Original subtitles

I'm Waldemar Januszczak...

..and for 40 years, I've been looking at art,

writing about art and thinking about art.

So I've learnt a lot...

..and it's all useful...

..because art is full of mysteries.

And mysteries need solving.

MORSE CODE BEEPS

SPOOKY MUSIC PLAYS

FOOTSTEPS APPROACH

This is Van Gogh's famous self-portrait,

the Self-portrait With Bandaged Ear, in the Courtauld Gallery in London,

and it's famous because Van Gogh's ear is so famous.

Everyone knows the story of him cutting it off with a razor.

And this picture, painted soon after in 1889,

commemorates that tragedy.

How very grisly to hack off your ear with a razor.

What a strange piece of self-harming.

It's a picture full of mysteries.

Why does this easel look like a cross?

Why is the bandage so prominent?

And what's this Japanese print doing here at the back?

It's this one here.

Geishas in a landscape, published in 1880 by Sato Torakiyo,

with Mount Fuji in the distance

and these beautiful geishas at the front.

Van Gogh collected Japanese prints and this was in his collection.

But why include it in his self-portrait?

And, of course, the biggest mystery of all,

why did he cut off his ear in the first place?

Van Gogh's Self-portrait With Bandaged Ear

asks a lot of questions.

So I think it's time to find some answers.

CAR HORNS HONK

This is Arles, in the South of France,

where Van Gogh arrived by train on February the 20th, 1888.

TRAIN HUFFS AND WHISTLES

He was full of hopes and dreams.

Unfortunately, those dreams soon turned into a nightmare.

TRAIN WHISTLES

These days, Arles is a glamorous holiday destination,

somewhere chic to visit in Provence,

but back in 1888, it was a bit of a dump.

Small, cramped, backward - the dirtiest town in the south

is how Van Gogh's painter buddy Gauguin described Arles.

Van Gogh arrived in February,

and there was still snow on the ground,

but it soon got warmer.

Spring arrived and he began painting

those beautiful views of orchards...

..full of happiness and hope.

He painted this bridge as well...

..the bridge at Langlois...

..because he said it reminded him of the bridges back home.

Why did he come here?

Well, one of the reasons was the weather.

In Holland, where he came from,

the sun never glowed like it glows in Arles.

These Arles pictures are so damn sunny.

They could hardly be more different from the first art he made...

..which was so glum and dark.

Another reason he came was those Japanese prints he liked so much.

He wanted to find somewhere as bright and luminous as the world

depicted by the artists of Japan.

Those beautiful views of his, of fruit trees in blossom,

painted in Arles when the spring came,

were inspired directly by the prints of Hiroshige -

Van Gogh's favourite Japanese master.

There's a portrait of Hiroshige by his follower, Kunisada,

and it shows him as a Japanese monk,

because late in his life, Hiroshige retired from the world

and became a Zen Buddhist.

So Van Gogh got it into his mind that all Japanese artists

were monks.

That they lived and worked together in artistic communes.

And that's what he wanted to do in Arles -

to start a community of artists living and working together

like Japanese Buddhists.

He asked Toulouse-Lautrec to come, Emile Bernard...

But in the end, only one other painter joined him here in Arles -

Gauguin -

and that was a big mistake.

So some of the reasons for coming to Arles.

were noble and artistic.

He wanted to start what he called his studio in the South -

a school of progressive painters -

but there were other reasons, as well - less noble ones.

When you've got the whole of the South of France to come to,

why choose Arles?

The short answer is because of the women.

Van Gogh could have gone anywhere in the South of France...

..but he came to Arles because he was looking for love.

Arles was famous for one thing - its women.

The women of Arles - the Arlesiennes, as they were called -

were supposed to be the most beautiful women in France.

Bizet, the great composer of Carmen,

even wrote a musical tribute to the legendary beauty of the Arlesiennes.

It's the suite of gorgeous melodies you're listening to now.

BIZET'S MELODY PLAYS

Unfortunately, the legendary beauty

of the Arlesiennes was exactly that -

legendary.

In real life, they were tough, grumpy and profoundly uninterested

in Vincent van Gogh.

They didn't want to talk to him, they didn't want to pose for him...

..and they certainly didn't want to fall in love with him.

So instead, he began frequenting the local brothel in this street...

WOMEN'S LAUGHTER

..paying for the love he so chronically craved.

