come on, up the Alps!"

Oh, dear oh, dear poor little thing.

And Cousins' mountaineering
was to pay off.

Inspired by the wild terrain of the
Alps, he created sublime pictures.

The willowy texture
of Cousins' watercolours

perfectly captured the light
and landscape of the mountains.

And the tradition of artists
climbing the Alps to paint
watercolours lives on today.

This is Michel Delemar,
a former ski instructor,
and now a full-time artist.

Nice to meet you, Sheila, Michel.

Can I sit next you? Yeah sure.

You're obviously drawn, if not
obsessed with this area.

What, why,
why particularly does it draw you?

I fall in love with the mountains
a long, long time ago.

When I was young. Mmm.

My wife, she is from here.

So I fall in love with my wife,
and the place, you know, both.

Do you think watercolours
are particularly suited
to this landscape?

Rather than oil?

Yeah, I think so, because
the thing in the mountains,
the light is unbelievable.

And with watercolour you can have
a translucent, you know, very
light colours.

And especially the shade in the
mountain like you see are very dark.

When you paint your shade suddenly
you see your painting coming
through, you know, and very light.

And it suggests an element of

terror, awe. Yes.

Would you say that? Of course.

I think specially, from the past
because, the mountaineers
in the 18th century

was so afraid by all this, this
piece of ice, you know, it's like
monster, you know and they are...

They'd never been on,
they don't know what can happen
if they reach a peak or what.

But even now, even now. you know.
now when I go skiing on a glacier,
for me, a glacier is like a monster.

You see a big,
big deep and dark crevasse
you know, it's scary, you know?

Cousins didn't just paint the
grandeur of the mountains of Europe.

He was also attracted to
the magical quality of water,

capturing the continent's
most dramatic lakes and rivers.

This was one of his
favourite locations.

Lake Geneva.

Cousins' watercolours taught us
to appreciate the drama in nature.

Up until then, artists had tried
to tame nature, to clean it up,
to cut out all the jagged edges.

But it wasn't just the Alps
that he taught us to look at.

People began to think about visiting
the wildernesses in Britain as well.

British water-colourists began
to paint pictures of the Scottish
Highlands and the Lake District.

This was an age of Romanticism

celebrating the beauty of nature,

with water-colourists
leading the way.

But Cousins paid a heavy price for
his ever more ambitious expeditions.

Exhausted and in ill health,
he returned to Britain.

But his work was rejected
by the Royal Academy,

"the gateway to artistic success."

His watercolours were judged
"not proper art."

A doctor diagnosed him as suffering
a decay of the nervous system.

Today, we'd call it a breakdown.

At the age of 42, he was committed
to the lunatic asylum, Bedlam.

There is a final bittersweet twist
to Cousins' story.

The doctor that looked after him
in Bedlam,

happened to be an art collector
and recognising Cousins' brilliance,
he bought up his pictures.

And he used to hold get-togethers of
up-and-coming young artists and he

would sit them down and suggest
that they copied Cousins' work.

Thus it was that a future generation
of water-colourists were inspired
by a man languishing in an asylum.

But artists who wanted to emulate
Cousins' adventures
had their hopes dashed.

By the turn of the 19th century,
Europe had become a battleground...

..as the Napoleonic Wars
tore the continent apart.

The landscapes captured by Cousins
were now no-go areas.

So British water-colourists
were stuck at home.

One frustrated artist who
pored over Cousins' paintings
would become famous.

His name,
Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Turner is now regarded as the
greatest painter these islands
have ever produced.

But the young artist had
all the cards stacked against him.

Far from being born with a silver
spoon in his mouth, Turner was
a poverty-stricken Londoner.

His father was a barber and his
mother died in a lunatic asylum,

but this background
was the making of him.

He was an outsider and a rebel

and he didn't give a damn about
the snobbery towards watercolours.

Deep in the vaults of Tate Britain,
Christine Curpielle

is going to show me some of Turner's
rarely seen British watercolours.

So this is a group of works
that Turner painted in 1805,

when he was on a prolonged trip
and stay on the Thames.

This is probably
near Wallingford because
we think that's Wallingford Church.

Oh, my goodness, I was
evacuated there during the war!

Gosh!
Unbelievable! Little did I know.

That's amazing.

