BBC4 - Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershoi

I'm used to traffic to uncharted territories but this time I'm on a journey to the mysterious world of a painter whose work has haunted me for years it all began eighteen years ago it's an exhibition of Scandinavian art in London the pictures were breath of fresh air but two or three of them still silent interiors were unforgettable they were all by the same artist a Dane called Vilhelm homicide today I'm embarking on a long-delayed quest to find out more about this surprisingly uncelebrated man my journey begins in London's National Gallery where nestling quietly amongst its colorful contemporaries is the only hammer saw on public display in Britain this is a really intriguing painting to me because superficially it looks like a cool Scandinavian interior everything's very static very restrained nothing much going on and yet when you look at it for all sorts of intriguing riddles to the painting first of all the figure herself the light falls little bit catches the boiler film it on the door there but most of it hits the back of her neck and the way the neck is lit up it's what brings the body to light gives it flesh and blood then what is she doing she's I've got her arms up there what's going on it sort of reminds me of a Vermeer lady reading a letter so I kind of imagined she must be reading a letter but you might not be it's not quite sure but something is clearly happening from her position then the other thing is actually think the room itself this corner of the room the table is pushed right up against the doors both the doors are shut so are we looking at dark Freudian psychodrama or an afternoon in turn-of-the-century Copenhagen the view of London from the river gives a whole different perspective on the city and attracted many great artists including Turner Monet and Whistler Monni painted the thames with big swirls of intense color but Hamazon is more attracted to the work of this hero Whistler he had turned his back on the bright lights of oppression ISM and used subdued blues and Grey's to capture the dank melancholy of the Victorian fog Hamas or especially came to London to meet Whistler he knocked on his door but the great man wasn't in and Hamas oh he was too shy to try again he turned his attention instead to the great buildings of the capital the Magnificent facade of the British Museum symbol of British might cultural majesty seemed a natural subject for a painter but Hamas oi preferred the railings his portrayal at the British Museum like his portrayal of the woman in black and his interiors seems deliberately designed to avoid the face Midwinter London homicide painted these wonderful if slightly eccentric views of the British Museum from his lodgings across the road though he spent the day sketching in the museum the buzzing and the flickering of the newly installed electric lights drove him back to his room with a view it's the street that never sleeps we see people in the morning during the afternoon because of the museum a lot of people going to the British Museum and then you know right up until the small house is absolutely non-stock when I would say it's almost 24/7 it goes on every hour of the day from about 8:30 you see the thought of the morning starts on the great Russell Street set the chestnuts cellar appears at least during the winter month and he rolls his truck down here and he sets it up just around the corner and lights it and that's the sort of the beginning of the morning session and their new smell see the hot dog sellers arriving who usually placed themselves outside the gates of the British music things Salmonella brothers then around 9:00 you see a great sort of crocodiles as school children and students being herded along to see the British Museum some of them are British some of them are foreign and then you know right up until the small hours sometimes you know they're people walking home after a carousing night out a lot of junkies on the way for their next fix sort of 6:00 in the morning that's everything when Hammes Foy was painting this of course the history traps with the empty devoid of people why do you think he did that well I think that must have been to do with his mindset and his painting style because I'm sure 100 years ago there were just as many people walking up and down the street as there are today if not more have you become a fan of hemorrhoids work oh definitely I mean it certainly grows on you it's not it's not a painting that you want to put in your wallet exactly it's not hot water but it is it's very intriguing and it's very interesting to try and get inside his head and do what did he see I always feel this time hammer soy must have been always some somewhere in the shadow and there must have been lots of shadow in London at that time and in a sense I get the feeling maybe this is what but hammer SOI liked about London that he he could shroud himself in the clouds the something about the emotional quality of of his paintings is almost like it's like he's giving a room feelings we have we which is nothing it's like a room that he's invited you into and yet you don't quite know what you're gonna find but I want to beat the only other hammer saw in a public collection in Britain was once owned by Leonard boric a Victorian concert pianist who was hammer saw his only British collector I tracked it down to the conservation department of Tate Britain the painting is an interior but this time the room is empty there's no sign of the mysterious