El Greco, Rubens, Reni (Italian Subtitles)

This is Guercino's version of the famous biblical story of the woman taken in adultery. And when she was caught in adultery, they rushed her to Jesus. Not because they were in any doubt as to the verdict, because the law said a woman taken in adultery was to be stoned to death. But because they wanted to hear what Jesus, that famous preacher of mercy, would have to say about what the law said. And you'll notice, they're all looking at Jesus, except the woman. She's looking at Mary. She's lost in despair of death is inevitable. And we are so conscious of what isn't painted, that secret intercourse between Jesus, just showing by his finger, very aware. With all his conscious mind, it's on the old man who's arguing, whom Jesus is listening very carefully, as the old man ticks off the reasons for stoning him. In a minute, the argument will be finished, but Jesus will give his verdict. And it's that immortal sentence, that him who is without sin costs the first step. And because he's not a decent man, when you look at their faces, he's a decent man, but confused. And then, all four sides, and the old man cries his sleep away. And the dust moves away, and then Jesus will say to the woman, go, and sin no more. Women have always had a hard time, and so it was for the first great woman painter in the story of painting. This is Rome's old artistic courtyard, and it's here that Artemisia Gentileschi was born. And it's here that she was raped by another artist. This was clearly the central experience of her life. And again and again, she paints a scene where a woman revenges herself on a powerful man, like the biblical story of Judith slaying Holofernes. Judith was a Jewish heroine who saved her people from the enemy by bravely infiltrating their camp to assassinate their general, Holofernes. And Judith dressed herself up in her very best and stalled out at night with a maid. The maid was there to safeguard her justice, and she plied him with drinks. When he was completely drunk, she took out her sword, and she sawed off his head. Now, this story has always appealed to male fears. Of course, nowadays, we know quite well that no male needs to hear anything from a woman because they're all equal, but in the Babel days, they didn't understand that. And there's this buried Freudian fear that a woman can cut a man down to size, which is what Judith literally did. But Judith is not all that beautiful. She's a powerful woman, and in fact, it's a self-portrait of Artemisia. She looks herself rather like this, and heavy jaws instead of being double chin, but attractive and intelligent, but not the siren type that most male artists feel Judith has. And look how sensibly this practical woman has prepared for the assassination. She's bought a basket to put her head on. She bought a cloth to mop the blood up, and in fact, if you look, it's a very bloody, unpleasant deed. She's not glamorizing it. Most male artists show Judith triumphantly holding the head herself, not Artemisia. She's given the nasty thing to her mate, and all she's concerned with is getting away safely. She's done her duty. She's vindicated her people, and something of the great psychic force of this picture must come, I think, from Artemisia's own experiences as a girl. Rome's spiritual spring cleaning spread right through Europe, and so did Baroque art. One of its most original practitioners, El Greco, settled here in Toledo. He's real name is Domenicus Theotokopoulos, and everyone calls him El Greco the Greek. You wonder if he quite fits in. We don't know much about El Greco. He was born in Crete and he ended up here in Spain in Toledo, but there was just something about his art that appealed to the nobles and the churchmen of this city. At the time, Toledo was very devout. One in three was a monk or a nun, so El Greco found a ready-made market for his profoundly religious pictures. If you don't know much about the story of painting, El Greco is very comforting, because you can't mistake him. He elongates the faces and bodies of the people he paints as if some heavenly power were pulling them up and stretching them. Perhaps his most famous painting is The Burial of Count August. Then look what he does to a view of Toledo. It's Toledo at night, lit by a flash of lightning, and you get that wonderful sense that in a split second this luminous view will once more be embellished by the darkness. He hasn't painted the city as it is, but as he felt it should be. The cathedral's been moved closer to the castle, and look at the effect. In El Greco's painting, the church now dominates the terrain, and he exaggerates the curve of the hills and the bulges of the clouds. It all dramatizes the power of religion in union with the glory of nature. El Greco seems to me the essential outsider. He was a prickly man, always fighting with the church over payments for his work. And yet, I don't think it was the money. It was because if you undervalued his painting, you undervalued him. How he would have loved to be invited to the court and feted and rewarded and made much of, called the Prince of Painters. But that honor was reserved for another one. His name was Peter Paul Rubens, Prince, King, and Emperor of the Baroque. And his life was at the heart of the religious battles which fueled the Baroque. Rubens' home was Antwerp, and it was on the frontier of the battle between the Spanish Catholics and the Dutch Protestants. He built himself a splendid mansion to live in and paint in. But politics often called him away, and he was an ambassador between Spain and Protestant Britain, both knighting him. This painting is Rubens' response to the bloody conflicts of his time. This is one of Rubens' great public pictures, an allegory of war and peace. And of course, at once our heart sinks because we don't really like allegories.