And you can even see Turner's
fingerprint in the paint here,

where he's physically moved
the paint around.

That would be using all sorts of
means to draw out moisture,
to move pigment around.

That is wonderful, isn't it?
And that's an actual fingerprint.

I learnt to swim there,
but he didn't know that.

Now that is amazing!

This is in contrast to the
lighter palette.

He's using darker colours.

And apparently the weather in the
summer that year was very capricious

and there was sunlight
followed by storms and so he was
able to observe all this.

He's got the light coming over.
It's been a bit of a storm
and the light is coming out.

That is wonderful. Where is this?

This is near Isleworth.

Even more remarkable than
the watercolours

is the Tate's collection
of Turner's sketchbooks.

Well, the sketchbook is
called the Skies Sketchbook,

and it's about 1818.

These are all different
sky formations, right?

Absolutely. Clouds and formations.

Yes. And this would have been
just him doodling away and
practising or whatever?

Exactly. Cos he wasn't
going to sell it or anything?

He didn't know we were all
going to think his sketchbook
was all wonderful. Exactly.

Oh, look at that!

Look at that!

That is lovely.

And what's this? This writing?

This is Turner's writing.

He didn't keep a diary or a journal
but he did make notes
throughout his sketchbook.

Sometimes of expenses,
of itineraries

but here we have a list of clothing
that was needed on the task.

Three coats... Yes.

four waistcoats, five breeches,
four underknickers, does that say?

Under...no..

Under waistcoat? It looks like
under...no, under waistcoats.

Eight cravats. Yes, yes.

My goodness, he must have been
weighed down with luggage,
apart from anything else.

Pocket-handkerchiefs, boots, shoes,
coloured waistcoat, shirts.

That is extraordinary.

Well, bless his heart,
he must have looked very smart.

He was a gentleman traveller.
Ah! But he wasn't, he was a little
London Cockney, wasn't he?

But it was to earn respect and
clothing being a passport to
patronage. Well, he didn't need it.

He has our respect now, doesn't he?

When Britain had defeated Napoleon
and peace was at last restored

Turner seized his chance to travel.

And in 1819,

he set out for the city that
would allow his genius to blossom.

To me, Venice is the most beautiful,
sensuous city I have ever visited.

A place of romantic getaways
and picture postcard views.

But this was not the place Turner
discovered when he first arrived.

Venice was at its lowest ebb,

devastated by war and pestilence.

I'm trying to imagine that in
Turner's time, these grand palazzi

would have been wrecked, looted,
full of starving Venetians.

And the waterway would have been
choked with rubbish and raw sewage.

Disease was rife,
cholera, things like that,
it was an impossible place to live.

But somehow the fact that the city
was so fragile, so near to ruin

fired his imagination more.

Turner painted a city
that looked as though it was
dissolving before your very eyes.

The Venetian waters and the subtlety
of Turner's brush strokes

created mirage-like wonders.

Travelling to Venice
in those days wasn't easy,
it wasn't a quick flight,

it could take weeks and Turner
on his last visit was quite
an elderly man.

On top of that, his Italian was
always jumbled up with French
in a Cockney accent.

So nobody understood
a single word he said

but despite all this, he managed
to do hundreds of paintings

of every aspect of Venice.

To find Turner's favourite locations
I'm going to need a guide

and who better
than Francesco Dumosto,

whose family
has lived in Venice for centuries.

Welcome to Venice.
Thank you very much. So you're going
to be my guide is that right?

Yeah, I will be your guide
with my boat.

I hope we are not going to sink.

But before we go,
I want to show you a thing.

You see that palace
with the scaffolding? Yeah.

Was the Locanda of Leon Bianco
where Turner was living in.
At that time it was a hotel.

The best hotel in Venice, but
before it was built by my family.

Really? Yeah, but we lost it in the
17th century.

You're going to be
very interesting, Francesco.

Oh, no you're too kind.

Yeah, I'm interesting but without
a penny because when we lost the

house, in every generation
there is someone that has to work.

Yeah. And in my generation
it's my brother.

So me and you we enjoy
with the boat. Let's go.

I see. Right how do we get into it?

I take the boat there, don't worry.

Oh, my God!

OK great.
Can't I follow in a gondola?

It's OK now. The smoke goes behind.

