All language subtitles for ITV Great Art Series 4 1of5 Van Gogh 1080p_ENG_Subtitles01

Welcome to Great Art.

For the past few years, we have been
filming the biggest exhibitions,

art galleries and museums
in the world

about some of the greatest artists
and art in history.

Not only do we record
landmark shows,

but we also secure privileged access
behind the scenes.

We then use this as a springboard
to take a broader look

at extraordinary artists.

Recently, a hugely popular
exhibition began in Japan

and then made its way
to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

It covered a story that, perhaps,
is not that well known.

Arguably,
the world's favourite artist,

Vincent van Gogh can't be understood

unless one explores and comprehends
the impact and influence

of Japanese art
on mid-19th century artists

like Monet or Degas,
and, in particular, Van Gogh.

Paintings
that are now world favourites

and worth hundreds
of millions of dollars

emerged from his love of a culture
and an art

that he had never seen
in Japan itself.

But he'd confronted and collected

in the art galleries
of Paris and elsewhere.

It was a meeting
that utterly changed Van Gogh

and to understand him and his work,

you have to understand
his love of Japan.

VAN GOGH: "My dear Theo,

"I envy the Japanese,

"The extreme clarity
that everything in their work has.

"It's never dull, and never
appears to be done too hastily.

"Their work
is as simple as breathing,

"and they do a figure
with a few confident strokes,

"with the same ease as if it was as
simple as buttoning your waistcoat.

"I must manage to do a figure
with a few strokes.

"That will keep me busy all winter.

"Once I have that,

"I will be able to do people
strolling along the boulevards,

"the streets,
a host of new subjects.

"Ever yours, Vincent."

Van Gogh never travelled to Japan,

yet he had a profound admiration
for the art from this country,

and he thought a lot about Japan,

about Japanese art,
about Japanese artists.

But it was, of course,
all based on the prints,

the coloured woodblock prints
that he collected and that he owned.

In a way he constructed his own
image of Japan,

and that also shaped
his way of looking,

of making art inspired
by Japanese prints.

This exhibition, for many people,
is a revelation because, of course,

not everybody knows that he was
so much influenced by this art.

But also he was able to somehow
change his style

in a very fundamental way.

It's so natural to make an
exhibition about Van Gogh and Japan

because, he himself says,

that it's his biggest
inspiration source

in the year of 1888
and that's, of course,

the greatest period
of his artistic life.

Van Gogh started to copy
Japanese prints,

and he imitated the Japanese motifs
in the beginning.

And slowly, he went to assimilate

Japanese styles
and Japanese devices.

And he tried to borrow some
Japanese compositional devices,

very flat colours and high horizons,
like that.

Not only at Van Gogh's time,
which was the 1880s,

but already from the 1860s,

artists had been fascinated
by Japanese art.

Artists like Whistler, Monet, Manet,
Rodin, Degas,

they all had looked at Japanese art

as a completely new way
of looking at the world.

Van Gogh was also reading
about Japan and Japanese art.

For example, the book
by Louis Gonse, L'Art Japonais.

This was a very important
publication on Japanese art.

It was the first French book
on Japanese art,

which described extensively
different art forms from Japan,

so also decorative arts,
painting, drawing.

And there was a whole chapter
on Hokusai, for example,

who was already, at the time,
the most famous Japanese artist.

Another important book for Van Gogh

was Madame Chrysantheme
by Pierre Loti,

a French novelist
who had been travelling in Japan

and describes the customs
and the landscape in Japan.

And Van Gogh, he was very
enthusiastic about this book.

He would have been
one of the few artists

who would have not been surprised
by Japanese art.

As the Netherlands had had
a long relationship with Japan,

he would have known about Japanese
culture to a certain extent.

He would have seen objects.

Very fascinated by this vocabulary

as well as the subject matter
of Japanese art.

That allowed him
to associate in a new way.

I think Van Gogh was the
most influenced by Japanese art.

Not only in the style and not only
in the subject, and devices,

but also in his own ideals.

And that's
quite an extraordinary phenomenon.