LAUGHTER CONTINUES

CAR HORNS HONK

Van Gogh had a history with prostitutes.

The only woman he ever lived with was this

sad and worn-out brunette...

..Clasina Maria Hoornik - or Sien, as he called her.

Sien was a prostitute in The Hague, where Van Gogh had briefly studied.

When he met her, she was pregnant with her fourth child...

..but they started living together and they formed a wonky household.

His family was appalled -

especially his father,

who was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church.

How could his son be living with a prostitute?

But it was precisely because Van Gogh had had this keen religious

upbringing that he could see prostitution in a biblical light.

For him,

prostitutes were saintly figures.

He called them...

..his little good women.

And the reason he did that...

..was because of her.

This is Mary Magdalene...

..the Bible's most complicated feminine presence...

..and she is the most famous prostitute in all of Christianity.

The Bible doesn't actually say that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute,

an immoral sinner who mended her ways,

but that's the myth about her that grew up

and it appealed mightily to so many artists through the ages.

If you've read The Da Vinci Code...

..you'll know that the Mary Magdalene fantasy grew and grew.

"She was Christ's lover," they said,

"she bore him a child

"and their descendants are still among us today...

"..secretly plotting their big return."

WAVES CRASH

Now, in paintings of the crucifixion,

Mary Magdalene is also the woman you see at the foot of the cross,

holding up the dead Christ, because she was there at the end

to witness his suffering...

..along with Mary Cleopas and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

So somewhere in the crowd on Mount Calvary -

even in this whopper by Rubens -

you'll always find the three Marys witnessing the death of Jesus.

And the most beautiful of them will always be Mary Magdalene.

So what's all this got to do with Van Gogh?

Well, everything, actually, because just a few miles

from Arles, on the Mediterranean coast, lies that little town

over there, Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer -

the St Marys of the Sea.

According to legend,

it was here that Mary Magdalene and her companions...

..arrived by sea in France...

..and brought Christianity to Europe.

It happened on this very beach.

As a follower of Jesus, Mary Magdalene was persecuted by the Jews

and they put her and her friends on three boats with no sails, no oars

and set them adrift on the Mediterranean.

And they drifted across the sea till they washed up here

at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

And also, just about here,

Van Gogh painted one of his most charming Provencal views

with some boats on the beach here at the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

It's usually seen as just an innocent boat picture.

But in the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,

there's no such thing as an innocent boat picture.

Look where Vincent Van Gogh has signed his name.

On this battered box...

..that's washed up on the beach...

..just like Mary Magdalene.

Back in Voldemort's lair, it was becoming very clear to me

that with Van Gogh, everything came back to religion.

As I said, his father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church,

so his childhood was gloomy and Calvinist.

This is the spooky chapel in his home town.

Not very happy clappy, is it?

And he even painted his father's Bible,

just lying there like a tombstone.

Before he became a painter, he tried to become a missionary

and he went down to this terrifyingly poor mining district

in Belgium called the Borinage...

..where he gave away all his clothes and his food,

just so he could suffer like the people around him.

So we're talking here about a religious mania.

This isn't normal.

This is something dark and deep in the blood.

And when he arrived in the South of France, it didn't just disappear.

It was still there, lurking.

The question is, where did it pop up in his art...

..and what did it do to him?

RUMBLE OF TRAFFIC

Back in Arles, this is where he lived in the famous Yellow House.

The actual building isn't there any more,

but at least we have his gorgeous painting of it.

This is where he wanted to start his studio in the south.

The idea came to nothing.

The only other artist to join him here briefly was Gauguin,

and it was Gauguin who triggered the events that ended

with Vincent cutting off his ear.

Gauguin arrived in Arles in October 1888.

To prepare for the visit,

Vincent had gone into the fields around Arles

and picked some sunflowers...

..which he painted in an exquisite series,

for Gauguin's room.

They must've drenched it with sunshine.

That was the good news.

The bad news was that Gauguin was everything that Vincent wasn't.

Experienced, smooth-talking...

..and, above all, very good with women.

The two of them used to come here to the brothel just around the corner

from the Yellow House on what they called their hygiene visits.

But even here in the brothel, Van Gogh complained to his brother

in a letter, Gauguin always got more for his frank than he did.

And it wasn't just the prostitutes he was more successful with.

Gauguin also had more luck with the Arlesiennes -

notably with a woman who ran the late-night bar that Van Gogh

frequented, the Cafe de la Gare.