Does it? Yeah, don't worry.

Have you got anything to go
honk-honk if we bump into anything?

Do you have a hooter?
What is a hooter?

Something that you can signal.

You know, I forgot it.

Like in a car.
They know how to whisper.

Oh, good. Whistle, whistle.

Whistle, sorry. There is a boat
coming straight towards us.

Yeah, but he will see me!

HORN HONKS

Francesco is taking me far from
the canals and the tourist trail.

The water is less predictable
out here

and it inspired the wilder,
stormier side of Turner's art.

Our destination is the Island
of San Lazzaro degli Armeni.

It's the perfect vantage point

for looking at Turner's favourite
view of the city,

across the Venetian Lagoon.

I think that at the beginning
Turner came to the lagoon

to be more immersed in the nature,

to feel more part of the nature

and to detach like from the human
community, to find more himself.

Turner seemed to have painted

a fragile city,
a disappearing city, do you think?

Yeah. It's quite interesting how he
could think about the fragility of
the city, but it's a fragility that

is coming back again for us.

We have big ships entering.

We have thousands of people,
millions every year, going around

the town and it's a same fragility
that is in another way

but we still have it
and in a certain way is like

a woman to which we have to take
care. If not, it will disappear.

Do you think whereas he was
looking at the ruin after the war,

we're looking at it thinking
it also may be destroyed again?

I mean, we may be looking at it from
your boat underneath us one day.

There is people that
thinks like that.

That we'll be
underwater park one day. Really?

A myth that will stay in our memory.

But I think that the myth that it
will stay for ever like Atlantis,
I hope won't happen.

Today, Turner's visions of Venice

are seen as the greatest
watercolours ever painted.

But his dazzling landscapes
were viewed very differently
in his own lifetime.

Turner's paintings of Venice
horrified the art establishment.

They accused him of deformities,
of throwing paint at the canvas,

Some even accused him
of being insane,

which must have come
particularly hard for somebody
whose mother died in Bedlam.

What so annoyed the critics

is the impressionistic style
Turner had invented.

Newspapers even turned him
into a national figure of fun.

A contemporary cartoon

showed the artist using a mop
instead of a paintbrush.

But Turner's wild techniques
still inspire painters today.

Venetian artist Nicola Tenderini
is going to show me

how Turner created this painting
of San Giorgio Maggiore.

I put on the water,
in all the paper so.

You're soaking the paper with water.
Yes. Yeah.

Now, depends the weather
but I take the colour

from blue. Right.

And I put...
an expanded and I spread on paper.

Why yellow? Now I do the, do the...
I don't see yellow.

Yellow is on the line
of horizon, no?

Oh, I see, out there.

What I love about his pictures is
he doesn't seem to obey any rules
and yet in doing them

he seemed to just throw technique to
the winds and do what he felt like.

Is that right? Yes, yes, is er...

Sometimes for the details
he used the nails so.

To cut into the colour?

Yes, so.

Also the saliva so.

Because he couldn't be bothered to
dip his finger in the water

he would actually spit at it?

Or was there a superior thing
about spit as opposed to water.

Yeah. Nicola, that's really lovely.
It's like a late Turner.

Thank you, Sheila.
Thank you very much.

Can I buy it? Why not?

All right. How much?

As you want it... We'll
talk afterwards when they've gone.

With all the spitting and scratching
I suppose it's no wonder

Turner's contemporaries
thought he was a bit eccentric.

But thankfully for Turner
he had a champion,

the most important
art critic of the time, John Ruskin.

Ruskin argued
that Turner's venetian images were

so ground-breaking and original

that the artist should be ranked
alongside Michelangelo
and Leonardo.

And such was Ruskin's influence
that Turner's paintings became
fashionable and sought after.

Ruskin described Turner's
watercolours of Venice as the most

perfectly beautiful pieces of colour
ever done by human hands.

And he didn't just defend Turner's
watercolours, he argued that artists

should used the medium if they were
to have any hope of reproducing
the splendours of Venice.

It was as though a city
built on shimmering water

could only really be captured
by an art made out of water.

And Venice was to become
THE place for British artists
to ply their trade.

While Turner had revelled
in the decay of the city

the artists that followed him turned
Venice into a grand theatre set,

with the Venetians all scrubbed up
to look like attractive extras.