And Van Gogh idealised Japan,
idealised Japanese people

and Japanese painters.

That Japanese dream
played a very crucial role

for Van Gogh's artistic career.

That's quite different
from other artists.

From around 1600 to 1868,

Japan was ruled by a feudal military
government, the Tokugawa shogunate.

This era is also known
as the Edo period

and it was a time
of relative stability,

maintained, firstly,
by suppressing social unrest.

And, secondly, by keeping
the country closed to foreigners.

Japan did not want to be influenced
by the West,

especially not by Catholicism.

A wealthy Japanese merchant class
emerged,

enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle,
known as Ukiyo,

translated into English
as "The Floating World".

They patronised the arts

and indulged in the services of
high-class courtesans called oiran,

and female entertainers
known as geisha.

Some limited trading did occur

with countries like China, Korea
and the Netherlands,

through the trading post
of Dejima in Nagasaki.

But others like America, Russia
and most of Western Europe

remained firmly excluded
from this lucrative market.

But by the middle
of the 19th century,

change was in the air.

1853, when Van Gogh was born,

exactly the same year
Commodore Perry from America,

he came to Japan and forced Japan to
open the doors to foreign countries.

That was a very symbolic year
for Japanese history,

and also for Van Gogh himself.

The Edo period ended
in the summer of 1868

shortly after
the accession of Emperor Meiji.

He had seized power from the Shogun

and started a process
of modernisation.

This became known as known
as the Meiji period,

which lasted until 1912.

The young Emperor Meiji,
outward-looking and enlightened,

urged Japanese people
to learn from the West

and to adopt Western practices.

They had a double agenda.

They were keen on collecting
information from the western world.

They wanted to know about
family life,

they wanted to know
about military organisation,

social organisation,
about issues like marriage,

and also infrastructure.

But they always had a complicated
attitude towards the foreigner

and his potential influence.

This opening of the borders
allowed not only for trade,

but, in particular,
also for objects, art objects,

to come out of the country
and into the Western world.

And it was a way of establishing
really serious collections.

There was never a journal,
there was never a newspaper,

which didn't have at least an ad
about something Japanese in it.

It was part of the cultural
landscape that you could not avoid.

Japanese art, of course,

influenced many artists in
the second half of the 19th century.

Van Gogh was believing that
he was part of a decadent society

and he was longing
for a simpler society.

He believed that Japan
stood for that kind of society

and that this was also linked
to the kind of art that they made.

It was simpler.

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853

in the rural Dutch village
of Zundert

where his father
was the local Protestant pastor.

He was the eldest of six children

and from the age of 16,
worked in his uncle's art business,

Goupil & Company, in The Hague,
London and ultimately, Paris.

Every day he was exposed
to a diverse range of artwork.

But by his early 20s,

Van Gogh had become increasingly
disillusioned with this life

and sought solace in reading
intellectual literature

and writing religious texts.

He took up lay preaching in England
and the Borinage region in Belgium.

His austere ways and stoic
evangelism led to his dismissal

and that provoked a deep despair.

"My dear Theo,

"when you say in your last letter

"what a riddle there is in nature,
I echo your words.

"Life in the abstract
is already a riddle,

"reality turns it into a riddle
within a riddle.

"And who are we to solve it?

"All the same, we ourselves form
a particle of it,

"of the society of which we ask,

"where is it going,
to the devil or to God?"

Vincent van Gogh
always had a close relationship

with his younger brother, Theo,
to whom he wrote constantly.

In these detailed
and revealing letters,

they shared opinions on life,
art and literature.

Theo was constantly concerned
about his brother's poor finances

and failing health.

He encouraged him to find
a new purpose in life.

At the age of 27, Vincent decided
to pursue a career as an artist.

We have to remember that he only
worked as an artist for ten years.

He had been working
in the Netherlands for five years,

drawing for several years
before even starting to paint.

And when he painted,
he painted mainly in dark colours.

He was very much influenced by,
for example, the Barbizon School,

the French realistic landscape
painters, peasant painters,

such as Jean-Francois Millet.