woman in black a portion of the painting has been folded back and with the help of an infrared camera we make an intriguing discovery and I can see woman's face dark-haired wrong Mac who was the woman mystery woman we think it's more than likely EDA his wife she's sure she occurs and most of his populated interiors she seems to have been a muse what was her she came from a very quiet working-class Danish family she was quite provincial she was quite stayed we know that when she went to Paris she was shocked and horrified by the amount of makeup and decolletage that was on display so and wrote back to her mother-in-law complaining about the appearance of women in Paris so we know she was quite shy and quiet and didn't make much of an impact to have a show his profile anyway I see yes that's how I fit together it's quite a substantial chunk of the painting that's been folded over yes yes are they adding on the tacking March and it's probably about seven centimetres so I'm just on the edge of just deliberately taking out the finger yeah there's a thing where she's standing behind at that table between the wall and the table right yeah yeah I think it's quite nice that borac didn't actually cut the section off that he didn't like instead he somewhat nothing leave chase just wrap it round you know and the back of the stretcher and the fact that we still have this this is quite amusing the option exactly it's a lovely painting and yet this this can't be seen at the moment is that right everyone display it hasn't been on display recently but there are some plans to perhaps show it in the not-too-distant future I hope so yeah so do I think you know I'm becoming a friend of Hamas or the friends of hamas I need to be formed would you would you join up I'm already a friend oh yes yes I'm a fully paid-up member of that Club Oh excellent are you going to empty room and then sit there run away so a little more light on the subject of his paintings but what about the way he painted it's time to widen the search and discover who if any were his role models in 1887 Camus why the young student comes to Holland and sees the work of a painter who'd been obscure for nearly 200 years his name is Johannes Vermeer when Hamas I came here to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam he'd have seen a lot of interiors that was the great legacy the Dutch 17th century painters interiors of everyday life going on people sitting at table laughing crying holding babies glasses of gin and anything else that comes to hand dogs are waiting for bones noisy scenes with stories to tell and you come to these Vermeer's here that lady reading a letter and the milkmaid over there and again there is a certain amount of narrative but it's very much pared down there's only single figures in there and they're not actually looking towards us the viewer they're absorbed in some quite some small activity reading a letter pouring the milk out of the jug and Hammes Foy when he paints 220 years after Vermeer he reduces it completely this he turns either completely away from us he's turning her back to us but obviously something going on but you don't know what it is so hammer is reducing it even more but it still seems seems in the same progression away from anything too obvious away from anything to offered up to the viewer it's meant to puzzle us it's meant to offer stillness and a bit of an enigma after one of his visits to Holland Thomas Royds this striking picture of his sister Anna with echoes of Vermeer's lacemaker a decade later he was still returning to what had excited him when he first saw the Mia Rembrandt's work also left a deep impression and inspired hammer saw his masterpiece five portraits this was intended for the Danish national gallery but sadly they passed on it a blow from which friend said Hammerstein never recovered here we are in Delft where Vermeer is now a megastar though strangely considering he lived and worked here was little for his fans to get excited about the odd plaque a few legal documents but none of the paintings he completed you one group am here to meet hopes to change all that they call themselves the Friends of Vermeer and they want to build a museum to him I'm off to see them and do a bit of missionary work on behalf of the Friends of a Molloy hello friends or fermier it's a pleasure to have you here again you know tonight we have a person in our middle I think it is Michael violent failing sorry Michael I think both of us drink to to marvelous artists Vermeer and Hammerstein and the Friends of both Friends of boat thank you thank you do you know you know his work I haven't seen it looks like PC there are real similarities on there very cool yes very cool and and a key tends to keep you know his wife this is his wife I think she'd always put her back to aspergers and done that quite deliberately she's afraid he's afraid of her though I haven't discovering more about homicide it still feels as I'm just skimming the surface whatever that's left to find out will lie here in his home country Denmark approaching Copenhagen from the sea you have to pass by the mighty crumbled fortress at Elsinore made famous by Shakespeare as Hamlet's castle Kronberg was the key to the Baltic no one had access unless tolls were paid which made the Danish king rich this casts so quietly magnificent when Hamas ye came here in 1897 he typically didn't paint this grand exterior all this he painted the roof beautiful almost photographically detailed in its lines and shadows but decidedly not