Michael Palin on his favourite paintings | National Gallery

[Music] I try not to remember these days anymore so it's rather human but still very yeah well it's really wonderful to be here tonight Michael thank you so much for agreeing to be in conversation about some of your favorite paintings and choosing these pictures was rather difficult because you have such a great love of the visual arts and as you are someone who needs no introduction particularly after that I should mention of course though that most recently you've been engaged in some really wonderful arts documentaries for BBC Scotland including on Hamish or on Andrew wires and most recently of all Artemisia Gentileschi none of whom actually we've chosen to talk about this evening that moment for me the problem is National Gallery is so rich and it's very very difficult to know where you begin to make I wouldn't say these are my 10 top paintings about their 10 paintings which I cannot avoid I'm going in the gallery I always catch my eye and there was each one means something to me and in different ways presumably in all the times that you've been looking at him as well - yeah I mean I get great excitement from looking at paintings looking at because I think good work is very dramatic it's a it lifts you it's like seeing a little film that swords on one sort of canvas so you know I think there's so much so many different experiences you can get for so many different paintings because why I've chosen rather sorry so Terry collection yes and with no further ado I think we should start by by looking at something rather than talking about it without it here and this of course you'll all know it's do chose Annunciation it's a tiny tiny painting shown in extraordinary detail you can see it better on the screen here in some ways that you can actually in the gallery I can show - Mina called actually and looking at it on the screen I don't know it juices a lot of these are very striking very much more striking on the screen and they are small and this was interested because this is just a small panel of what was a big altarpiece wasn't it I mean looks here like a complete that's the complete work but the older piece itself which is comes from must be enormous is it it doesn't exist you know I mean this this painting comes from a double sided altarpiece for the high altar in the cathedral in Siena and a lot of it was dismantled and dismembered in the 18th century and that's why this picture has ended up here why was it why is it dismantled they just you know they decided what was it - religion religious reasons or they doesn't number nothing wrong but it was selling it well also all sorts I mean the 18th and 19th century of the period where pictures like this 14th 15th century pictures suddenly come out of the context in churches and they become arced really in a sense for the first time and when we're looking at a painting here as a work of art but it wasn't this wasn't made as a work of art this made as part of a devotional altarpiece a bit of devotional furniture really as it were does anyone ever come to you from Siena and say look we'd like this back you know you've got a bit of our altarpiece and what would you what would you say if they did well I think we'd we'd say maybe we can lend it to you for a short time why not that's enough but that's always wonderful but the bits and mists of the filter piece are all over the world they're in America they're all over Europe a lot of them are still in Siena but not the small pictures most of them won't ya know what I mean itself so it's a beautiful piece of work but also why I chose it it's one of the earliest paintings you have mastered it a hundred or something yeah that yeah but this is its relations for pre-releases oh that's a very good question hi I asked you to find these things well I just wondered I mean this is on the cusp is it or not was this I mean it's quite expressive what's going on they're not they're not sort Byzantine figures looking in a certain pattern direction well George of azhari the grandfather or granddaddy really a marked history he would call these early early Renaissance but if you're a scholar of medieval Europe you called the medieval it really depends on you on what you fancy but there but there are very extraordinary I mean this is so wonderful with the way it's got the gold the incredible gilded background but yet there's a sense of this being a moment where something is actually happening she's a live moment here a rather alarming moment when you're told by somebody that you're going to have a baby but you don't got a bloke it's just going to happen you know because and God is going to God says it's going to happen that's why you're going to have it so I mean describe the look on her face you can have some interesting sort of that kind much event here for but as you see reading the prophecy in Isaiah that says there should be a child shall be born she's supposed to be reading that yes but actually here is in many cases you can't actually tell where she's reaching in soul it's just is just a load of lectures it doesn't make any any sense but I always think you know she's remarkably calm and it's it's incredible how artists visualized the moment of the Annunciation actually as well you know Mary is generally unbelievably cam but those are but there's also a sense that the open door behind her the course Gabriel coming in it's a it's a moment frozen in time but it's a moment where something is about to happen but she doesn't really know what's about to happen yes but we do was this a bit of a breakthrough painting in terms of how paintings were done or you know where does this stand and the development of thank you expressive thank you I think I think did showing only seeing seeing these painters of the 14th century are extraordinary because they managed to unite a sense of real with real love for the story real real meat and story means something for them but at the same time they're using the architectural setting and also the sense of movement for this to be something that's living and static and I think that's how you were meant to imagine it this was something that you saw and you were meant to enter into it as well imagine yourself with Mary imagine yourself as Gabriel so yes it is a breakthrough and I think you can't not see it as that and very one thing I wanted to I was coming always interested who pays for these paintings Kazumi that was it very expensive I mean all the gilding up there and everything in the color I presume the colors were expensive at that time the ultramarine or whatever I mean who would have paid for this well this was paid for this was for the you know food guild for the main Church in Siena and but you know these things were very expensive objects but they were much less expensive than making them out of gold Sienna has a great tradition of goldsmith