The Virgin Mary As An Artistic Muse | Painting The Holy Land | Perspective

[Music] my name is lachlan gowdy i'm an artist and the son of an artist who was obsessed with painting the crucifixion now my father never came to the holy land so i've come here for him and for me i want to come face to face with the easter story the events described as christ's passion as a boy i learned all about the bible story from art now i've come to see for myself this is my kind of a holy land i've followed events from palm sunday to good friday the crucifixion this rock is golgotha i've seen biblical places and faces i'm giving you a very big nose my nose is like the beast and the beauty now i want to find out what happened after the crucifixion this is the tomb where jesus was resurrected on easter sunday christ rose from the dead the stories inspired great art for centuries and i've brought some examples with me many pictures of the easter story feature a character crucial to the life of jesus christ but who for some reason hardly appears in the gospels at all she was an ordinary human being with a god-given mission impossible bearing his son a child destined to save humankind the madonna the virgin the mother of god herself she's a shadowy figure in the bible but artists have made her a global icon in this holy week i want to know who was mary [Music] my father was a painter in love with france especially the coast of brittany and with a god-fearing breton woman my mother our family summers were spent down here and my father's art gradually fell under the spell of catholic symbolism and drama he was fascinated by the easter story he often painted the crucifixion but also images of mary the madonna cradling the baby jesus for my mom like so many catholics mother mary was central to jesus's story his life and death my mother's very large family used to come and worship in this very small chapel and the whole community was devoted to its wooden effigy of the madonna every year there was a procession which would end with it being carried to the water's edge and when i was little i used to come and watch this with my mum and dad so from a very young age it seemed to me that the figure of mary was as revered and possibly even as important as jesus so why is it that in the gospels telling of the easter story mary jesus's mother is so often absent [Music] i grew up only knowing the holy land through art i had to see it through my own eyes in my children's illustrated bible the easter story took place in an epic land that looked like hollywood i knew it wasn't real but then i saw this [Music] a short drive south from jerusalem in the judean desert this is marsaba one of the oldest monasteries on earth [Music] this is my kind of a holy land a place that has the sort of grandeur that makes you feel like charlton heston but it's more than just kind of visual splendor i've been stuck in souks and grottos and small churches throughout this journey and here finally i'm in god's open-air cathedral it really is mind-boggling to me it's heaven on earth no artist could look on marsaba unboggled this is a place that's been so parched by the sun the colours are bleached out so i've got to try and find every subtle variation in form and shadow and color it's not easy we're going from yellow ochre to burnt sienna to raw amber to burnt umber to van dyke brown it does look like a kind of set out of something like star wars you might just see one of the sand men or maybe yoda wandering around i've come here because when marsaba was built in the year 483 the christian church was still very young around this time the first images of the virgin mary were painted although mary wasn't a big character in the bible and almost absent from the easter story she was increasingly popular with early christians in this monastery the monks believed images of mary's face would bring her closer to believers [Music] marsaba is a 1500 year old art gallery full of works by artists ancient and unnamed [Music] these are icons an early form of portrait images like these gave humanity to the most famous of all mothers [Music] more often than not we're used to looking at this kind of imagery in an art gallery where it's admired for its aesthetic quality for its pretty colours but in a religious context these icons were about so much more than just the picture surface they were about allowing christians to look through the image into another reality almost as if they're a kind of magnifying glass that made the source of your own faith and your own personal commitment to mary all the more powerful and what's more these icons were transportable you could carry the mother of god with you so whether you were in the city or in the desert you could place this portable altarpiece into an alcove in the wall and turn a humble room into a holy space at marsaba the painter in me finds beauty everywhere in the stone in the light in the landscape but most importantly it's a place of worship for monks of the greek orthodox church i wish my mother had been able to come here because in her childhood she prayed in chapels in brittany before a figure of the madonna and here in the monastery of saint saba well the image of mary is venerated and respected and prayed to in a way that goes far beyond the experience she had as a child and it has been actually quite chastening to be here none of the monks are willing to speak on camera but they have spoken to me about their relationship with icons iconography and the figure of mary in those images and they have made me realize that perhaps to some extent the way that i approach making paintings is a little bit superficial it's all about the swishy colors and the surface whereas here in this religious context these are images which transport you as you look at them and look through them that make you consider the importance of mary the mother of jesus and what she can do to you in your life