And then, because he realised

that he needed
to find a new way for his art

that he wouldn't be able to sell
his works

and to have the necessary contact
with other artists,

he moved to Antwerp
to be in a big city, again.

And to be able to look at other art,
to be in contact with other artists.

"My dear Theo,

"these docks are one
huge Japonaiserie.

"Fantastic, singular, strange.

"At least,
one can see them like that.

"I would like to walk with you there

"to find out whether
we look at things the same way.

"One could do anything there,
townscapes,

"figures of
the most diverse character,

"the ships as the central subject
with water and sky

in delicate grey.
"But above all, Japonaiseries.

"I mean, the figures
there are always in motion.

"One sees them
in the most peculiar settings,

"everything fantastic.

"And interesting contrasts keep
appearing out of their own accord.

"My studio's quite tolerable,

"mainly because I've pinned
a set of Japanese prints

"on the walls
that I find very diverting.

"You know, those
little female figures in gardens

"or on the shore,

"horsemen, flowers,
gnarled thorn branches."

The word ukiyo-e
consists of two parts.

"Ukiyo", which translates
as the floating world,

or the fleeting moment.

And "e" is an extension,
which means "image of".

We often describe ukiyo-e of being
the product of the ukiyo-e quartet,

which means the involvement
of the publisher, the artist,

the block cutter and the printer.

HE SPEAKS JAPANESE

The whole interest in Japonisme,
in Japan,

was, in a way,
almost like a fashion

that grew pretty suddenly because
these objects came on the market,

were promoted, were collected,
were hotly sought after.

Japonisme could be found
in many, many different levels.

There was, of course,
the collecting classes,

the rich people who could afford
to buy and adorn their houses,

but you could also
go to the department store

and find Japanese fans.

Siegfried Bing, for example,
was an art dealer

who specialised in Asian objects,

in particular, also Japanese,
but not only.

But he also wrote about
Japanese art,

with his journal
Le Japon Artistique,

which became really important.

It talked about Japan,
described the landscapes.

Suddenly,
people could put an image to it

that was not only a picture
or a reproduction in a journal.

Another art dealer was Hayashi,

who also dealt with
Japanese objects,

and there were enough
wealthy collectors of Japanese art

in Paris at the time.

Hayashi wrote about
the spring of Japan,

and he compared that to Italy,

and very bright colour,
and bright sunlight.

And when cherry blossoms
are blossoming,

then the whole mountain looks like
a pink cloud,

or something like that.

I think that was enough
for European people

to dream about the paradise
of the Far East.

In 1886, Van Gogh decided
that he needed to be at the centre

of the artistic world - Paris.

He arrived in Montmartre
and moved in with his brother Theo

who was now building a reputation
as an influential dealer,

working with young artists.

Van Gogh immersed himself
in current artistic developments,

looking at impressionism

and experimenting with
neo-impressionist techniques

such as pointillism
which was considered avant-garde.

But another rich source
of inspiration for these artists,

and a constant talking point,
was Japonisme.

Always looking for ways
to generate income,

and recognising the popularity
of Japanese art,

Van Gogh decided on a plan to buy
a large quantity of Japanese prints

from the dealer Siegfried Bing in
order to then sell them at a profit.

We know that from his letters

that he buys 660 prints
and he pays 100 francs for them.

Or, actually,
he doesn't pay 100 francs,

because he pays only ten and then
later on he says to his brother,

"You should go back
to Siegfried Bing

"and pay the rest of it, because
we should keep this collection."

He has then realised that
it's important material for artists,

not just for himself, but also
for other artists to work with.

And after this decision to buy
this whole lot of Japanese prints,

he then exhibits them
in the cafe that he frequents,

which is the cafe of his then lover,
Agostina Segatori.

He puts them on the walls there
and he hopes to sell them,

but that doesn't work out,
so then he keeps them.

He also gives some away to artists,
to friends,

and he's saying
they are also learning from it,

so it's a very valuable thing
after all.