theory of making fabulous objects anything like this is wonderful but its financial value is still much less than than those and that's something we forget today and that's interesting so if you had an object made of gold I mean that would mean far more to the maker and and or the exhibitor and that's these would yeah possibly yes but what does this picture do for you Michael well it's just I mean I first of all I like the sort of that the subject is such a wonderful biblical subject I gave them all and so it's the moment but also I think it's just beautiful colors I'm doing the painting that's so delicate the colors and the slaw and in front would be the leaves in there very significant I'm not quite sure what it means but that clearly is there to mean something what does that mean well I think it's meant to be the lilies that you know so it's purity the clarity the purity of Mary yeah you don't need to know really what it means to to look at it or to wish it were to love it no but its certificate there and it's just a decoration of the painting I like and also the fact that you've got this rather wonderful arches and the architecture in the I think it's mainly just a moment Emmeline is being painted many times but this is a nice simplicity and directness to it is not too over-the-top no just just the figures nothing else sometimes and Annunciations it's an opportunity for an artist to show everything you can possibly think of think of the great Crivelli upstairs which is another picture we could have we could have chosen yeah but it's perfusion of everything and this there is it's just rip done and this is a small painting I've seen the galleries and yeah I realize the number the ones I've chosen is quite small so it's not a good scene here about four times the biggest thing yeah something else it's small but unbeautiful but very different they were quickly users goals of blue in an interesting comparison way to the dirt show is this Florentine painting of the late 15th century so we've moved about a hundred and fifty years everything we're showing is in a sort of chronology tonight as well yeah is this picture by by baldovinetti and how do you look at this picture for many years my color is this you've come something you've come to more reason though I find it very striking the first time I saw it was something about the sort of the formality of it and and the face and the look of the woman being painted I don't know I mean I I feel so it's a very kind of strong face and I'm not quite sure why it's being painted it's being painted for a husband or a lover or suitor or because she's a very rich woman but the actual the content of the picture itself seems very simple I think that's why I like it so much it's just about her face and her upper body and this wonderful design on her on her sleeve and and then suddenly she looks I just find to have to kind of directness to it I mean I don't mean direct in that she's watching not looking not looking at houses all of us know but I kind of feel that feel I know her quite well just from seeing her side omelette what what do you think of us I mean if you feel you know her quite well what do you think she was she'd like quite a fix you see well I think she problem I didn't know I just get the feeling she say or I sit for another 10 minutes and then I'm getting up please I got it right and what the knows to look good can you show it to me you won't chanting why won't you show it to me is something I feel she's there and she just wants to get on with life she's taken out of her license or a frozen moment is being painted I didn't know great deal about it apart from factories obviously very well off I would imagine we don't know anything about her at all that's really I mean we we just don't I mean that's one of the really curious things and like pictures of women often often you only you might be able to tell their family because of the coats of arms that identify them but in this case there's no coat of arms but as you said there's this huge great thing on her on her sleeve which seems so significant I was yeah you were able to trace that off we've tried we've tried quite hard I mean I don't know that there's no other work of the painter that I know is he do you know of a lot of his other work I watch that like he said he's that he's a wonderful painter there was there a number of other pictures on him particularly in Florence but what I love about this picture too and I was really glad you chose it is its simplicity um you know he's using a few materials he's using a few it's very it's all I wouldn't like to use the word geometric but there's always something of that in it it's yes yes its composition is very clear and also I like the fact it's not it's a kind of secular painting like she's not representing the Virgin or Mary Magdalene or nothing like that this is a woman of her time and she would have been incredibly young I mean this poor woman they were married off generally about the age of 15 or 16 and they look they look so old they look so mature when they were they were they were incredibly immature they were physically immature as much as anything else yes they were meant to just have baby straightaway and most of them died with an emoji here so of marriage we don't say we don't know who this woman was we don't know what we don't know her fate it's probable that it was this was her moment this was her moment of glory hmm but it's not a very flattering picture which is mattering that's what I quite like about it I mean it doesn't try and pretend that she's the most beautiful person in the world of Sharon great beauty I think actually but yeah it's not conventional perhaps in the way she's looking under a chin that's a bit but you know it's almost like a hub's broken lip but something I should be identifying family but is she happy or unhappy I don't know actually i think probably she's a little bit sorts she's doing her post and being told to go through this for such a wonderful image it's just biking there's nothing else in the gallery that I think has quite the same sort of immediate impact as this painting on me anyway no it's really it's really really really powerful yeah and and again it's tiny it's a bit bigger it's a bit bigger than the Dutch show but but not not not much and I did notice I was looking at the other day it says it's in its original frame yeah so that's about five hundred years old yeah and how many are in the original frame but we were just talking about this earlier and I was trying I was thinking probably about ten paintings of the pre 1500 period in this collection I mean not not very not not many at all the suits the frame it's not the frame it's not too flamboyant it's not one of those sort of clearly worthy goal EP things that you kind of see on later 18th century paintings other nice no it has a restraint that you that is really is really