and for your spiritual self one of the highlights of my pilgrimage to the holy land has been seeing jerusalem [Music] in the old city lies the church of the holy sepulchre it's built on the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection easter happened here pilgrims come to see the shrine built on the rock where the cross stood where christ died for us on good friday nearby others queue at the tomb where jesus was laid only to rise from the dead on easter sunday between the two another shrine dedicated to the virgin the country girl who bore god's son gave birth to him in a manger and encouraged his preaching now i've never been entirely sure about this but the gospels were written 30 to 80 years after the death of jesus and by tradition the authors were early christians matthew mark luke and john who actually had contact supposedly with the disciples and even with mary the mother of jesus so you'd have thought that with that kind of access they'd have accounted more fully for mary's actions [Music] the mystery deepens we all know mary cradled her dead son when he was brought down from the cross but it's not in the bible artists imagined this scene called the pieta the pity from the 14th century all the biggies got in on the action depicting the pieta there was frangelico botticelli michelangelo and this artist giovanni bellini he depicts mary as someone who really does appear to be withered with a life of anxiety and worry the pieta was an ideal example of compassion an example of the empathy and the sorrow that we should demonstrate for the death of jesus mary's hold on her son seems to remind us of the way that she held her infant child jesus this painting makes us think of the beginning and that's because for christians jesus's crucifixion isn't an end it's a rebirth it's the moment that will lead to his resurrection his greatest victory his greatest glory [Music] anyone who had a heart could look at these and know the artists just want to honor mary's place in the easter tragedy in this case my dad for me to bring my dad's drawings to this place is the fulfillment of a journey he certainly never thought his images would make my father was not a hugely religious man but as an artist and as a human being he understood the passion of this story of a mother's tragic horror at the death of her son with the pieta artists have made mary's grief unacknowledged in the gospels visible to all [Music] mary's life wasn't always full of drama she was born in a rural community in the north of what is now israel an area called galilee this is nazareth where mary and joseph raised the son of god in the south of the country i got used to painting in bright sun but up here near the border with syria the light is grey and the sky is full of rain in 1876 british painter william holman hunt came here in search of the virgin mary's roots on this side of the hill he painted one of my favorite pictures but he was drenched in sunlight and it's kind of hard to imagine the extraordinary colors that he evokes in his painting but the truth is that when god hasn't put down a carpet of clouds those colors are actually here i've seen them the light in galilee is pink purple and violet hunt wasn't lying although you might not believe it today he painted the heat and the sunshine today the colours are subdued when i'm working out of doors i take what i'm given when william holman hunt came here he found this landscape to be endlessly inspiring because where i just see landscape he saw armageddon and although william holman hunt had never seen arnold schwarzenegger in action like many victorians he was absolutely obsessed with epic doomsday scenarios and religious conspiracy theories that were all meant to unfold here [Music] according to the book of revelations the great battle between good and evil will happen here the valley of jezreel but not today now i find hunt's obsession with the scriptures just a little bit neurotic and it seems that he even traveled the length and breadth of the country following the dusty routes taken by mary and joseph between nazareth and jerusalem down from the hill deep in nazareth you can feel the hustle bustle it's the biggest city in northern israel with the largest population of arab israelis some christian some muslim to anyone who was paying attention in sunday school nazareth will always be mary's town [Music] this town nazareth is where jesus grew up and i remember my headmistress mrs clark planting an image in my imagination of the humble home where jesus lived and it was probably similar to the images in my children's illustrated bible it simply had one room for the family and then a neighboring room a stable for the animals the roof would have been flat and there joseph and his family would have eaten prayed and in the summer months even slept now nazareth at the time was just a small village home to about a hundred families and most of those people would have been farmers [Music] mrs clark and mr holman hunt wouldn't recognize nazareth today but they'd both make a beeline for a landmark the place where mary is supposed to have had a visit from an angel [Music] in nazareth the most important place was the well the basin of life giving water where the community gathered together and by some traditions this is where mary was told that she was going to bring divine life into the world that she would be the mother of jesus today wow it looks rather like a public convenience rather than the place where god's master plan for humanity was going to take place and i think i'll give this a miss an artist grows a sixth sense for what makes a good picture this isn't it but it's why i came to the holy land to draw the actual places in the easter story unlike hundreds of artists who stayed at home and this is what nazareth looked like if you had never left rome artemisia gentileschi was that rare thing a female painter in the 17th century she was