the postcard view as Hamlet lies dying in this vast castle Shakespeare gives him one of his most famous lines the rest is silence as the castle of Elsinore dominates the Baltic the massive news state-of-the-art Opera House dominates the waterfront at Copenhagen amasau is home throughout the 51 years of his life Keppel Hagen isn't quite what I expected I don't know what I didn't expect but it's erm welcoming city but it's also it has a restraint to it it's not forcing itself upon you nor is it saying you have to come here it's saying this is what we are take it or leave it very homicide historically Copenhagen was always a great mercantile city and when hammer saw was alive and working here these wharves will be full of ships coming and going from all over the world and yet in his paintings the only suggestion of their presence and just the tips of the masts seen above the buildings almost as if it was another world out there which he didn't want to go thank you to Christmas how do I see it agreed any thought it was appropriate that we arrived by by boat so this is where Hamas was very very close to the war he loved the water he loved to eat and not the old part of this town well this is actually his Frank ever hammer so different he lived in that house on the first floor and he lived on this in this house on the first floor didn't move far did he know really like this area very much yeah yeah and it happens to be my office today where he did the coincidences are enormous you and Hammerstein's linked so much because of course through your patrons okay so this is the fact where he how much my spent his last years of his life well how long from 1913 to 1916 and remind you what this is now that this is the protocol office of this foreign ministry all right and that's why I have my office here hmm you're chief of protocol so we go into my office which was the living room over so the room shapes really haven't changed that's right same ah yes same you stronger 25 left me feeling a little bit frustrated because I could see elements in there of hemorrhoids work the tall windows mas outside the windows time has passed it's just every now and then II look at an angle or you look at a combination of window wall and the view outside and it all works and yet the building itself is now used for something else just enough has changed the use of the building the number of people around their telephones all those sort of things that break the silence that's enough to make me feel slightly frustrated that I'm almost there but not quite can you tell us something of your great-uncle's a relationship with homicide he met Thomas Hart when he was about 24 years old and he liked his paintings so he said to Hamas why are you doing ok are you selling pictures are you not really and he said and then in Brahms and said suppose I do some commissions for you are you can paint my wife and my son and playing cello he didn't do many portraits and he only painted people he knew for church wasn't his strong thing he would do landscapes or or interiors it was simply to get house fire going and so to give him an assignment that could pay for so that's how it started their relationship and then it developed into a very close relationship which lasted the rest of Thomas was life I think together they made a great couple so to speak because I'm also I had the talent the genius which would be bumps in view of ala sorry and but he didn't have the the push you didn't have to go he was introvert he was quiet he was not sure himself and and perhaps and pushed him on and said I you're better than you think and I'll support you and be your manager how do you rate him I think I find him fascinating I must say I can say why not more Conners people even think there's some people say he was colorblind it's quite amazing that a painter should be colorblind but the fact is that how much I didn't like strong colors and he preferred them to be more subdued so a lot of his his paintings are very relaxed and cos that was his temperament that was his style but I liked him it's been good to get this far but across the road tantalizingly close is 30 strand gotta wear vilhelm lived for 10 of his most productive years this is the holy of holies for a friend of hamas Oy suddenly I realize I've seen all this before I'm on the edge of one of the paintings an afternoon in Copenhagen I'm another caller at the hammer sway house the housekeeper looks down slightly disapprovingly to see who it is but today there's no one at home Michael I can't see much trace of Hamas or sofa despite Copenhagen's walls being covered with the work of much lesser-known artists in a way he feels even more elusive here than he did in London the most obvious place to start looking for Hamas choice is the Stantons museum for kunst the Danish National Gallery Bramson his great patron donated his entire collection of 28 paintings bought with the proceeds of his dental practice to secure Vilhelm a place in Danish history or so he thought but the museum returned all the paintings when Hamas I went out of fashion in the 1930s recently they tried to get them back but it was too late most had been sold with hammer saw his work now fetching half a million dollars they must be kicking themselves ask you are you familiar with the work of Bill Helman honestly not really no we are from Finland I asked you if you know the work of an artist called he'll help Thomas hi I'm sorry I'm not from Denmark and I don't know the name I'm sorry he's a brilliant painter are you from from