pleasing actually with the with the picture I'm glad it's a bit of a mystery to you as well quite nice sometimes a painting here you just got your own imaginative take on it and what it my mean and nobody everybody else is similar similar way of saying well we're not quite sure who she is or what she is so you don't have to know everything about it to really feel the strength and power of the painting I think that's the glory of the National Gallery's collection I mean obviously our jobs here as curators is to research the collection and to find ways that we can help no everyone to look at them but ultimately the gallery is also here at what pleasure and a pure visual pleasure of looking and of something that continued to give pleasure through the centuries yeah absolutely I mean some visceral thing I think looking at art it's not it's not something it should be for any particular class or income group or anything like that it's just something that gets you in and I'm hoping the ones I've chosen will get that feeling there's something there each time for everybody yeah and for everyone that some things I'm something quite different well again we've got something we've got something really quite difficult yes yeah tell me about this picture well funnily enough I was put on to this I had seen it I think that a painter and filmmaker called Derek Jarman and some of you may know but Derek Jarman he is marvelous the creative man and the culture and well-read but also quite subversive and you know he was not sort of mainstream so he made amazing fellow he made extraordinary films yes I'm quite long boring some have a back yeah but it has no great visual moment I thought Caravaggio yeah how did on 0 which is because it's a great film but it might it's just not like any other film he doesn't sort of have no conscious and another idea but it does tell you about the painting and how the painting was done and all that so in it he said this was one of his favorite paintings and I quite I admired his taste so I look and I realized yes it is an extraordinary painting again there's nothing like this in the galleries nothing like nothing else I've seen anywhere else it's a sort of new you know it's come exercising in darkness really so what's going on and the half of its in the darkness of John the Baptist is up there somewhere but also I don't know this little child radiating it looks or so you know it should have something it should be clad at least should have a hell away I think but it's the light is radiating off the child and all the angels look like little children and and this thing's going on in the background you know outside the window the Shepherds are sort of getting ready so it's all about playing with light I think rather well you tell me how deliberate is this and how I think I think it's extraordinary too but I mean it's so interesting thinking of Derek Jarman and Caravaggio because this is a caravan just painting your board you know to scent well with two centuries before before Caravaggio yes I suppose in Israel isn't thought about the way the doesn't limited amount of light spotlighting what he wants to show you yeah and the rest towards things figures in the background slightly slightly in the shade yeah yeah yeah again not not someone with know much about know when he's got the craziest name in English yeah it's also fairly crazy when you translate it means little gerald of the brother who doesn't John and hopefully yeah we we don't know Enoch again a slightly a slightly mysterious figure but but an extraordinary painting and this would be North European yes yes this is in the in the Netherlands and I mean you know now that I'm just painting at the 15th century is just extraordinary isn't it we talked at one point of what may be having a van Eyck in this yeah that you do what you plug my book for they are yeah but also what I like about this is it's a very very simple portrayal of discreet about the birth of thinner than the Christ child and all that but it's it's kind of the stable I mean there's no there's no great allegorical figures there are no sort of swirls or anything around it it's it's all in very very simple does feel like it's little manger somewhere is that Neverland ish as opposed to the Italians who might have laid on a bit more significance oh I don't know the Italians I think that this this taste for really simple naturalistic painting is something which then the Italians admire enormously and actually although we you know traditionally we often thought that Italy was where the Renaissance happened if you can be so simplistic about it I mean the impact of paintings from Northern Europe is absolutely fundamental to know what happens in Italy in the in the 15th century no I agree with you I love the fact it's so it's so simple and it's an onion and it's taking also it takes a mystical vision from Bridget of Sweden is it said to have this had this vision of the Christ child and that's where this this subject the subject comes from of the light emanating from him of him you know the light the light in the darkness there are so many biblical references that you can then pick up with with this but he nicest makes it believable I've got an underpainting at home which was in a restaurant in Hong Kong it's beautiful it's about it's three women working in the kitchen from there they're coming but it looks like a sort of Nativity the way they're looking where the lights coming up and especially similar to this I don't know what do you think they all can you it well yeah it's so nice I like the composition of it I like the way the light comes up I like the way they're looking down I mean they're just looking at a plate of food we are looking at the bug child all that but it's it still was a sort of sense of the wonder that the angel faces all sort of terms base but not just their faces also the hands only yeah you know the one is holding Isis hands anymore although Yaman that you know the side of the painting no it was a central area is baby Jesus but then you know a lot of it one of the breasts is out the side of the paintings you can hardly see it so would this have been for a church you think all the brother who were the brothers sort of John that Gerald was i watch elvis partial well there are all these Brotherhood's in medieval late medieval europe in every every city i mean locked in and as well in the pre-reformation times yeah and their groups of people who came together with a particular devotion but it was also often a social thing too so the picture may have been made for a member of the Brotherhood it's certainly someone made for someone's private devotion I think but also someone who loved looking at painting and who admired the skill of the painter as much as they admired the the devotional matter of the subject - I think not really that really shines through yes yes you're right the hands are