strong independent and passionate and so were the paintings that she created and the women that she depicted so how is she going to represent the teenage mother of jesus in this image she shows the angel gabriel kneeling with this message whilst mary seems to bow to the inevitable she steps into the light of the holy spirit she bows she's respectful but i don't think she looks fragile because to bear the son of god mary was going to have to be made of tough stuff and i think that's exactly how artemisia depicts her mary's well is one of several places in nazareth thought to be built on the spot where gabriel gave mary the good news an event called the annunciation this is the greek orthodox church of the annunciation the catholic basilica of the annunciation is built over a cave where mary is supposed to have lived but this church is built over a spring the real spring supposedly where the enunciation took place and where jesus would have gone to draw water as a boy for more than a thousand years pilgrims have come to churches that stood on this spot to see the spring jesus knew if anyone was in any doubt about the love that mary inspires and believers like my mother they should come here in nazareth there are 17 churches of the annunciation and in all of them she is the center of attention there are images of mary everywhere not many of them look very convincing but then i'm used to that for many years i got my idea of religious truth from this my children's bible in colour and on the page that's devoted to the annunciation there's an image that's inspired by centuries of medieval art where we've got mary is fair-skinned blue-eyed and receiving the will of god so gracefully a bit like a stepford wife and then there's even the angel gabriel handing her a lily the sign of humility and devotion for a believable picture of mary i've brought along my favorite painting by american henry o tanner who put reality and magic in the same image he undertook two journeys to the holy land in the 1890s to research the paintings he was going to create and one of my favorite ones is this one the annunciation in which he seems to paint a kind of conversation going on between mary and the angel gabriel you're going to have a baby and it's going to be the son of god i mean that's the painting that tanner paints it's an image which has as its backdrop the average bedroom of a jewish teenager in the first century i mean this looks like an episode out of a biblical hollyoaks are you sure she seems to be saying to the angel have you got the right mary but the bit i like most is the flash of light because rather than representing the angel gabriel like some kind of winged extraterrestrial he's just a visual presence just a column of golden light that seems to underline for me the idea that is there in the scriptures that extraordinary things can happen to ordinary people the king of kings grew up in humble surroundings [Music] traces of the world jesus knew still exists today and the faces i've been drawing people like this shepherd can't have changed that much a sketchbook can help you time travel muhammad would you like to see your drawing [Music] you like that one it's better that one isn't it hey thank you very much muhammad very grateful and mohammed was a bit worried about the first drawing because he said i made his ears too big but he's better pleased with the second version jesus was a man of the people but he had noble blood even if he hadn't had god as part of his dna jesus would still have been a peasant princeling with a rather posh ancestry because his father joseph wasn't only the most famous carpenter in history he was also descended from the great king david and it wasn't only joseph it was his whole extended family who seems to have been chosen by god because and i wasn't aware of this but when mary is pregnant with jesus it turns out that her cousin is also expecting a child who's going to grow up to be a great prophet named john the baptist and elizabeth only fell pregnant after she too had been visited by the angel gabriel i mean what are the odds this this family were truly instrumental to god's purpose the birth of jesus had been foretold as had the place bethlehem the city of king david that meant a three-day ride from nazareth for a heavily pregnant mary getting to bethlehem wasn't easy and it's challenging today if you're coming from israel the town is in the west bank and since 2000 it's been behind a wall are you coming over from the other side today west bank you're coming here to work you have a wonderful face where do you work when you come over for a city in the city somewhere maybe work maybe you know oh so you don't know if there's work when you come over you have to see what happens okay you like it very good we're on the israeli side of the barrier and abu khayed and his friend here have come over from bethlehem to find work today perhaps in jerusalem as an artist you often find yourself in difficult places and blessed by beautiful lights and fantastic faces and people you find yourself inspired by an unlikely kind of beauty joseph was from bethlehem he had to bring his family here to be registered in a roman census you get the impression here sitting beneath watchtowers that there's a a lot of surveillance going on and the fact is that for mary and joseph the reason they were going to bethlehem was because they were in a world of surveillance they were being monitored and watched and they needed to fill out the right paperwork in the right place on the palestinian side the barrier has become a 300 mile long art [Music] gallery in 2010 the christian artist ian knowles painted this icon on the barrier and it represents mary when she's pregnant as she would have been when she first arrived in bethlehem she's a picture of motherly love but also of suffering in a place where christians jews and muslims have all felt pain it really is a an unexpected