He then realised that
there had to be something else,

that in order to be a part of that
you couldn't just use brush stroke

and colour, and paint outside.

There was so much more going on,

that if you had
to distinguish yourself somehow,

you needed to create a niche,

a special way of connecting to
something that was utterly modern.

One of the things that was perfect
for that was, actually,

Japanese art.

From the summer of 1887, you can
really see something new happening.

That had to do also with
the new friends he was making

or hanging out with more often,

like Emile Bernard
or also Paul Gauguin.

Also where he starts to think
about new ways

of creating imagery.

And it starts
with a spectacular painting

and that is The Courtesan.

He takes different images, different
details from various Japanese prints

and puts them together.

So he sees a magazine cover
with the woman on it.

He takes it, squares it,

like the most traditional way
of making a copy,

and then puts it on canvas,
enlarging it.

Then around it he uses
various imagery of landscapes,

very typically cliche-like
Japanese motifs.

What he does, and what makes it,
I think,

such a strong and imposing picture,
is not only its size,

which is very ambitious for him
at that time,

but also the fact that he uses
these intense colours

which were not in the originals.

He really brightens up.

In particular, The Courtesan is
just an explosion of colour, almost.

And he uses a very strong
and distinct brushstroke in there.

Very graphic, a lot of impasto,
you have a sense of paint,

which is all very different from
the flatness of the Japanese prints.

And it is, sort of,
a tour de force almost

of trying out what you can do
when you use direct sources

in your work, as if you're
making a statement about,

"OK, here I am, and now I'm going
to try and be a Japoniste."

Making copies after, for example,

the Old Masters was a very
common way of learning for artists,

also, at the art academies.

So when he's looking
at Japanese prints

and he's trying to unravel
their way of working,

doing copies helps him
get acquainted with this new style.

And you could look at them as
imitations, but, of course,

they are much more than that

because he's also adding his
own colours, his own brushstroke.

He's adding elements
from other prints,

so he's making a kind of
new thing from these copies.

It's really about making it his own.

"I saw Pere Tanguy, yesterday.

"And he put a canvas
I had just done in his window.

"I've done four since you left,
and I have a big one on the go.

"I'm well aware that these big,
long canvases are hard to sell,

"but, in time, people will see

"that there's open air
and good cheer in them.

"Now, the whole lot
will make a decoration

"for a dining room
or a house in the country.

While in Paris,
Vincent refined his technique

and absorbed the many artistic
influences the city had to offer.

He actively involved himself
with other artists

and experimented with materials,
colour, perspective and composition.

His passion and intensity
sometimes overwhelmed him.

After a series of failed ventures,
rejections and disappointments,

he became embittered
with life in the city.

Van Gogh sought a change
and a quieter existence.

So he decided to leave Paris

in search of new subjects
and new inspiration.

In February, 1888,
he pinned some Japanese prints

to the wall of Theo's apartment
as a gift

and headed to Provence
in the south of France.

"My dear Theo,

"Arles doesn't seem any bigger
than Breda or Mons to me.

"Before reaching Tarascon,
I noticed some magnificent scenery,

"huge yellow rocks,
oddly jumbled together,

"with the most imposing shapes.

"In the small valleys
between these rocks

"there were rows
of little round trees

"with olive-green
or grey-green foliage,

"which could well be lemon trees.

"But here in Arles,
the land seems flat.

"I noticed some magnificent plots
of red earth planted with vines,

"with mountains in the background
of the most delicate lilac.

"And the landscape under the snow

"with the white peaks against a sky
as bright as the snow

"was just like the winter landscapes
"the Japanese did."

The south of France
is very different from Japan,

but when you look at all the images
that he had in mind,

and you look
at the landscape around Arles,

which is also quite flat landscapes,
with hills in the background

or mountains in the background.

And, of course,
the intensity of the colours,

which is very different
than in the north,

with more warmer colours,

this is something
that he liked in the prints.

So he's very happy to find himself
in this country and in nature,

which reminds him so much of nature
in the Japanese prints.