very good her hands to Zoar to swim where they're held together then yes it's a very composed picture as well maybe that's for the three pictures that we've looked at if they have anything in common so far they do seem to suggest that you like things that are very composed and very very ordered do you think that's fair or if we look at the next one that maybe suggests yeah well well maybe we're finding this out as we go I'm just saying these are paintings that I find arresting and I go and look at each time and maybe this yes they're all paintings from a leaf excited this one particularly I chose I love the painting and animates but this is a subject you see a lot of Sarov in his study but I spend a lot of time to desk you know so reading books and all that something I'm trying to stay awake and I just love this yeah I respond to this because it is rather neat I love the sort of well I like little study itself would you like a study like that yeah it looks like it ought to be on wheels you know you can move it around different rooms in the house for some years ago I believe there was a New Zealand architect who designed a little Sutra study cubicle based on them and I think I think that you could buy as a rat pack and some sort a demoness the poorest in Jerome we didn't have that but it is quite it and quite like the way it sort of organized its or shelves there and it's got a blitz gotta Bray an angled reading position which is very very good you know use for and I worked a flat desk and sitting like that and I've now got some sort of Standish which you know angles the books up at me it's much better for you just like a medieval Saint yes well I may be evil but I'm not to study but and also what I like is particularly about this is the the fact you've got the rather intimate sort of interior and beyond it the natural world you know birds up in the sky and beautiful views out there comes the most wonderful place to work and right when you work do you like to work in somewhere way you can see or hear the world the well done I do like to look out ya know I mean I've got a house in North London which Queen and it's quite a lot of it may be built up area but my house looks out over a row of garden so I can only see greenery all the time and the birds and all that which I love and so I can respond to that very much if you might get up every now and then go down as little steps and go out to one of the windows and just see what's outside see them one birds and all that ins just seems the most perfect place to work but you don't presumably have a lion padding carefully like the one in the bin in the background no no I were useful very useful good answer the door remember Sophia oh my god nice that like yes alarm is there that part of the legend isn't it of sant jeroni yeah it was it was it timidly took thorn out exactly jerome takes the throne artifice the pall of this line and the line is so devoted to him that he follows him yeah like dogs and yeah the rest of his nine bebe zorrito I think though yeah I know that's fine just with this kind of thing I've got a friend you Oh you don't you can't come along I think I'm fellowship like that that's what he's in the background yeah and also these symbolic I would think thank you do you think that he was reading their symbolic I don't well I I think they probably are July I question however because I think that because they're so significant that do they mean anything particularly as a peacock means something there's a lot of is you well there's been a lot of discussion as to what that other parrot is if people have like to think it's a partridge but I'm afraid or ornithological knowledge at the National Gallery is probably not what it should be so maybe some of you can help us here in actually working out what this bird yeah completely is if it is a partridge it does have a particular symbolism as does the peacock and that would that would fit so the people waters return well I mean I think beautiful if sometimes been said that the peacock of course with it's wonderful plumage and its tail it's about Wellesley godori and about you know not not having that when you're going into a study like lecturer and the Partridge is meant to be I think a contemplative bhaiyyaji often see partridges in representations of studies actually Jerome and I'm just not sure that Partridge is quite right okay it's clearly he thought it was right he put it in that very liberal he did was right in the foreground he did whether it's whether it's that bird I also love the bowl in there yeah in that yes yeah it's not for the peacock tipping I think it might be a peacock for the lion winner when it went to get or is it okay if it comes back but I also love about this picture I don't know something you like to the fact that it so it's in this wonderful architectural smashing yeah and yet it so it's as if you could almost walk into it yeah you're invited so much in this is not a study where you are kept out yeah I'm quite interested in the architecture in these pages like in the new chair the first time I've been to those arches and what they represent and clearly they're very important to have that sort of framework and this is beautiful isn't it really asan gothic looks like the end of a sort of partly a castle partly a church partly a huge sort of monastery or something I think what it is well it's based on that there's a great feeling of space out beyond it yeah beyond his little robe there's things going on up there is but it's also I love the idea that at the centre of this great expansive space this world it all emanates from the front from the study I'm Jerome who of course is the saint to translate the Bible into Latin as a way in which it's read through on medieval Europe so it's really in some ways the cornerstone I suppose with the medieval church and I like the idea that you have the representation of the Saints you know under in this great architectural setting looks like like a church making making that point your housing so sort of making yes translating the Bible into Latin yeah yeah yeah it's so fundamental but then I spent I wasted an awful lot of time a few years ago trying to work out what architectural concepts this might have been and I won't mind lots of churches I knew in Sicily and Naples places where I'm familiar strong it was a nice job really I didn't the gallery didn't pay for that that was my holiday oh my children were very bored they were really fed up they don't want to hear anything horrified together but we couldn't uh no there was no there was no way of nothing then absolute chorus movies just a sort of its a mix of all the various different things he likes I mean that corridor there would which is we've got the arches and this one has no arches at all but a couple of rather nice little window seems like he's taken lots of little places he went on holiday if they did go