She was called Marie Ginoux.

So, another Mary.

Vincent had been trying to get her to pose for months

and she always said no.

But then, to Gauguin, she said yes.

So Vincent finally got to paint her as well, from Gauguin's sketches.

And then just a few days later...

..tragedy struck.

It happened on the night of December the 23rd, 1888.

Van Gogh and Gauguin had been getting on each other's nerves

for weeks, and just a few days before Christmas, it all blew up.

According to Gauguin, as he walked home that night,

Vincent threatened him with a razor.

Gauguin stared him down

and Vincent ran back to the Yellow House,

where he cut off his ear with the razor.

Wrapping the severed body part in a newspaper,

he took it to the brothel

where he gave it to a prostitute called Rachel...

..who fainted when she saw it.

Why did he cut off his ear?

Why did he give it to a prostitute?

It's one of the biggest mysteries in art.

MARCHING BAND PLAYS

And it certainly puzzled me for a long time...

..until I found out exactly what goes on in here...

..when the bullfights come to town.

MUSIC CONTINUES

Vincent couldn't miss the bullfighting.

It happened just 100 yards from his front door

in this great arena at Arles.

And we know he came to the bullfights because he painted them.

The busy crowd of the Corrida.

And look - there's Marie again, the Arlesienne.

MUSIC: Carmen Overture by Georges Bizet

BULL SNORTS

BULL ROARS

CROWD CHEERS

Now one of the things that happens in a bullfight is that a matador

who's been particularly successful is given the ear

of the defeated bull that he's just killed.

It's just cut off and given to him.

And then he walks around the ring with it...

..holding it up proudly, a symbol of his victory.

CROWD APPLAUDS AND WHISTLES

And because matadors are matadors - show-offs in tight trousers -

they inevitably throw the ear that they have won up into the crowd,

to the most beautiful girl that they can see.

CROWD CHEERS

A macho end to a macho moment.

CROWD CONTINUES CHEERING

CHEERING CONTINUES

So when Vincent cut off his ear on that terrible night in Arles

and gave it to Rachel, the prostitute

at the brothel just up the road,

he was casting himself as the defeated bull,

the sacrificial victim in the battle of love.

He'd come here to Arles to find his Arlesienne,

but all he'd found was suffering and defeat.

And that's when he painted this...

..his Self-portrait With Bandaged Ear.

A painting about suffering, pain and rejection.

Remember, Van Gogh had been brought up

in an intensely religious atmosphere.

His father was a minister in the Dutch church, so he knew

all about Mary Magdalene, about suffering, penitence, and pain.

And it's all gone into this picture.

So the easel at the back, the way it forms a cross,

that's no accident.

Van Gogh is identifying himself with Jesus.

It's something he liked to do.

A few months later, he painted a copy of a Pieta by Delacroix...

..and explicitly gave the dead Christ his own face.

In Arles, after the ear cutting, the kids would throw stones at him

in the street, they'd mock him and abuse him,

and the people of Arles, who love him so much these days,

actually organized a petition to have him thrown out of the town.

And it was signed by all the citizens

he thought were his friends.

Like Christ, Van Gogh was rejected, mocked and despised...

..and his Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear

says it all, with sneaky clues.

It's a hidden crucifixion.

The easel at the back is his cross...

..and where Christ had his loincloth,

Van Gogh has this grubby bandage that covers his wounds.

All that's missing is the three Marys at the foot of the cross -

and that's where the Japanese print comes in.

This is the sketch for Rubens' Descent From The Cross.

It's also here at the Courtauld Gallery, and look,

at the bottom of the picture...

There's the three Marys at the foot of the cross...

..with the alluring Mary Magdalene at the centre.

# He was despised... #

MUSIC: He Was Despised by Handel

# Despised. #

But in Van Gogh's hidden crucifixion,

the part of Mary Magdalene,

the former prostitute at the foot of the cross,

is being played by a geisha.

A beautiful Japanese courtesan,

gathered here with her fellow Marys...

..and Mount Fuji is their Calvary.

A genius with a Christ complex is comparing his suffering

with the suffering of Jesus.

Wounded and alone, Van Gogh is saying thank you

to the good people of Arles...

..for everything that they've done for him.

There are a million stories in the world of art.

This has been just one of them.

MORSE CODE BEEPS