These luxurious paintings

became a kind of
advertising campaign for the city.

From the middle of the 19th century,
Venice was to prosper again
all because of one thing,

the tourism
inspired by these paintings.

And many of these Victorian
travellers didn't just want to

visit Venice, part of the experience
was to record their own impressions
of the city in watercolours.

Many of them
had one of these little boxes.

This is a Victorian watercolour box,
absolutely perfect.

Everything you need
to do watercolours.

There are the beautiful colours,
which of course you could mix and
there are the palettes to mix it.

Totally portable,
no fuss no palaver.

15 million of these were
manufactured in the 19th century.

Every town and village
in the British Isles
had a watercolour society.

It was the beginning
of the age of the amateur.

One would-be artist who joined in
the fashion for watercolours
was Queen Victoria.

Her favourite pastime
was to ride out

armed with brushes and watercolours
to capture her favourite views.

She painted
the rugged landscapes of Scotland,

the gentle sweep
of the Isle of Wight,

and even her own children
on holiday.

And because of Victoria,
the art of watercolours

would become an essential part
of any young lady's education.

Victoria's reign saw Britain
colonise the world with the Queen
as Mother of Empire.

And her subjects were to bring
their passion for watercolours
to the most surprising places.

Some of the most exciting
watercolours of the age
were created in India.

India was the Jewel in the Crown
of the British Empire.

And in the 19th century, Calcutta
was the capital of British India,

the beating heart
of imperial rule in the country.

The Empire relied on generals and
administrators and businessmen that

would travel from Britain
and maintain the colonies.

And behind those powerful men
were the wives and sisters who

kept the imperial households going,
and those women loved to paint.

They were intoxicated
by the sights and sounds
of their newly adopted country.

Women like Fanny Parks
and Emily Eden

painted watercolour portraits
of the people they encountered.

But I think the most remarkable
water-colourist of the time

was the wife
of the Governor General,

who arrived in 1856,
Lady Charlotte Canning.

You can still savour Lady Canning's
legacy in Calcutta today.

Ah thank you, two, two.

Right, do you like these?

Mmm. Do you want some?

What, what are these called?

Ledikeni. What?

Ledikeni. Ledikeni.

That is another word
for "Lady Canning",

because this sweet
was invented for her

because she had a very sweet tooth.

Let's have a go. Let's have a taste,
shall we? Ohh, ohh what does it do?

Tasty, yeah?

Tasty. Do you like it?

You have some, you have some.

Thank goodness she was famous for
other things besides these!

Go on, you have some. OK?

I'll hold it.

OK. You have it?

What do you think? It's good.

Do you? He likes it.

But Lady Canning's life in India
was anything but sweet.

Her husband Lord Canning was
notorious for being an adulterer.

For her it was not a happy marriage,

in spite of the luxurious
surroundings.

This was their residence
just outside Calcutta...

..but to Lady Charlotte
it felt almost like a prison.

Charlotte wrote to her family
that she found herself isolated
"To a degree I cannot describe."

As wife of the Governor General, she
had to keep herself aloof from the
British population in Calcutta

and her husband wasn't much help.

He immersed himself in work
so he had no time for her.

Perhaps she used painting
as a way of preserving her sanity.

This is one of the first
watercolours Lady Charlotte
painted in India.

It's of the Cannings' sitting room.

I find something sad about it.

It feels more like a hotel
than a real home.

But Lady Charlotte refused
to wilt away

as India gave her the chance
to grow as an artist.

Happy Diwali!

Tonight is Diwali, one of
the biggest celebrations
in India's religious calendar.

Lady Charlotte was intoxicated
with the colour and energy of India.

Some of her fellow countrymen
dismissed the Indians as heathens

but she said that she enjoyed
seeing the country devoid
of any European influence.

So Lady Charlotte left
British Calcutta far behind.

She crisscrossed the country,
in search of the perfect view.

By road or by river,

she would travel to the most
remote regions of India.

But for the most impenetrable areas,
she had to use the local transport.

Lady Canning didn't just travel
by elephant,

but she also painted
and sketched while she was on it.

She would make the elephants
stand still while she painted
a certain view or perspective.

Lady Charlotte's travels
must have been arduous

but there was one sight above all
she was determined to see.