What he did do was to search
for colourful motifs in the south

and then he was imitating it.
So, you see, in the beginning,

he only took the motif
of the orchards,

but they do not have much in common

with his search
for a flat kind of effect,

because the motifs themselves
are difficult to combine

with flat motifs.

Trees blossoming.
So it's not there yet.

He had to conquer that,
you could say.

"My dear Bernard,

"having promised to write you,

"I want to begin by telling you
that this part of the world

"seems to me as beautiful as Japan
for the clearness of the atmosphere

"and the gay colour effects.

"The stretches of water
make patches of a beautiful emerald

"and a rich blue in the landscapes,
as we see it in the Japanese prints.

"Pale orange sunsets
making the fields look blue.

"Glorious yellow suns."

He's making paintings

in which you can really see
the Japanese influence reflected,

but he's incorporated it
into his own style.

He's applying much stronger colours.

That's also, of course,
because of the light in the south.

But also because these prints
have helped him

to look at reality in another way.

He still always bases his work
on reality.

He puts his easel
in front of his subject,

and he's painting that,
the landscape or the portrait.

But the way
the Japanese prints are made

in very large planes of colours,
with very strong lines,

in a way it's about
simplifying your compositions

and making them stronger.
It's about choosing very strong,

even garish colours
that are not necessarily realistic.

And that adds
to the strength of the painting,

and this is something that he very
much learns from these examples.

Of course,
there's many influences on his work,

but this was one that
really fitted with what he wanted,

what he was striving for.

Portraiture became
very important subject matter

for Van Gogh in Arles.

Very different from earlier.

And now, it was the modern portrait
that he was doing.

Modern portrait, of course,
had to be, at least in large part,

Japoniste,
because that was the modernity.

So what does one do?

A - one has maybe
an exotic subject matter,

which was perfect in The Zouave

a soldier from a regiment,
which had very colourful outfits,

was very dashing and very intense,

using flat areas of colour
that recall, in a way,

the Japanese prints
that he had been studying

from his memory now, because he had
very few Japanese objects with him.

They were sent to him later
by his brother.

The Zouave was from a regiment

where they had really dashing
and colourful costumes, as well,

so what he saw
was translated in this way.

But more interesting
are those portraits

where he brings the story of Japan

into the painting he makes
of someone from Provence.

And the grand example of this is,
of course, La Mousme.

"My dear Theo,

"now, if you know what a mousme is,

"you'll know when you've read
Loti's Madame Chrysantheme,

"I've just painted one.

"It took me my whole week.

"I wasn't able to do anything else,
having been not too well, again.

"That's what annoys me.
If I'd been well,

"I'd have knocked off some more
landscapes in between times.

"But in order to finish off
my Mousme,

"I had to save my mental powers.

"A mousme is a Japanese girl.

"Provencale, in this case,
aged between 12 and 14.

"That makes two figures,
The Zouave and her, that I have.

When he describes it, he really
describes the Japanese story

that he wants to evoke in that work.

Another example of this
bringing together a Japanese story

with portraits is, of course,
the famous self-portrait, his Bonze.

"My dear Gauguin,

"I have a portrait of myself,
all ash-coloured.

"The ashy colour that comes from
mixing Veronese with orange lead,

"on a pale background
of uniform Veronese,

"with a red-brown garment.

"But exaggerating my personality,
also.

"I looked more
for the character of a bonze,

"a simple worshipper
of the eternal Buddha."

While in Arles, Vincent started
to dream about an artist colony,

hoping other artists would join him,

so they could work
and discuss art together.

After some persuasion by Theo,

Paul Gauguin
made the journey to Arles

to stay with Van Gogh
in his Yellow House.

In preparation for his arrival,

an excited Van Gogh made several
paintings to decorate the walls,

such as The Sunflowers
and The Bedroom.

For two months,
they drank and ate together

and painted the same models
side by side.

Unfortunately, it didn't end well.

Vincent van Gogh's regime
was too intense for Gauguin

and they had a huge argument,

ending with Van Gogh cutting off
his left ear in a drunken rage.