on holidays I don't know well they certainly travel together yeah I mean he did such a fascinating artist I mean he's from the southern sub sub initially he's from Sicily and he paints this picture we're absolutely starting in Venice in the in the mid 14 70s and so he but he's also really interested in Neverland discounting I mean the the painting we looked at before that's just the sort of thing he was loved yeah and my former colleague Lauren Campbell he was always so damning about how Italian artists might have tried to paint in another lungis style their beautiful little figures I don't know if you've noticed in a boat just at the back of the picture here is you say that in a you know in Italian artists like Antonella couldn't really paint these properly but it would have been mumbling or Van Eyck you would have really understood them but but the Italians were just a bit lazy and didn't really hear properly in there well yeah he certainly got the light and the shadows right done rather well in Italy yeah and I love the tiles as well think yes about that beautiful anything any news on that they know no reason that I don't know no I think your line was very carefully chosen to be there that's what I feel about that painting it's not just a man in a study it's showing off in meticulous detail all the various bits and pieces that he wants to show us and he wants to show us about his life what's important to him too yes as well you know all these different objects yeah in their order and disorder I love the fact that the you know things are about to fall off the shelf although it's all very very ordered yes but that's quite good I like that it does not to meet substitute tiding there's a real books leading up now and it's a kind of gut coming right through the ages that relate to that now think of st. jerome they're not quite sure what's he got in front of him well he's got a bird like a toilet it's not just on the floor I know he's got another little cat yeah he's got a cat yeah yeah it's a marvellous grant the cats and dogs cats and iron and the birds not fighting so again I think offensive harmony perhaps that's right yes yes there we are back to the line like to order but this is a it would be a lovely place to live and spend time yeah but I can't say that the hall would be lovely I think this gets rid of the order would your ideas your life over that Erica Langmuir who put together a wonderful catalog of paintings he described this as the most frankly erotic painting in the in the collection I mean it is quite striking I mean it's supposed to be sort of the perils of the perils of a bottom yes yes they were all got immoral these pages but why why particularly chose this I should just say that gets out of the way is that this here that is the Python foot beginning of the monty python show and terry gilliam nicked that from Bronzino Bronzino has another penny in royalties the National Gallery a little bit selectively well I'm not too late yeah imaginary review absolutely right but that is the thought so that's why we existed and it's very much Terry Gilliam world you know all sorts of things going on people being very naughty and then it'll be very angry about him being naughty and looking very tired at the top and night and holding his head in his hands and we definitely I didn't know quite what Erika Erika suggested that he might be syphilis he might be a representation of syphilis that thickened which had you know just struck Europe from from the it was one of this one of the one of the horrible things that came from the new world we gave lots of horrible things to the people of the new world and this is something that came back I think that's what that well that's what she does but she and other other people considered the perils of lust yeah and and otherwise it sort and the figure again it's a very theatrical painting there somebody's holding a sort of great behind them will be like a bat cloth sit at the top who's here sort of fun wonderful so looks like you might be a general in German First World War it goes incredible massage great regulation has terrific social tasks and obviously probably somebody's II the artist knew you might quite possibly yes burnsy I mean what Isis dearest don't say I mean they paint people they know and they give them fabulous I mean he admits me father time in this bit when you see those there's the hourglass and behind him and his wings so he's saying that this is all going to come to an end one yes he just strike me a bit like you're disgusted at Tunbridge Wells absolutely shocking put some clothes on I'm you know I'm going to stop this I'm going to stop this and I'm going to complain the BBC straight away but then he's also saying I'm just going to have another look - yeah yeah well that's the skill of the painter here Brom Venus obviously what from what I know he was painting this for very wealthy patrons and there's not a simple paintless to show off sort of but whatever it is some sort of allegory Thanos but I think you can I think you couldn't you can overstate those a bit because obviously it is all that and you can pick how its various elements but as you were saying this thing that really grabs you about this picture when you see it are the two figures in the in the foreground yes what an earth you know what what it well we know what they're doing yeah but why why are they doing that yeah a mother and son why are they doing that yeah well gods were allowed to do that well well yes they had pay it every night so it didn't really wider than much but and also I like the figure on the other side who turns about to throw rose petals on them I mean look really wonderfully naughty kind of that's in fun video oh I see what you're doing I know what you're up to there are some petals not quite a lot enjoying it but it says there's a dark side anyway there's a really dark side and then behind that joyful figure about to scatter roses is the most strange looking girl oh yeah you look I think that's a beautiful girls face looks like princesses of the Medici family who broke vino often painted because he was the Medici court artist but then use look can you see she's got a tail she's got the stranger and little butterfly yeah yeah oh she's a ditch in NZ I think supposedly know what she got in her hand what she got in her hand and rotten apples I mean is what a golden apple Venus has got a golden apple well in I'm know I'm not sure what she has in one hand in another hand she has a snake I think well it's really no as you say this picture is all it looks wonderful it looks beautiful and perfect and it's all just a little bit nasty like the Apple that has a has it has something wrong in it and it would it would this'll be shocking to people at the time it would have been incredibly shocking to people yeah well you wouldn't have been it wouldn't have been seen I mean this was a picture