National Gallery Page #2

what's - ugh - crudely called in marketing

a sort of call to action.

We don't say, "This is the reason

why you must come and see it."

Now, with something like Leonardo,

it does it itself.

- Everybody wants to see it.

- Yeah.

You could argue we should

have done less.

No, no. So Leo isn't a good example.

You've just got to put up that beautiful

picture and everybody wants to see it.

But other things, we need to actually make

them come alive in a different way,

because people don't get it immediately.

They don't understand,

you know, what we offer.

And it's part of that conversation

we had a few days ago about,

"What's the National Gallery represent?"

When you look at the research

we've done recently,

people love the National Gallery when

they get here and they understand it,

but to the average, sort of,

person on the street, as it were,

they don't quite understand

what we are and what we've got.

The fact we've got these amazing paintings,

they don't get it,

cos we're quite discreet

in how we tell them that.

You know, I do have

some prejudices to overcome.

What I don't want is to end up

with the gallery...

producing things to the kind of lowest

common denominator of public taste.

But I don't even want the kind of av...

I mean, I'd rather have

spectacular success followed by...

sort of, really interesting failure,

- than have kind of average, you know'?

- No...

In fact, I'm quite in favour

of those things going up and down.

OK, thanks.

I'm going to try something

a little bit new today,

I'm going to try something

a little bit new today,

which is because the painting is slight...

is sort of rather more abstract

than most of the ones we talk about.

So we're going to have a bit of a go

with some touch drawings.

I... I son of made a very, sort of,

simple sketch of the main structures

of the picture

and then put it through this very exciting

machine that heats it up and it all goes furry.

I don't know whether it's going to work

for you, but I just thought it was worth a try

and that it might help some people

get the overall structure of the picture,

which is not a narrative painting

or a painting with great detail.

So the sort of abstract shapes

within it are quite useful,

to, sort of, get a sense of.

And then we'll move on to

a normal reproduction as well.

- If you could possibly...

- I'll pass those around.

Thank you.

Raised image here.

Professor Whitestick,

I'll be back in a minute.

Raised image here.

So, today we're talking about Camille

Pissarro's Boulevard Montmartre at Night.

It was made in 1897,

so just over a hundred years ago.

Certainly, the viewpoint he takes,

which is a viewpoint from a hotel window,

high above, an aerial viewpoint

of these streets,

adds to the sense of someone

who's a little bit distant.

Whereas his colleagues

would have a viewpoint like that

but include, somehow,

a sense of themselves,

even if it was just

a bit of balcony or whatever,

he... you just get no sense

of the window frame,

no sense of his presence,

and the whole thing is viewed,

you know, at a distance.

And the particular painting

we're looking at,

though it was one of a whole series

of 14 of the Boulevard Montmartre...

He went for these big campaigns,

painting a lot of pictures at once,

trying to capture the changing light effects,

so he might have several paintings

on the go.

But this is an exceptional one,

because it's the only night-time one.

His work's always a little bit dappled,

you might say,

and full of little brushstrokes,

but in this one, nothing is very clear

because it's dark and it's been raining,

and all the sort of things that can be seen

are sort of merged together

in this great sort of watery pool

of colour, light and shape.

What we're thinking about

is the general structure of the picture,

and we're thinking about it a bit like a flag.

So you're seeing an aerial view

of a street scene.

At the front of the picture is the...

is an upside-down V

going in towards the middle.

So it's a flag divided into four triangles.

The bottom, upside-down V triangle

is the street.

So it's basically a great whoosh of space,

leading towards the point

where all the triangles converge,

which is exactly halfway down the picture.

And then, the right-hand side is a V with

its apex meeting the disappearing point,

and then, the left-hand side

is a triangle on its left-hand side,

and then, the top is a real V,

and that, of course, represents the sky.

Take both your hands and put them

son of at the top of the picture,

and then come down a bit.

If you go from the top corners,

and then down a little bit,

and then you move your hands

inwards and downwards,

following the diagonals...

Can you feel the tops of the buildings?

I've only put the main sort of forms in.

And above that is an empty space,

which is a beautiful, deep, soft, smoky,

dark bluey-mauve

that dominates the painting.

So that's the sky.

Take that line of the tops of the buildings

and go to the... where the two lines meet.

Do you see that they meet

at a sort of bubble,

where the lines converge?

Yes? So that's

the sort of disappearing point.

And he punctuates that

with a tiny little dot of light.

So, overall, it's a really dark picture.

It's almost like a sort of semi-transparent

curtain's been drawn over the whole scene,

and it's very much nighttime.

And yet, it's punctuated all over the place

by these flares of light.

And they sort of emphasize the structure

and give a sense of excitement

of this son of city scene,

which is a great characteristic

of this picture.

So, not surprisingly, the furthest light

of a great line of streetlights,

the furthest light is at the point

where all these triangles converge.

It's almost like a sort of great symphony

to light in darkness, there.

And there are all these people,

out there on the street.

I've read people son of trying

to make something

of this being something

to do with his anarchism as well.

Certainly, in the paintings

where you can see more clearly,

the daylight pictures, he does make...

he does ensure that he defines the different

people and their different social class.

So you see people with top hats,

you see people who are selling things,

you know, you see all sorts.

In this picture, you don't get that,

because it's all so ill-defined.

But he is unlike many of his colleagues

in that he does show all strata of society.

Remember to keep

looking around you.

Always look around. Be careful, though.

Let's go nice and slowly, don't run.

I don't want you to fall over.

It doesn't have a magic carpet next to it,

but it is the painting.

Please, have a seat.

So this is the story of Moses.

It's the story about how a little baby boy

is sent down the river

and then picked up again,

given to the princess,

who gives it back to the mother,

and he grows up to be an amazing

and fantastic person.

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