The Mystery Faces in Dobson's Art (Waldemar Januszczak Documentary) | Perspective

[Music] [Music] so in 1642 i knew what i had to do leave my home and family too and fight for good old charlie [Music] [Applause] in 1640 those round heads there he were after me but we were on a winning spree [Music] the thames britain's mightiest river so walter raleigh put it splendidly once there are two things unmatched in the universe he wrote the sun in heaven and the thames on [Music] to uphold earth law fighting for old charlie [Music] hey the thames is 215 miles long it's the longest river in england and it's fascinating all the way along as it flows through reading and oxford and windsor but the most momentous stretch of its journey is here of course in london where the thames carves its way through the center of the city so much has happened on this momentous stretch of water if rivers could talk the thames would have so much to say artists too have long been fascinated by the river the great canaletto came here from venice to paint the thames and compare it with his hometown turner looked down on the river at the start of the steam age and saw something hellish about it [Music] and monet the voyaging impressionist parked himself in the savoy hotel and looked out across the waters glowing mysteriously in the fog [Music] the thames attracts artists it's an inspirational river and you would have thought that a waterway as big as this would have been unmissable if it turned up in someone's art but that hasn't always been so sometimes the thames manages to smuggle itself into a picture to lurk in the recesses and play a secret role that's the case with a masterpiece of british art that now hangs just up the river from here in somerset house that impressive riverside slab of neo-classical architecture where today the courthold galleries are found i've been haunting the courtholds great collection since i was a student in particular i've been interested in this picture an old and a young man it's called which doesn't tell you much does it who are these two anonymous ancestors and what has the thames got to do with [Music] it an old and a young man was painted by a neglected hero of british art a powerful and brilliant portrait painter called william dobson dobson was himself a londoner born here in saint andrews hoban in 1611. his family had artistic connections somehow or other in circumstances that have now been lost in history little william dobson from london got himself an art training and ended up painting portraits good ones so good that even the king himself noticed them [Music] at the time british portraiture was chiefly in the hands of foreign painters artists from flanders and holland who came over to england to work for the art loving king and his spendthrift court even the great rubens was invited to london a tremendous expense to paint the ceiling of the banqueting house where he produced such a superb decoration so much finer and more ambitious than any seen before in england [Music] it's not that english artists were intrinsically less talented than foreign painters it's just that the framework wasn't here the teaching the apprenticeship system compared with artists from flanders or holland britain was backward in art and nobody made that more obvious than rubens's greatest pupil the magnificent van dyke van dyke was one of the finest portraitists that art has seen when charles the first invited him to britain to become his official painter he made things so difficult for local artists the portraits van dyke painted in england were much finer much more elegant and ambitious than any seen here before van dyke was a genius he had such quick hands and so much pictorial certainty how dobson came to his attention we just don't know possibly he was van dyke's pupil but whether he was or he wasn't what's certain is that the influence of van dyke fast forwarded the progress of william dobson suddenly england had a painter to be proud of this is one of his early pictures it's a portrait of dobson's wife judith she is the first real wench in british art when you look at her you hear tavern noises and the tinkling of beer glasses from the start dobson had something unmistakably english about him something direct and earthy look for instance of the old man in that mysterious painting at the courthold podgy face the beary complexion he's such an unglamorous and tangible presence don't you think the gods of art admired dobson too so much so that in 1641 they decided to do him a big favor by killing off van dyke at a stroke the stage was set for an english painter to emerge van dijk's sudden death in 1641 could not have been more momentously the english civil war one of the most dramatic events in british history was about to erupt and the king found himself without a painter there was no time to get in another talented foreigner so william dobson from hoban in london was made charles the first official painter and history whisked him off into the smoke of the english civil war soldiers with sorting hands to the walls coming horsemen about the streets riding and [Music] running [Music] charles fled from london and set up his new wartime court in oxford the city of spyers and william dobson went with him this exile in oxford while the civil war was raging lasted just four years 1642-1646 but in that brief historic moment dobson managed to produce some of the most memorable and heroic portraits in british art it was william dobson who put a face to the english civil war [Music] he painted the dashing and handsome cavaliers who rode into oxford to fight for the king the experienced soldiers and the wide-eyed young men [Music] this is john byron the king's most trusted enforcer the bulldog of the cavaliers you wouldn't wish to meet him on the battlefield would you [Applause] and here is the king's most trusted courtier the plump and red-faced and demian porter he likes a glass of sherry doesn't he dobson painted himself as well in a brilliant triple portrait that hangs now in anik castle where he shows himself with two of his oxford friends and the three of them act out a lively show of loyalty to the king the three carousing musketeers of british art [Music] it was about now that dobson must have painted that mysterious picture at the cortold galleries the one showing an old man and a younger one they're two of dobson's most tangible sitters but who are they why did he paint them and what's the picture about it's a mystery we need to solve and just so often with a dobson picture it isn't just the faces he painted that give you the clues it's also the background because a dobson background is invariably packed with telling symbolism at the back of the courthole picture you can just about make out the banks of a river it's vaguely familiar because these look like the banks of the thames at oxford the thames flows through the middle of the city of course and water is the clue to the identity of the two sitters it's not just the riverbank in the background there's a fountain on the right as well with cupid riding a dolphin another pointer to the significance of water [Music] so i began my investigation at the waterman's hall in london it's the home of the water boatman's guild and you don't need to search very far in here to find dolphins or boats or a