for you know for very very limited it's not quite a dirty picture but it's a picture that not many people would have would have would have looked at right but here of course we show it in the galleries for everybody everybody doing yeah yeah and and quite rightly people like Terry Gilliam's and Nick Nick optic like that I mean yeah it is so is a clever painting it was raised whether the illusions are quite sophisticated in what we're saying you only certain people to see this sort of thing do you ever get complaints and Galip insane shocking it has to be taken away do you follow this remember the picture that I think when it was first when it was first shown in the 19th century there were lots and lots of complaints about him indeed this in a painting by Garofalo which probably most of you don't know he's not an artist who's celebrated today the painting of two lovers cavorting in a landscape and there was lots of discussion about this was bit were not things to be shown in a public place like the like the National Gallery the effect it could have on morals with would be quite disturbing yeah I'm always I'm always amused by that you can see in galleries people in various stages of nudity doing all sorts of things which I mean were this shown anywhere else something they would get people demand the place to be closed down newspapers would have to be a issue an apology it just kind of crazy but rather good but you do have things like this you know that you do show it yeah I think that's what it's a it's a very baggage and kind of very perfect thank you I swear it's a really popular nothing - but I'm painfully aware that we've only got a real white painting farm eagle okay and the ambassador's I mean has to be one of pretty much everybody's favorite painting India in the National Gallery what are your reasons for what for loving it well partly because I mean just the size and scale of it and there's a lot going on there and there definitely interest in the world and you feel this is the beginning of a intimate connect spirit of international sort of inquiry the globe and nothing like that effects two lobes up there these two ambassadors who have come to England from somewhere and in a sense you feel these two young men have the world at their feet they're incredibly arrogant yeah my sister yes yeah I mean there looks like so stands like in really eight yeah really yes is Hugh this huge drunken and general at something right but it's also the detail in it I find interesting why is that all there again it's like going back syndrome there must be a reason for all these things being there but it's definitely a feeling these are the whiz kids at that time you know Lords of the universe whatever that mean though they were quite young what I mean I think they're in their 20s they're incredibly young and one of them is an ambassador and one of them is a bishop some people ready got a gun who's they've done this so much yeah quite a few years and I saw I'm interested in actually what's their and the period it depicts and the faculty it's a bit about the better from geography whatever Joe get angry but then I'm also fascinated as to what is going on with the skull in the foreground and all that and is it just saying these are two glorious men or is there a sort of moral to it that you know all things shall pass it's not really like that well I mean this picture makes you think of that really doesn't it because you've got all the glory of the worldly goods that their power of their prestige of their sophistication and in every type of fashion but yet you've got the skull then you've also got the little crucifix at the top jaw at the top that just poetry yes I can see that well now that must be you very deliberately done because it's more miss behind the curtain isn't it it is a reminder yes yeah all flesh is grass yes yes earth the achievements mean nothing really with that it seems a bit of a religious painting an element of that and then and of course this with that I mean some very skillful bit of perspective changing and if you go to full line you can't see it go to one side you suddenly see yes it's a sound better that was that was quite a coup for homebuyers yeah I mean listen Boog Lucifer I think he probably was very pleased and rightly and rightly so yeah it's just it's just astonishing yeah yeah and very bold so it must have been they you have a significant part of the painting the significance of this is important part of the painting and who was the painting done for well it's done for one of the one of the young men and it's in his it's displayed in his family house in France so it go it goes there and then from there it comes back to England and it but it's just always been one of the most loved pictures in the National Gallery's collection it speaks to different different generation different ways yeah and again it's butyl beautifully painted the colors of Jordan um which colors the green backpack and the loot significance of the loot was it just that one hand feeling they were all the gadgets all the modern gadgets everything they want you know in the books and and and it's sort of the equivalent of what we have i phone 12 whatever people would have now well we've got to be very that's the thing of that we've got all this this is what we've got yes so that was a one inch in asking it was painted for to paint it for them hmm they would say what's the skull doing there you know why can't it just be me and my friend you know it's interesting because although they're at this position else they're also thinking yeah I like their mortality and their and their lives yeah so it's more than that it's more than just the worldly show that's what makes this picture so sophisticated enough and and really really really someone has just turned 74 today I'm rather pleased to see people that twenties worrying about more time it's just nice bit of a buzz yeah you know they know is look as if they've done that oh yeah he's I really like this I think Maroney Eric is actually terrific hmm it's just such a modern together hand there's something really lovely about that it's the way of the look you know and it's also it's not a grand figure no Hugh season you know he's a craftsman rather than the Lord only like that and yet treated with great dignity you know his his he's a tailor I don't know what Taylor's how terrors were seen at that time but basically there they were they were they were glasses and to make things from rich pedia and I just loved the fact he's got this very simple he's got this citizen he's got the cloth and it's as though we're in the shop you know saying well and he's saying what you what you really want you know something that matters if I just think there's a lot in in there no it's it's a what it's a wonderful simple simple portrait and he was I mean out there's so many great paintings on Maroni in the National