place for a work of art a piece of pockmarked concrete but what i think it shows is that 1500 years after this kind of iconography was invented wow an image of mary can still be something that gives us a pause for thought something that in her silence and in our solemnity puts all of this into a very different kind of context [Music] with his paintbrush ian knowles made a statement about the virgin she was designed in downtown bethlehem at the only icon school in the middle east nicola yuha is a greek orthodox christian he came here as a student now he's the director this is an image which is similar to the image of mary on the wall now why is that not an image of jesus for sure jesus is our god he is the most important in all the churches but when we talk about mary here mary she has a special relationship with each christian in the holy land the birth of jesus the annunciation the new testament starts with mary after jesus christ she's the most important human being we just love to have her in our houses and our cities so that's why you can find her everywhere [Music] like all the students madelina mana is a christian she draws the same subject all day long but her enthusiasm is undimmed when you are drawing or painting mary are you just thinking about getting the features and the lines correct or are you thinking about who she is know who she is first of all and what she's looking at and what she's pointing to because you want her to come out to meet you so this represents an image of of mary someone from thousands of years ago yeah how relevant is this person to you today i feel she's like my mother she's like a teacher to me to be a good mother i feel that she's near me when i pray to her virgin mary help my children help me help my husband and she's she always be near to me the most important woman in the world this is a largely muslim town with a small christian community but you wouldn't know it in manger square mary put the little town of bethlehem on the map forever as a boy i got a strong mental picture of the birth of jesus from my illustrated bible but there was another important book one of the things that i always remember about christmas is a child was enjoying singing the carols and there was one carol in particular that i remember because it was the first song i ever performed for my parents and my mother thought i'd done a pretty good job so bear with me here we go are we in a manger no crib for a bed the little lord jesus laid it down his sweet head the stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay the little lord jesus asleep in the hay the cattle are lowing the baby awakes that little lord jesus christ [Music] somehow sunday school didn't prepare me for all this [Music] i think that what's so wonderful about being here in bethlehem is that you realize that um this is the kind of place that jesus would have experienced the easter story his resurrection all of it happened amidst this kind of noise and interruptions and unexpected chaos and i think that that allows you to relate to the story more honestly so that it's not just a fiction and scripture it's real and although we are two thousand years away from the moment where all that happened i still think that these sounds these sparkling electric colors feed into my genuine understanding of what the holy land has always been about noise and splendor it's all here [Music] when you're immersed in a location for you know an hour people gather around you and they they kind of begin to accept you as part of this theatrical space so as you observe that you're not just a sort of alien intruder you're part of the story and all the sounds all the noise all the smells that are cascading around me i feel as if i'm part of it and i'm trying to put all of that experience into my painting so it's not just about what it looks like it's about all the senses and everyone who comes to speak to me and exchanges a word with me motivates me excites me tells me something about this place i didn't know maybe just in their accent they've been just in their attitude and i put all of that into this particular picture of the holy land [Music] hotels are plenty today but on the night mary and joseph pitched up bethlehem was full the only accommodation available was distinctly one star for most people jesus's big adventure starts in a stable in a snowy bethlehem at christmas the miracle birth represents the first great surge of good news in the gospels the joy of the resurrection of easter is the other and although plenty happens in between the beginning and the end are the blockbuster moments and although mary is conspicuous by her absence in the closing chapter here in the drafty stable she takes center stage for artists in renaissance italy the landscape around bethlehem appeared reassuringly familiar this is an image of a painting called the madonna of the meadow by giovanni bellini and i think it's one of the most beautiful religious works of art ever created i mean it's exquisite isn't it it's a painting of symbols and signals and throughout the image you find little signs for example the buds of new growth in the branches of the trees that are supposed to suggest this is the season of spring a season of rebirth but the most important symbol in this entire painting is the exchange that's going on between mary and her child this definitely is the look of love but there is a poignancy a sadness in there the way the baby is sitting in her lap we seem to have a premonition if you remember the painting that bellini created of mary holding her dead son at the bottom of the crucifix well this symbolizes that that moment is still to come this image is a premonition of the future within 300 years mary's manger was buried under the church of the nativity this is amongst the holiest sites in all christendom for nearly 2 000 years pilgrims have crossed the world to see the place where it said the virgin