Gauguin left Arles,
and after a period in hospital,

Vincent van Gogh decided
to check himself into an asylum

in Saint-Remy, to recover.

In Saint-Remy,

Japan continues
to be a very important force

as an inspiration
for the work he does.

When we think of the close-up views
of nature that he does,

which relate directly to his reading
of Bing's Le Japon Artistique,

where Bing writes
elaborately and very beautifully

about the respect of the Japanese
artists for seeing a blade of grass,

something that Van Gogh picks up.

He takes these ideas with him

and explores them in the garden
of the asylum, in motifs,

very importantly, of cut-off trees,

where you see only
the tree trunk being focused,

on the ground, looking at
the small detail of nature.

He emerges
from this period of illness

and creates
these amazing works of art.

After a year in the asylum,

Van Gogh felt strong enough
to discharge himself

and move back closer to Theo.

Paris was considered too risky

for Van Gogh's fragile state
of mind,

but the nearby rural village
of Auvers-sur-Oise seemed suitable.

The area was popular with artists
like Pissarro and Cezanne.

Theo knew of a homeopathic doctor
and artist there called Paul Gachet

who agreed to keep an eye
on Vincent.

After the breakdown in Arles,
his Japanese dream was over.

But still,
he was interested in Japanese art.

And in Auvers-sur-Oise

he went to see the Japanese prints
exhibitions in Paris,

in Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

So he wanted to know real Japan.

That's different
from the Japanese dreams.

But he was still trying
to keep contact with Japan,

even his last months.

Auvers was, of course, the place
where Van Gogh passed away,

where he's buried.

After he passed away
and after Gachet passed away,

the heritage of Van Gogh
was kept by Gachet Junior.

The Japanese became fascinated

by Van Gogh
in the early 20th century

when first a partial translation
of the letters

appeared in print in Japan.

And soon afterwards,
images of his work arrived,

often reproduced in journals
in black and white.

That is how the first images
of Van Gogh's painting

were introduced
to the Japanese audience.

At the time,
right after Van Gogh's death,

his fame began to rise meteorically.

It's extraordinary.

Of course, very convenient,
and this sounds terrible,

but his suicide, the madness,

that gave a grand background
for the 19th century idea of genius.

Then Emile Bernard
published the letters.

So the machine, so to speak,
the marketing machine, got going.

Anyone looking for new art,

looking for
contemporary developments,

could not avoid Van Gogh.

HE SPEAKS JAPANESE

HE SPEAKS JAPANESE

SHE SPEAKS JAPANESE

Van Gogh idealised Japan,
and after some decades,

the Japanese idealised Van Gogh.

And that kind mutual idealisation,
or misunderstanding

that can happen in certain phases
of a cultural context.

Today,
the reaction of the Japanese public

is not the same as 50 years ago.

But still,
Van Gogh is a kind of icon,

and also idealised person,
the most popular artist in Japan.

Europe is still admiring Hokusai.
So it's a kind of spiral.

It's not in the same way,
but still going around and around,

and they're just creating what
they want to see in other cultures.

I don't think that he would have
necessarily known Japanese artists,

in the same way
as he never wanted to go to Japan.

It was a concept, an idea.

He never wanted to go,
he didn't need to,

because what he needed
was just a construct

with which he could work to develop
his own oeuvre

and the meaning of it.

He then brought to life something
which didn't exist,

but which I think then allowed one
to relate with one's own emotions

or one's own imagination.

And that's a great part of
the attraction of Van Gogh's work.

"My dear brother,

"you know that I came to the south

"and threw myself into work
for a thousand reasons.

"To want to see another light,

"to believe that looking at nature
under a brighter sky

"can give us a more accurate idea

"of the Japanese way of feeling
and drawing.

"Wanting, finally,
to see this stronger sun,

"because one feels
that without knowing it

"one couldn't understand
the paintings of Delacroix

"from the point of view
of execution, technique.

"And because one feels
that the colours of the prism

"are veiled in mist in the north.

"All of this remains somewhat true."

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