Norway from Norway yes excuse me I'm wonderful familiar excuse me I asked you if you know an artist called Vilhelm humus hi yes I know him yes do you like his way yes most people like him and think he is it interesting to look at the gray tones and pencil neck if you know about an artist called Billy Helen Hammerstein yes oh you do I always saw with buildings and chairs and there are some wood the people on yes I know I mean quite a lot of nudes here which you don't associate with him apparently was a rather shy quiet man when he painted nudes he had to go and lie down was the same as this one yes that's what I'm wondering I think it's an extraordinary riddle to know where everything is a married that's right hump and whether he he did this painting of hoped-for if he did that would be quite extraordinary in a sense because certainly all the books don't would not suggest that he would be painting news at that time and uh or that he ever painted his wife naked so that's fine so the plot thickens today I've learned two things that Hamas who was sadly underrated by the Danish art establishment and that occasionally he painted ladies without black dresses on homicide always fascinated by architecture took Commission's to paint the ground side of Copenhagen the serene royal palaces and squares dominated by imposing equestrian statues but there was another side to homicide like the rest his City he was a bit of a rebel round the corner from his house in upmarket stronger da is the free state of kristinia founded by a bunch of hippies squatters in the 1970s it's a mini community free from Danish ruled in his own time vilhelm was influential in founding the independent exhibition a movement supporting free minded artists the painting that inspired his break with the establishment was a sensitive portrait of his sister Anna painted and Hamas I was only 21 and admired by Renoir it inexplicably failed to win the prize everyone expected from the Academy of his family such um this is Anna yes it was probably made at the time where he painted his painting of portrait of a young girl which was a portrait of his sister Anna she named a spinster didn't she never married oh yes that's hell yeah and this is William's mother and his sister Anna and his little brother Sven no this rather handsome woman isn't she yes all through her night she would be keeping scrapbooks of his his paintings so she was rocking his tune these are photos from his stronger 24 essence July 1900 and 3rd senior where he lived with his wife Heder Oh wonderful photographs and he looks at the clock might have been a gift or something another precious thing the way they're standing yeah yeah and he just standing there with the same expression she has in all the paintings laughs still the clock was quite animated there's heater again it was so sad poor thing it could be that she was pining for the children she and Vilhelm never had but a closer read of these letters suggest there could be another explanation so this letter is from Bill him to his mother and he's been writing it just when he was about to get engaged with either and the situation is that Edith's mother seems to be going crazy sometimes or going going mad sometimes and that would create a stir in her family so really what Wilhelm is trying to say to his mothers that they should act very quickly and they get married it's very soon so that he could leave the house that's what interests it does interesting idea he does mother might have been a bit manic depressive yes might account for what some people think the victory to herself yes it was a difficult moody person this is a sketchbook he did when he was in his teens pretty accomplished no really I mean yes infant prodigy but these have been sort of things things are done at school yes he was taking private lessons his peril parents would pay for his private lessons so his parents were quite enlightened and encouraged yes definitely yes and he was obviously suing a talent very early yeah yeah all the colors in that are really rich something really intense I have heard some with it there was a suspicion he was colorblind which is why he painted in that in the dog challenge yes this would seem to say no these would already be rumors at his own time but they have been followed him all until today really but they have become law no not soft then we have postcards so he was a great collector of postcards and he traveled the Lots these were from his village yes he went away to hold on them to go to England yeah this is a British Library but you should not be reading yes the British Museum mm-hmm to get the idea he was rather unhappy away from him no no I don't know no I don't get that um actually he seems to be very comfortable traveling around London has a special place in his heart he writes that he feels very much at home in London so he liked to travel a lot and oh it wasn't just the for me no yeah he has descriptions of the fog and the suits tiny yes that it make him feel so on his throat with a phone in the suits me yes yes so I'm sure there's a lot more material oh yes but we haven't had the time to register it yet so they have to be translated as well and we have piles of letters still even the expert scholars haven't yet not to know not all of them is more of a story to tell yes that's very exciting have you got a few years off doings that's be nice like the official biography I mean that was fascinating well I think after talking to lot of I have a much clearer idea about the family it's beginning to take