mary delivered god's son it's not all the chaos the crowds the iphones flashing the tinfoil style glitter and decorations but um it still feels very real all these people this river of humanity is coming through here every day in their thousands not because for them it's a fairy story but because it affects their everyday lives and i feel that i feel the intensity of their own relationship with this space [Music] it's not easy concentrating on a drawing when the action around you is so exciting but i'm not going to be able to get close to the sight of the manger for a verse or two in all the religious art i grew up with the place jesus was born was a barn to see people pass through here to be aware of them kneeling and contemplating what for them is the birth of an extraordinary thing their faith well it's very humbling over the centuries artists have felt compelled to interpret the scene of what is supposed to have happened here and eventually over time that humble stable evolved into a place that glistered with gold and i guess to some extent maybe the gold and the theatrics takes a little bit away from that sense of this being the humblest of settings for the birth of the mightiest of kings my father painted his own versions of what happened here and i brought this little sketchbook with me which shows his drawings of mary and the baby jesus and even a particular sketch where she's she's breast feeding the baby and to have this little sketch boot here well it's quite intense really because my father saw himself as a part of the great story of art history and all around me here are images by other artists from centuries ago who have interpreted scenes from the life of jesus and have honored this particular place through the images that they have created and my dad's part of that legacy and well i think he would have been surprised and quite amazed to think that this little sketchbook would have come to a place that he himself never visited and if he's looking down well he might be grinning with a smile of delight i think the birth was world changing and very ordinary what mary experienced has been shared by every mother since but that's where the similarities end if there's one thing we all know about the mother of jesus it's that rather like the british she had a particular attitude towards carnal relations no sex please i'm the virgin mary but things do get rather more complicated because mary was supposed to have been a virgin all her life and this was news to me but in the gospels jesus is described as having four named brothers and some anonymous sisters every month about 300 of the babies born in bethlehem are delivered here at the holy family hospital looked over by the holy mother she's everywhere [Music] drawing is about observation staying slightly removed as a new dad myself surrounded by these newborns that's absolutely impossible oh are you going to kick off too we've so recently been in a cowshed the kind of environment where jesus was born a place full of livestock a place full of unsightly mess but here here we're in a place of cleanliness and a place full of clinicians ready to help well jesus had his mother jesus had mary and she was the nurse that helped him through those early steps in the couch head in bethlehem [Music] when you come into a space like this and you hear these first breaths of a child born into this world you realize that of all things that love that maternal care and power is probably the most valuable we'll ever experience he's beautiful thank you [Music] you've gone all quiet now not because your mom's here [Music] there you go first portrait i give it to you yes i give you the drawing there you go and good luck your baby is wonderful very best of luck [Music] about 10 percent of the babies born here need intensive care they've got the latest technology but according to dr micheline alcacis in the darkest moments they turned to the virgin mary for me the virgin mary played a big role in my life you need strength it's not easy work it's full of stress so when you see a baby is dying the only thing that you can do is to pray you need support and i feel the strength and support from virgin mary from my prayer you know she's an example of the great mother [Music] i feel the holy family hospital is like the nativity you know it's the cave that will come everybody in need regardless the religion if it's rich or poor you know it's for for everybody do you mind me asking are you a christian or muslim i'm a christian and a lot of the patients that you have here are not christian they are not 99 they are muslims but they believe in the virgin mary when they come here and they will they see that you know we have here an icon some families they ask from virgin mary to help so you've seen muslim families before the icon of the virgin mary asking for help that's extraordinary it really is [Music] over the centuries battling christians and muslims have destroyed and rebuilt churches and mosques built over this the tomb of mary in east jerusalem by tradition mary was buried here and this structure has never been damaged because the virgin is so sacred to both faiths the virgin mary's place in muslim hearts was news to me this is my first time in a mosque so you pray this way to get chapter and verse on her status in islamic tradition i went to the city mosque of imam sheikh abed al-majid i wasn't aware i could even enter an islamic house of worship it was a morning full of revelations they said oh mary you have certainly done a thing unprecedented so by now she's given birth i think they said how can we speak to one who is in the cradle a child and then the baby begins to speak jesus said indeed i am the servant of allah he has given me the scripture and made me a prophet wow so jesus is an important figure in islam yes if we don't believe in jesus we are not muslims so the role of mary is as significant in the quran as it is for