Gallery's collection because he was just adored in the 19th century many someone that we we look at much less today than we ought to but I I like the oh that greeted this picture camera outfit clear a lot of you feel the same way about it yes presumably that happens you have taste does change over the years doesn't I mean I don't think yellow Mia you know for a long time people didn't rate from here much at all no they don't I thought that each one is precious mean person well it's a whole lot of chance I mean this is another painter and people didn't rate for a long time and know they know they know you really do do they you know I'm missing rate just because it's the garment that he's wearing and the way it's complete it's you know holes in the sleeve and all that sort of thing and it's just I just love it because it's a common feeling intensity and you come across this painting with all you know some naked bodies around and gods and all that sort of thing is this figure there saying no no just give me a moment or two you know I come here with God directly it was just that feeling of striking quiet moment very powerful and I don't know much about Zuber al he was he did portraits evil and evil and he said I mean in his you know he knows Velazquez and his in his use I mean either he's a painter who works for me not works and that wonderful City for most of his most of his career and he paints religious subjects mainly and again I'm sorry too final about this it's always interesting who were just commissioned this would this been a an order of some church or door and it being for would it been for a church but it's thought that it may have been for it mean for a monk or for a monastic order yeah yeah but I mean it's like wonderful that means a I love the detail of his you know he dragon it if I keep wearing environment is you know it's worn through at the elbow yeah and also the face inside the hood you know you just really can't even barely see the eyes it's got the nose there but it's like intensity and you've got Saint Jerome in your study having other nice time for all things around him this man has got nothing there it's so simple and so bad congestion really in nowhere at all no it's it's an it's very you know it's the colors are so simple in the picture and I for something totally different so this is just I love these because of the you know it's wonderful satirical painting and it's it's just showing being you know people behaving very very badly because they're but they've got money and they've got all this but they're just losing it and abusing it and all that and I just think it's a great for so many wonderful details in it as a satire I'm brooding now they know what's hogarth a great painter or see what do you think I mean he's a great a great designer very designer yeah I think I think he knows what he wants to do but I mean what I like about this is a life in all these four or five of them over there were six perhaps actually ever quite remember yeah it's just a nice thing and then all that and you know you've seen grand paintings and very well composed paintings of people looking rather wonderful this is just sort of met with this lovely or well you tell them well Italy stories about oh I don't know the story is so terrible isn't it I mean of this poor young girl the rich young girl he's made to marry the distillate son of an owl so you know his family gets money and she gets a name and it's the most unbelievably unhappy marriage and it ends up with her you know how Iong and it's just it's just awful it's a tragicomedy really except there's much less comedy so you see some of it here it's a real tragedy it was round about that sort of time that fielding was writing his books as well you know examine evil were sharing the dark side of life that a long time you know behind the grandeur was dirt you know sort of groping zoo and drunkenness all that sort of stuff but when I lighten this one particularly so they're just it's such a grand room which we've seen plenty of grand rooms like that but they're just it's just a mess they're a little mess on the floor and all that solving the over the overturned chair and all that you just don't see that in painting very much and here and you know what's going on you know the sort one who looks like yes singing singing yeah doing your stuff and can you tell me the significance of the sort of ornament on the mantelpiece there and in the corner they're actually pretty awful looking ornament they're terrible looking me I think this is how guys having a joke because they're meant to be very valuable things and some of them are not the ones particularly on the mantelpiece at the tops do you see the figures with the hands put on yeah I mean that's tough guys jokes I might have fun to actually figure yeah yeah I could go on and also going there's the above the clock then fish which yeah fairly classical and a cat sitting on top of the clock you know is that a comment on taste you know just saying these things I absolutely no taste at all they've got money to them yeah but it's also but there's a great thing about these paintings is that there's just more you look every time you see either detail you you don't notice before you can come back again and again yeah overall Hogarth's work is like that always progress than that and the meant to be that way is you're meant to be lots of little famous person which which I mean I'm not saying it's like with the spirit of Monty pipe because then we can multiply them we made sure that in every single shot with some bit of detail that perhaps you wouldn't notice immediately I mean we had to remember a suburban house hopefully ordinary except all on the wall with just joints of meat like art of hanging there you know the bitter place and then just the only a few of them were able notice it first time second time you first notice that meat on the was that a choice of seats and on the wall and I quite like that throwing things in and asking people come and look at it a second time giving them the feeling that if you investigate you can get some more satisfaction out of it well this can you can look at them anytime you can and it's part of that wonderful English tradition of the absurd isn't it really as well we've got two more chairs and all nothing at ourselves we're extremely go down a lot to offer and I'm glad thank you this is something probably been very different this is not like a fad yes well it is very different but I find his paintings a bit like Hanna saw a Danish painter I was there's got terrific power and the way he just immediately wants to get a scarf on and put a coat on just because you feel the cold and also you're not quite sure what's what's going on is that the boys throwing scratchers openers seeing the crucifix in me in the trees and Beyond it this misty sort of Cathedral or whatever it is mirror in the mirror image