a little bit more a little bit more shape but Vilhelm himself doesn't emerge much from this in a strange way if the other members of the family I'm learning about not him Hamas oi didn't only paint his sitting-room like many artists using the newly opened railways of the 1900s vilhelm made tentative excursions into the surrounding country this is the first time I've been out of Copenhagen and I look around and I'm in his paintings I'm just me realizing of course as I've I've tended to so concentrate just on the interiors the roamers but his landscapes are remarkable too and they're very striking somehow there's absolutely no leap of imagination required this is Hamas or Denmark as I look out and I look at these landscapes yes there are the same trees yes there are the same and buildings in their relationship to the landscape that's that's quite striking this land doesn't seem to have changed and then there's this farmhouse which rocks so distinctive is sort of seems to be suspended between sky and ground it's not just a farmhouse with lots of things going on in fact there's very little going on it there's bit of smoke coming out but this farmhouse I want to see that for eg vida es be a choice personnel who banana and behavior Isaac I think I get the same feeling off these landscapes as I do when looking at the rooms it's almost as though there's a timelessness about them and the fact that the really aren't people in these paintings seems to suggest that what he values is the landscape itself and says though he's removed all the people from the landscape taking them away almost deliberately because he wants us to look at certain things this is the most westerly point of the ceilin Peninsula only 60 miles from Copenhagen it feels a lifetime right sort of hike long single story looks as though they're two houses here but it's a courtyard so there's no houses around there must have been buildings behind him ah now that's the key the double doors only one double door that must be that one there therefore that is the farm res næss a hundred and five years on must be that building there ah there it is in the picture with the chimney yes as a single chimney it looks a bit different now a half-timbered black and white then they would all been painted white that's what makes difference otherwise it's exactly it it was bit deserted at the moment let's go see hello I'm Michael Palin I'm just wondering if this house is the same as this one here can I come in and talk to you thank you so much ah good well this is this is very kind thank you so much good slice it down here thank you so how long have they and Emily known this house how long will they lived here 50 people 115 they have been living here in 55 years right but always born here oh really born in this you're born in yes yeah in this house yes there's something here which is rather interesting because in hammer saw his paintings as always his wife either I must say it's a bit like that like he's there in a black dress and I see if this York is a picture of you Emily it's a meme or it's Emily's mother how your mother right I'm fine on their wedding day right and I noticed that she's wearing a black not not white normally in England you be married in white around 1900 it was normal to get married in black well that's interesting because Hamas Roy and either got married I think in about 1890 around then so probably she would have remained in her black dress even for her wedding are there any sort of local stories that about the artists who came here you know I don't know I did I saw some over there that day he doesn't know that much about it but it was a union of arts coming in and then being at a place it's a summer house for far and it's artists years and the rumor said that they were coming in the spring and do they burn their clothes when they come and took on togas but there's a lot of rumors they were going naked and they were perhaps all their things we hear now is so more like the hippy time within the sixties in the 70s dressing up in togas running around naked that's not very Hammerstein Eric Steffensen a professor of art explains his brother Sven he loved to come here because he was also an ancestor mostly in the comics yeah and his friends they had to solve sort of a society here where they did funny things they were doing a little naked swimming and so on this is actually the spot this is a Halina Hooton we are in there yeah which means which means yeah yeah that you come from Hillis lot of Greek activities it does have a sort of feeling of a Olympic Greek blade of some kind of the Danish Olympics you know actually there was a cartoon at that time who sort of satirically said like so they are having a nice time here you know but they made a little fun of them and I can't believe what I've seen Vilhelm would be we'll be part of this nobody that I will be very withdrawn rather embarrassed by what of course that's why he's such a puzzle you know you can look at his picture still and say they're a little something that are not exactly what we think it is so spending his but for men only man yeah sweet great doesn't reek no great women yeah it was often ones they chase around the I guess this is why we should picnic a little here create this wonderful moment this is glasses designed by spin in 1906 this is the first wasn't just it wasn't just painting yeah not only painting but also ceramics glass silver is a very famous also to everything created in this period of life so you can see also this William Morris this that's