christians in the bible yeah more there is a chapter the name of the chapter is mary the mother of muhammad and the wives of muhammad didn't mention in quran mary mentioned in quran mary is the only named woman in the quran yes that's extraordinary we love mary yeah and we teach her story to our daughters and boys does that mean that you offer prayers to mary in any sense we asked god to bless here yeah and there the god made him an example of purity yeah and he make here an example for the wives of muhammad so she's an example to to all women to all women yes [Music] mary is a major star in the quran with not much more than a walk-on part in the bible her most noticeable absence is on easter sunday when jesus rose from the dead here at the church of the holy sepulchre in old jerusalem stands what's said to be the tomb of christ and tonight i'm going to enter it my name is adeep judel hossaini i am the kiss custodian of the holy saplical church since 1187. sorry your family has been the custodians of the keys for this building for how long for more than 850 years that's extraordinary why has your family been blessed with this particular rule the story is beginning since muslims leader the khalifa want to protect the church for the forward why would a muslim sultan want to protect a christian church because we are believe also in jesus name is your family a muslim family yes and they gave the key of the church for our family so this is one of the most important christian sites in the world yes and the key holder are a muslim family and this is the key and this is the case this key has been opening this door for 800 years yes that's really holding one of the most magnificent sculptures i've ever had in my hand and so tonight this is the alarm bell for everyone to leave but tonight you're going to lock me in the building yes so you must trust me yeah i thought yes [Music] the process of getting everyone out has probably gone on like this for centuries even the priests are looking for a bit of entertainment i'm trying to draw you from the wrong angle i'm giving you a very big nose sorry about this yes i have big nose because i am from macedonia no but i'm the noise of great alexander you have a you have a beautiful nose i am somewhat exaggerating its side in the school they learn you to make like this no my dad my father he was he he taught me better my nose is like the beast and the beauty i know i've given you a terrible nose so where are you from from greece from greece but now maybe you make me from turkey oh no this is the portrait of sadness [Applause] [Music] okay good night everybody mr husseini shuts us in and himself out and passes his ladder back inside as a kid i dreamed of spending a night shot in a museum it felt like a huge adventure and so does this right it's unlocking [Music] the most important church in christendom is a hive of holy activity and then silence falls easter didn't end with the crucifixion it began jesus was taken down from the cross and placed in a nearby tomb and this is it for many people the precise location of jesus's tomb is beside the point it's the events that are associated with this place that matter the triumph of the easter story [Music] so this is it this is the tomb where jesus was laid and from where he was resurrected there is an atmosphere in here unlike anything i've ever experienced and this tiny little space which represents such an enormously potent idea for the whole christian world wow it's like being inside an atom from which explodes out a whole universe of faith and belief and hope that from here the messiah was resurrected and the christian faith was born [Music] on easter sunday women came to wash his body but jesus was gone [Music] the gospels say some of them were called mary but mysteriously there's no mention of mary the mother of jesus this dutch masterpiece was possibly painted by two brothers the van ikes they try to smuggle the virgin into the easter story it's almost as if the van is brothers have lifted the lid of the building behind me and revealed the tomb of jesus we accompany the three mary's at the moment of their great astonishment when they realize the twist in the tale of the new testament jesus is alive everything in this image has been carefully positioned designed and researched to give us a truthful rendition of what happened in the gospels everything except i think perhaps this figure here dressed in cerulean blue could this be mary photobombing the resurrection an event at which she was never meant to be present [Music] as if the easter story wasn't miraculous enough christ now appears to several disciples who are astonished apostle thomas though only hears about it he doesn't believe in ghosts then jesus appears to him as a child i always felt a bit queasy looking at caravaggio's picture caravaggio was not a dainty painter in fact he was a bit of a rough diamond and he knew that the money shot in this whole story was the point at which thomas here touches the wounds of jesus and in this painting it's not just touching it's really sticking his finger inside the wound and running it around the punctured flesh he wanted to create an image that was so physical so visceral i just have to believe in what i'm seeing and this makes me think about well what did thomas feel in this instant that i bulging realization if i'm so convinced by a 400 year old painting and this too underlines what is the message of the gospels at this moment as jesus says blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed [Music] now the curtain lifts on the final act of the resurrection drama here in galilee where jesus grew up and where the easter story began some disciples have gone back to their old jobs as fishermen it's not going well then a stranger on the shore tells them to cast their nets on the other side of their boat and bingo it's fish suppers all round they know jesus has returned these