Lady Canning
was enchanted by the Taj Mahal.

She said it was more beautiful
than she could have ever imagined.

And isn't it just?

It seems to be floating there.

Lady Canning made
the most of her visit,

painting the Taj
from every viewpoint.

She was as bewitched by it as the
millions of people who flock here
every year.

I think one of the reasons people
like coming to the Taj Mahal is that
it's a temple dedicated to love.

It was built by an
Indian Emperor called Shah Jahan,

in memory of his beloved wife
who died in childbirth.

It's an act of devotion
made out of marble.

I do wonder what Lady Charlotte
felt as she contemplated this

great celebration of the bond
between man and wife.

Although she admired the beauty, it
must have made her a little bit sad.

And the Taj Mahal still attracts
watercolour artists today.

Malind Malik is a painter and
teacher, who believes amateurs like

Lady Charlotte are every bit
as good as the professionals.

Why do you think watercolours
especially appeal to amateurs?

Probably amateurs have
little less time on their hands

and they want to express whatever
they want, their visual sensation.

So watercolour has a
great spontaneity about it
in terms of expressing yourself,

and amateurs is what I call
is a painter who is not painting
to display or exhibit. Or sell.

Just trying to express themselves.

Or sell, yeah.

Well, certainly with Lady Canning.
hers seem to me spectacularly good.

Spectacularly good
in the sense I would say they
were her very personal statements.

She was trying to document
her experience

and express her visual sensation
through what she was painting.

That's the beauty of it.

And it's wonderful to have
a record of what things looked like.

Yes, yes, yes. At that time.

It's her experience about the
things that has been recorded.

So it's the human element in the
catching that visual experience.

Lady Charlotte may have found
some happiness in her painting

but her passion for travel
was to prove her undoing.

This is a photograph of her
aged just 44,

looking thin and haggard.

In 1861, a few months before she
was due to go home to England,

Lady Charlotte set off on a
sketching tour of Darjeeling.

And she went into
jungles and forests and swamps,

the devoted artist
looking for a perfect subject.

When she got home she complained to
one of her friends of having
a "dazzle of a headache."

She had contracted jungle fever,
what we call malaria

and it proved to be fatal.

This is her tomb.

Apparently, her husband
wept over it day and night,

realising too late
how much he loved her.

His own little Taj Mahal.

One of the reasons that critics
still dismiss watercolours

is amateurs like Lady Canning.

But she was utterly dedicated.

She showed that watercolours, being
so portable and so easily applied,

could show an immediate human
reaction in a way that oils can't.

The word amateur comes from
the Latin meaning "to love"

and to my mind there's nothing wrong
in doing something for love
rather than money.

And I think that her paintings
need to be more widely known.

As the 19th century progressed,

watercolours faced
a threatening new rival.

Photography was novel and exciting.

And it seemed the thrill
of precisely capturing a view or

portrait could never be
matched by watercolours.

Amateur photography clubs
replaced painting societies
up and down the land.

By the beginning of the 20th century

the great age of watercolours
appeared to be over.

But just as watercolours were
being dismissed as yesterday's news

they were to have a heroic flourish,
in the work of Paul Nash.

Nash was born a Londoner,

but he was to become the 20th
century's most brilliant painter
of the English countryside.

Nash believed that there was
something magical,

almost mystical
about the English landscape.

He said that the trees around here
had personalities of their own,
like human beings.

He said they were like
wonderfully beautiful people.

And Nash's talent for painting
landscape would be called upon
in terrible circumstances.

The First World War.

Photography was
outlawed in the trenches
because of the fear of espionage.

So painters like Nash
were sent to the front line

as official war artists
to capture the conflict.

An artist like Nash
had to operate under a regime
of extreme censorship.

The military didn't want the public
back home to see images
of dead bodies.

So Nash came upon something even
more haunting.

He didn't show the battle itself

but the scars
that it left on the land.

Up until this point watercolours
had captured the beauty of the land

but in the nightmare of war,

Nash's paintings showed
its utter destruction.

Watercolours allowed Nash to capture
the immediacy of industrialised

warfare, as he braved shellfire
and the threat of mustard gas.

The scenes that Nash encountered
were like frightful nightmares.