a bit of that looks like Delft yeah but this is the classical Danish this royal coat make no that's why in his paintings he has so little deserves to be up to certain standard doesn't painting it's also things that he likes very much so typically he would love a plate like this I I think perhaps snaps is too strong for you but I brought one because this is very Danish another graphic so when I got this is a gift from Alina this is Danish wine you know we never drink Greek wine here but they have sort of the Greek spirit but put out so you can something there's only one not one bottle there's only one producer of red wine yeah this is a first wizard terrific color isn't it yeah that's deep deep ruby red it's really good I'm surprisingly good I mean this whole scene is it's so unlike what I know will help but this was this was what you say Sven used to do when he was here well well ville Hellmann's spend clothes would they have been together at the table at time like this yes this is very Danish so I would say they would be together this family spot or almost you know but so he'd be no stranger to wine and no life you know Sven he collected teddy bears you know every night he did the toast with his teddy bears so this teddy bear with a little red wine on it any similar stories about new Helmer was he or the gray one in the background you never gave a teddy bear while people said that in these woods here bill had once found a man who was who hung himself and he didn't like to go back to this spot again and so on and that's I think why people put out anecdotes by he was hypersensitive and so on so it's it's sort of a kind of a world which has two sides the people that he mingled with his family and so on they were funny people you know they did funny things and why would you sort of think that he he had no humour so if we came all this way why did he never paint a wonderful scene like this I think for two reasons the first might be that it's too obvious and the the second is very practical it took him two months to paint a landscape two months after the summer might have gone yeah and there was no time for it so it's both a practical and an aesthetic one I've learned that sweat like to run around naked but Vilhelm continues to be frustratingly well wrapped up Thomas I came back to the West Coast one last time to do a painting of a ballroom now a museum in kallenberg Thomas I liked painting landscapes but they were never as popular as his interiors to make a living he was driven back inside stronger da 30 the home that inspired and perhaps in a sense imprisoned him it's here that the final clue was my the house still a private home has been tricky to get into at last I have permission at this time my call is answered homicide painted these rooms over 60 times this was his stage perfectly lit everything in its place and Edo in the starring role acting out the everyday moments of their life together if there was a dark side to his work homicide never acknowledged it he claimed the best joy he ever experienced was when he was absorbed in the act of painting you this is this is Hamas or a 1911 so b-47 and it looks something much older than that and it's interesting in this self-portrait how he's painted himself you know quite sort of an ostentatious Lee if you like one corner of the picture almost as though this whole area around here is more important to him as a painter than portraying himself as own face and they're that trademark of the the window and the light from outside but they can't see anything outside it's just still sort of tantalizing glimpse of light there there he is inside his room painting and I suppose he's there's a certain amount of awareness there that he is getting old apparently he had very bad back trouble couldn't really walk without acting a cane at this point in another three years he was diagnosed with cancer and died at age 51 but it's very sort of typical of him really almost reluctant to paint himself having seen the house which is really about me the end of the betrayal for me I'm left with two things one is yes I would still love to know more about I would still like him to tell me what the intention was in having either with her back to us all the time what was the importance of the doors being half open was the restore II there was just an impression what did you just like painting doors and the other side is just that maybe this is all there is and he would say well I've given you my paintings they've asked of you some questions that's what I want I want to be remembered just for the paintings I'm not important I think back and think well that's fine too English that's what started me on the trails just that room with the figure in black they're back to me so I'm back where I started with the painting that set me off on my journey it was on exactly this spot that EDA mysteriously absorbed in something was painted my hammer saw in the last year of the 19th century there's a tendency now to want to know our artists to expect them to reveal everything before we can properly judge their work I think the key to understanding hammer Suey is that he deliberately didn't want us to know him he was an artist he made paintings the rest is silence we trace one of Michael's epic journeys starting next Wednesday here on BBC one as he begins a trek across the Sahara that's at 7:00 you

Channel: Claude Varieras

Views: 585,336

Keywords: Vilhelm Hammershøi

Id: fhQmS8KJeUo

Length: 58min 52sec (3532 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 27 2013