fishermen of galilee are used to changeable weather conditions and that's one thing i've got in common with them because i'm used to painting in the open air on the west coast of scotland which surprisingly appears to have the same weather as galilee we've got blustery wind we've got rain squalls and showers and i've got to try not to incorporate too many raindrops into my picture this trip has been an opportunity to do so much fast sketching and drawing i've been overwhelmed by subjects and it has actually been quite frustrating not to stop be still and paint one thing and that's the opportunity i have just now to take the time and really paint what i see [Music] there's no doubt that coming to the place where the easter story is set brings its own inspiration this isn't just for me a landscape or a seascape it's loaded with resonance from all the stories that i've read in the bible and thought about throughout my childhood and growing up so when i put the brush to paper although i'm trying to just reproduce what i can see at the back of my mind there is a lot more going on and i think it influences how i interpret this subject this isn't just any old fisherman it's it's the sea of galilee and um whether that's expressed in the painting it's certainly filtering through me as i put every little pool of color onto paper [Music] this here is a man's world and it was in the first century but mary is the most important woman in her son's life shouldn't she have been the first person jesus appeared to she was instrumental to everything he'd done she sat beside him at the wedding feast here in galilee where jesus performs his first miracle turning water into wine in fact it's mary that urges him to do something miraculous they have no wine she says and jesus replies what has this to do with me my hour is not yet come but as with most mothers mary knows better and she watches as jesus transforms the water into wine everybody around realizes that her boy has special powers and then that's it the lady vanishes she makes a brief appearance at the base of the crucifix and then she's gone again from the dramatic events that follow [Music] forty days after the resurrection the easter drama ends jesus makes his last appearance on the mount of olives passing up to heaven in a blaze of light a miracle called the ascension according to the gospel of luke the disciples are all there but mary misses out jesus is gone but there's something about mary she's always there when you need her her time has come again in the vacuum left by the ascension the disciples are all drawn towards mary their last point of contact with the fleshy physical reality of the messiah jesus had instructed his disciples to wait for a signal from god so for ten days they cling together and mary the mother figure is the person that gives them all reassurance [Music] the event is celebrated by christians 50 days after easter at a celebration called pentecost el greco paints the moment when the sign from god arrives the room is filled with a rushing noise from heaven like a mighty gust of wind everybody starts to talk excitedly in different languages they are delirious with joy and individually they are suddenly blessed with the holy spirit in the form of a flame at the forehead in a room filled with men in a society governed by men in an early church that would take centuries to recognize anything other than the authority of men el greco places a woman mary holding everything together mary is i think the figure that's easiest to relate to in the bible she's an ordinary person caught up in a world of miracles in the gospels she's left as a bit of a mystery but that gap in turn allows us to paint her picture the way we want her to be to make her what we need her to be [Music] that's what painting pictures of the holy land has been all about artists who dream dreams artists who see visions on our behalf artists who transform the words of scripture into images that help us to grasp the real meaning behind events like the crucifixion and the resurrection of jesus the easter story [Music] those masterpieces gave me my first impressions of the holy land but i had to see it for myself these sketches are memories of my personal encounters with the easter story here are tombs churches and mountaintops places jesus walked but the modern israel and the occupied palestinian territories have helped give me a new understanding of christ's passion i haven't tried to paint you a crucifixion scene as my father would have done but because the holy land is a place that's still so alive with the memory of biblical events because faith is still so important to the people that live there i do feel that by sketching the the places and the faces that i encountered i have in some small way become a painter of religious subjects just like my dad [Music] the thing that struck me most during my journey more than the buildings and the sacred sites and relics was the simple power of human faith because i didn't meet many people who didn't believe in our god i didn't meet many people who didn't in some way believe in the sanctity of mary and standing beneath this effigy as my mother would have done so often during her childhood i still feel that i am in the holy land and that's because art makes that possible art has the power to take us there you don't always have to travel thousands of miles sometimes you just need to open your eyes

Channel: Perspective

Views: 9,426

Keywords: Arts, The Arts, Theatre, Music, Full EPisode, Full documentary, documentary, performing arts, painting the holy land, painting the holy land episode 1, art history, christian art, painting christ, documentary history, art history lessons, art history crash course, religious art history, religious art documentary, religious artist, virgin marry, virgin mary art, virgin mary paintings

Id: 3ucsa_3SveY

Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2021