of the trees and of course German romantic are which i think is something we didn't really have much of in this in this country do we know we can't we came to a very very late yeah I mean this picture was bought just about 30 years ago by the National Gallery yeah and there's so little of these extraordinary pictures if you go through if you go to any of the great provincial German galleries you see them I'm Friedrich Estelle marvellous yes he isn't in the huge strong images of the landfill also always with something going on rather strange means obviously a sort of it yeah you know it's a fantasies or a magic world it makes the boy get skewered and see Jesus and the trees and all that sort of thing so you get something more than just a landscape get some feeling of longing or regret or hope or inspiration in all these things there's a wonderful painting of from a ship caught in the ice which you need one time and it's just the best picture I've ever seen and I've seen lots picture of ships and ice but it's the icebergs of completely sort of taken over the ice has taken over and just bits of ship and bodies sticking out here and there it was just great at the ice and snow and cold and ya know bleakness and this the power and strengthens of nature nature ya know he really is it conveys it like nobody else yeah but talking of ships remind me that we were going to end tonight with one of the great pictures yeah oh oh yes yeah yeah I traditionally chose this because it was the one few paintings we have at home of this particular one see you lit from the National Gallery not reproduction my purse didn't have much art but they had the fighting Temeraire and I remember just looking at it France will work it out and because I didn't know so that one time its art therefore you know yes are they interesting few colors and all that now I find I know much more about it and I know more about the period and I just know more about Turner who I think is the most brilliant artist probably of all the ones we've shown today in a sense and this is a terrific piece of work because it's a it's just about that period but steam was beginning to come in and steal the old sailing yes and no longer needed and there's the temeraire which would be great it is a sort of Battle of Trafalgar right had it's great days and I think he just saw this coming up at em sporty paint it it's going to the scrapyard basically yeah it's an amazing moment it's not a giant moment yeah and the the ships become things which convey human emotions and also I suppose also Turner's ideas perhaps of you know regrets and I think a lot being yes you can see really I mean I can say back and the horizon there is a ship in full sail which you obviously saw was it was painted it was a beautiful as a powerful strong image and in the front this rather noisy feel it kind of noisy belching fumes of the modern steam tongue so it's a bit like his paintings with the other one in the gallery with the train going across the viaduct and Maiden yes in a very lyrical Arcadian landscape this trains spitting nuts and some opened and then coal fume that so yes it's it's a changeover from you know sale to to steam and but I think is also he's just that the background the sky the sunset is is so moving us really really no it's it's an incredibly powerful painting and actually I mean actually in very many different ways a lot of the pictures that you've chosen this evening are very very powerful because they show how artists can take the world around them and change them into something rich and strange and that you know it really it really transcends I suppose the time of their of their mortality yeah it's an amazing conversation we can have with objects made by artists who are long dead but yet we feel I guess they were made just yesterday I think I'm sitting around a good painting it makes you think differently after you've seen it you know you've just changes your mind about something or put some other alternative in your mind so it's a a this transactional thing it's not just looking it's basically that's a nice color it's got to do something more which is what I I mean I think you're right I think in these there's always something there which makes you think and makes you feel differently about the world from where you did before you saw it well I think Michael that's a wonderful point on which to end thank you all very much for coming this evening or particularly thank you Michael for sharing with your children 10 things it means me you

Channel: The National Gallery

Views: 95,169

Keywords: Michael Palin, Palin, Monthy Python, Duccio, Baldovinetti, Derek Jarman, portrait, portraiture, Saint Jerome, Medieval, Renaissance, Antonello, Bronzino, Terry Gilliam, Hans Holbein, Holbein, symbolism, perspective, Moroni, Zurbarán, Spanish art, Italian painting, Italian art, Hogarth, William Hogarth, British art, Romanticism, landscape, Turner, JMW Turner, art history, Masterpiece, art gallery, Art, museum, National Gallery, Paintings, Art lecture, Art talk, Art talks

Id: HIRrAXiylEw

Length: 56min 30sec (3390 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/alllie]

Comedian, actor, writer, television presenter and former member of Monty Python, Michael Palin joins the National Gallery's Head of Curatorial, Caroline Campbell, to share his top ten paintings in the National Gallery collection in a special in conversation event.

The discussion features beautifully composed Renaissance works by artists like Duccio, an extravagant scene by Bronzino (who painted the foot used by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam in his animations), as well as some of the most most popular paintings in the collection, from Holbein's 'The Ambassadors' to J.M.W. Turner, alongside some lesser-known gems.

Recorded at the National Gallery on 5 May 2017.

Painting mentioned during the talk: ‘The Annunciation’ by Duccio, 1307/8-11: http://bit.ly/2tjcD0N ‘Portrait of a Lady’ by Alesso Baldovinetti, about 1465: http://bit.ly/2tiW0SY ‘The Nativity at Night’ by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, possibly about 1490: http://bit.ly/2tj3lBN ‘Saint Jerome in his Study’ by Antonello da Messina, about 1475: http://bit.ly/2tiT48C ‘An Allegory with Venus and Cupid’ by Bronzino, about 1545: http://bit.ly/2tiT9sW ‘The Ambassadors’ by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533: http://bit.ly/2e0soTJ ‘The Tailor ('Il Tagliapanni')’ by Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1565-70: http://bit.ly/2timnIu ‘Saint Francis in Meditation’ by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1635-9: http://bit.ly/2v9SmHZ ‘Marriage A-la-Mode: 2, The Tête à Tête’ by William Hogarth, about 1743: http://bit.ly/2va33KQ ‘Winter Landscape’ by Caspar David Friedrich, probably 1811: http://bit.ly/2tiPUlu ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1839: http://bit.ly/2skJi55