He said, "There was not a glimmer of
God's hand to be seen anywhere."

He pledged himself
to be a messenger,

to tell the truth about the war.

He said, "Feeble and inarticulate
may be my message

"but it will have the bitter truth
and may it burn their lousy souls."

The watercolour tradition
of depicting war scenes lives on.

Doug Farthing has been an
acting soldier for 25 years,

serving in both Afghanistan
and Iraq.

Unlike most war artists,
who are civilians,

his paintings show the reality of
war from a soldier's perspective.

Explain to me exactly
what the picture is.

It's showing soldiers. I'm standing
on a helicopter landing zone.

What I try and portray in a painting
like this is the isolation of it
but also the camaraderie.

I feel the banter and laughter
of these soldiers here. Really?

Yeah, they're really quite...
Now, isn't that funny? Because
I get a feeling of fear.

I feel there's a sort of feeling
of "Oh, my God!".

Well, there is that there because
when they get off on the other end

on the helicopter it's
generally a hot drop zone.

That means a war zone?
Yeah, yeah a war zone.
They're going into a battle.

So tell me about this one.

That's a quick sketch.

Now this one was done in place
and I used an ammunition crate.

I like to work on the materials
around me.

We had a visit from General
Petraeus and I just stood back and
sketched the scene really quickly.

Have you done many pictures of the
citizens, as I would call them?

Yeah, yeah. The civilians.

Yeah there's a few in here.

Oh, that's lovely.

That's two ladies, we were
stood near a border crossing
point in Iraq and two ladies

just wandered past me but it was
sort of coming up to late night

and the light on the palm trees
behind was really striking.

It was as if they were
coming back from work or the market,
it was quite nice.

Lovely. It's a lovely feeling
of peace there, strangely enough.

Well, there is and the notes
here are about peace in some way.

"Iraq ladies walk down track
away from patrol.

"I phoned Julia tonight."

Is that your wife?
Yes, it is yeah. Yeah.

"The girls sound happy.
Louise is on her way to work.

"I miss them very much,
I've been away now for four weeks,
the longest for a long time."

I know four weeks doesn't
sound long but I'd only just

rejoined the Army
as a reserve soldier.

I'll do little annotations of
soldiers patrolling
through the villages.

And annotations of who were
on the patrol at the time
and who I was working with.

Wonderful.

Yeah, it's not just the imagery,
it's the stories
behind the imagery as well.

There can't be a better record
of these operations
than you're doing here.

Especially all the written stuff
and the names of all the guys in it.

Yeah, yeah. Imagine if we had that
sort of record of some past war.

Mmm. Or any past event. That kind
of verbatim record is wonderful.

I do a lot of collage work
with old diary bits about things
that have gone bad.

And there is no way I could
ever show it, really.

Really? Yeah, they're kind of
pieces I'll show later in life.

Of the of the awful things that
you saw? Yeah, the awful things.

Why do you feel you can't show them?

Because the people are still...
the families? We're still here.

The families here I'm serving
still, it's...you know, it's not...

it's just not the right thing
to be doing at this stage.

Every time we lose a soldier,

it doesn't matter what regiment he's
come from, it hits home

because he's got a family, he's got
children at home. Of course it does.

He's got parents, he's got
brothers, sisters you know,
so they're very important.

15,000, 16,000, 17,000, 18,000,

19,000, 20,000.

Watercolours have so often been the
product of great pain and struggle

but in the modern age
they're worth serious money.

9,500...10,000...

They're still not
quite as valuable as oil paintings
but they're catching up fast.

Last year a painting by Cousins,
Lake Albana,

sold for £2.4 million.

A record for any British
watercolour from the 18th century.

920,000...950,000.

And even a small Turner watercolour
can fetch a small fortune.

At £270,000,
selling it then for 270,000.

Sold. Thank you.

But, for me, these pictures
have a worth
beyond any market price.

What I like most about watercolours
is their ability to show emotion.

Nowadays we seem to look at
everything through the
protection of a lens.

We've got digital cameras, we've got
phones with cameras, everything's
so quick and superficial.

I think we should treasure
watercolours

because they are
anything but a throwaway image.

They take thought and effort

and they show us the value
of taking our time

to observe the beauty
and the pain of the world.

And art can have no higher
ambition than that.