sense of water [Music] and look what i found hanging on the wall in the waterman's meeting room haven't we seen this face before the moment i walked into the waterman's hall i recognized him it's the old man in dobson's painting he turns out to have been one of the most entertaining and unlikely characters of his times a troublemaking sailor turned poet called john taylor [Music] taylor was one of the liveliest characters of the era a card a knave a merry whistle who loved his ale and a good punch-up afterwards [Music] although he managed somehow to become a poet taylor was originally a water boatman one of those rough fellows who rode you across the thames in london in those days there was only one bridge across the river london bridge so the water boatmen had you at their mercy they were notoriously rude and lippy and john taylor was perhaps the rudest and lippiest of them all this was his stretch southwark in the 17th century this was london's pleasure zone it was where all the brothels and boardy houses were in the theaters too marlo's rose theater shakespeare's globe southwark you see was outside the city boundaries and you could do things there that you couldn't do here taylor's job was to ferry the actors musicians and dramatists across the thames from the city to the theatres and while he was rowing these actors and dramatists back and forth across the river with shakespeare certainly among them taylor to the surprise of everyone but himself began to develop writing ambitions of his own at the time this just wasn't done watermen did not become poets poets were gentlemen with an education scholars not scholars but taylor was determined to become one of them poems pamphlets essays poured out of him in remarkable quantities he had 150 works published in his own lifetime taylor styled himself the water poet and my but he loved words this famous palindrome lewd did i live an evil i did dwell which reads the same both ways was his invention [Music] at his best he was gloriously and brilliantly rude william prin the puritan who hated art got into a feud with him so the water poet rushed into print calling him a running witted rolling headed railing tongued rattle-brained round head puritan poet george wither was dismissed as a folio fool a zany poe taster and a squirt rhyme now i've no idea what a squirt rhyme is but i definitely wouldn't like to be called one taylor was a fierce supporter of the king when the civil war broke out he was already 62 a veteran troublemaker who refused to pay parliament's levies forced to flee from london he made his way to oxford which is where he entered dobson's story the king welcomed taylor to oxford with open arms delighted to see his famous old water boatman again and immediately gave him an official position he made him the water bailiff whose job was to keep the river clean and navigable no easy task in the circumstances taylor has left behind a vivid description of the things he found in the thames at oxford dead hogs dogs cats and well-flayed carrion horses beast guts and garbage gardeners weeds and rotten herbage thank goodness they've cleaned it up a bit eh but it was this description of the filthy and diseased thames at oxford constantly causing plagues and infections among the cavaliers that got me particularly interested in john taylor that's why i tracked him down to the waterman's hall and why the moment i saw him i knew who he was [Music] if you put the two portraits of taylor side by side dobson's portrait and the watermelons you see straight away it's the same man but how much older he looks in dobson's picture how much sadder so the old man is john taylor the water poet but what about the younger man my first thought is that he must be family it's the way he holds the old man's hand so tenderly and taylor's brother actually ran this pub at the time the king's head in abingdon but he would have been too old so it can't be him [Music] besides this chap here has a moneyed look to him doesn't he the fine clothes that lordly stare and if you look carefully into the picture's nether regions you'll see he's leaning on a bust of apollo because this chap too is a man of the arts in fact it's another poet this time of the gentlemanly sort his name was sir john denham and his most famous work it's called cooper's hill is a rousing celebration of the river thames my eye descending from the hill surveys where thames among the wants and valleys strays thames the most loved of all the ocean's suns hasting to pay his tribute to the sea like mortal life to meet eternity it's the first great topographic poem in english literature the first poem that's all about a river and it was published in oxford in 1643 which is when dobson must have painted his picture [Music] the proof that the younger man is sir john denham is found once again in dobson's symbolic background look carefully and you'll see a little castle sticking up above the trees [Music] it's supposed to be this place farnham castle at the outbreak of the civil war sir john denham the gentleman poet was the sheriff of surrey and governor here at farnam and although he wasn't a very good governor and succumbed far too easily to the attacks of the round heads denim was fiercely loyal to the king and in 1643 he joined him in oxford where he must soon have encountered john taylor [Music] dobson has brought them together as well in his picture in this remarkable and unique poetic double act britain's two most famous water poets one old one young one posh one plebeian united by their watery origins and their great love of the rightful king [Music] there's one more thing that's important in september 1643 tragedy struck the old man in the picture john taylor the water poet when his wife to whom you've been married for 40 years died it had to leave her behind in london when he fled she was too sick to travel tell me not sweet perhaps the court old picture commemorates her passing the younger man lays a protective hand on his fellow water poets and look what great seriousness dobson discovers in the face of old john taylor mistress now i chase the first four in the field and with a stronger faith embrace a sword or horse a shield other painters other writers saw taylor as a figure of fun a clown a buffoon that's even how taylor saw himself but it's not what dobson sees yet this inconstancies he looks behind the jovial mask and discovers something melancholy and poignant distant thoughts the beginnings of a tear [Music] if nothing else in dobson's work persuades you of his unappreciated greatness then surely the sadness he finds lurking in the eyes of this splendid old river dog who'd pulled himself up into the poet's ranks through sheer force of spirit must convince you one picture two great poets a hidden subject and a momentous moment in history there are a million stories in the world of art this has been just one of them [Music] charlie

Channel: Perspective

Views: 23,852

Keywords: Arts, The Arts, Theatre, Music, Full EPisode, Full documentary, documentary, performing arts, dobson, waldemar januszczak, waldemar januszczak documentary, art documentary waldemar, art documentary, perspective, history documentary, art history, art history documentary, river thames painting

Id: LvZ8C6ov3aU

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 17 2020