WEBVTT 00:00:00.516 --> 00:00:04.623 I'm going to tell you about an affliction I suffer from. 00:00:04.623 --> 00:00:07.127 And I have a funny feeling that quite a few of you 00:00:07.127 --> 00:00:09.047 suffer from it as well. 00:00:09.047 --> 00:00:11.144 When I'm walking around an art gallery, 00:00:11.144 --> 00:00:13.247 rooms and rooms full of paintings, 00:00:13.247 --> 00:00:17.764 after about 15 or 20 minutes, 00:00:17.764 --> 00:00:19.655 I realize I'm not thinking about the paintings. 00:00:19.655 --> 00:00:21.263 I'm not connecting to them. 00:00:21.263 --> 00:00:23.767 Instead, I'm thinking about that cup of coffee 00:00:23.767 --> 00:00:26.767 I desperately need to wake me up. 00:00:26.767 --> 00:00:29.951 I'm suffering from gallery fatigue. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:29.951 --> 00:00:32.327 How many of you out there suffer from -- 00:00:32.327 --> 00:00:34.332 yes. Ha ha, ha ha! 00:00:34.332 --> 00:00:36.482 Now, sometimes you might last longer 00:00:36.482 --> 00:00:38.576 than 20 minutes, or even shorter, 00:00:38.576 --> 00:00:40.790 but I think we all suffer from it. And do you have 00:00:40.790 --> 00:00:42.871 the accompanying guilt? 00:00:42.871 --> 00:00:45.858 For me, I look at the paintings on the wall 00:00:45.858 --> 00:00:48.873 and I think, somebody has decided to put them there, 00:00:48.873 --> 00:00:51.401 thinks they're good enough to be on that wall, 00:00:51.401 --> 00:00:52.759 but I don't always see it. 00:00:52.759 --> 00:00:55.423 In fact, most of the time I don't see it. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:55.423 --> 00:00:59.197 And I leave feeling actually unhappy. 00:00:59.197 --> 00:01:02.664 I feel guilty and unhappy with myself, 00:01:02.664 --> 00:01:04.727 rather than thinking there's something wrong with the painting, 00:01:04.727 --> 00:01:06.184 I think there's something wrong with me. 00:01:06.184 --> 00:01:09.092 And that's not a good experience, to leave a gallery like that. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:09.092 --> 00:01:10.363 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:10.363 --> 00:01:12.672 The thing is, I think we should give ourselves a break. 00:01:12.672 --> 00:01:15.132 If you think about going into a restaurant, 00:01:15.132 --> 00:01:18.819 when you look at the menu, are you expected to order 00:01:18.819 --> 00:01:21.002 every single thing on the menu? 00:01:21.002 --> 00:01:22.884 No! You select. 00:01:22.884 --> 00:01:26.059 If you go into a department store to buy a shirt, 00:01:26.059 --> 00:01:29.036 are you going to try on every single shirt 00:01:29.036 --> 00:01:30.364 and want every single shirt? 00:01:30.364 --> 00:01:34.491 Of course not, you can be selective. It's expected. 00:01:34.491 --> 00:01:37.112 How come, then, it's not so expected 00:01:37.112 --> 00:01:39.685 to be selective when we go to an art gallery? 00:01:39.685 --> 00:01:42.980 Why are we supposed to have a connection with every single painting? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:42.980 --> 00:01:45.684 Well I'm trying to take a different approach. 00:01:45.684 --> 00:01:47.302 And there's two things I do: 00:01:47.302 --> 00:01:51.796 When I go into a gallery, first of all, I go quite fast, 00:01:51.796 --> 00:01:56.031 and I look at everything, and I pinpoint the ones 00:01:56.031 --> 00:01:59.085 that make me slow down for some reason or other. 00:01:59.085 --> 00:02:01.886 I don't even know why they make me slow down, but something 00:02:01.886 --> 00:02:03.943 pulls me like a magnet 00:02:03.943 --> 00:02:07.061 and then I ignore all the others, and I just go to that painting. 00:02:07.061 --> 00:02:09.525 So it's the first thing I do is, I do my own curation. 00:02:09.525 --> 00:02:12.821 I choose a painting. It might just be one painting in 50. 00:02:12.821 --> 00:02:16.511 And then the second thing I do is I stand in front of that painting, 00:02:16.511 --> 00:02:19.588 and I tell myself a story about it. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:19.588 --> 00:02:23.186 Why a story? Well, I think that we are wired, 00:02:23.186 --> 00:02:27.077 our DNA tells us to tell stories. 00:02:27.077 --> 00:02:29.446 We tell stories all the time about everything, 00:02:29.446 --> 00:02:34.557 and I think we do it because the world is kind of a crazy, chaotic place, 00:02:34.557 --> 00:02:38.508 and sometimes stories, we're trying to make sense of the world a little bit, 00:02:38.508 --> 00:02:40.677 trying to bring some order to it. 00:02:40.677 --> 00:02:44.668 Why not apply that to our looking at paintings? 00:02:44.668 --> 00:02:48.383 So I now have this sort of restaurant menu 00:02:48.383 --> 00:02:51.606 visiting of art galleries. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:51.606 --> 00:02:54.814 There are three paintings I'm going to show you now 00:02:54.814 --> 00:02:57.878 that are paintings that made me stop in my tracks 00:02:57.878 --> 00:03:00.424 and want to tell stories about them. 00:03:00.424 --> 00:03:03.975 The first one needs little introduction -- 00:03:03.975 --> 00:03:07.006 "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer, 00:03:07.006 --> 00:03:09.162 17th-century Dutch painter. 00:03:09.162 --> 00:03:11.662 This is the most glorious painting. 00:03:11.662 --> 00:03:13.806 I first saw it when I was 19, 00:03:13.806 --> 00:03:16.086 and I immediately went out and got a poster of it, 00:03:16.086 --> 00:03:20.243 and in fact I still have that poster. 30 years later it's hanging in my house. 00:03:20.243 --> 00:03:23.393 It's accompanied me everywhere I've gone, 00:03:23.393 --> 00:03:25.737 I never tire of looking at her. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:25.737 --> 00:03:29.516 What made me stop in my tracks about her to begin with 00:03:29.516 --> 00:03:32.073 was just the gorgeous colors he uses 00:03:32.073 --> 00:03:34.017 and the light falling on her face. 00:03:34.017 --> 00:03:36.801 But I think what's kept me still coming back 00:03:36.801 --> 00:03:39.857 year after year is another thing, and that is 00:03:39.857 --> 00:03:43.551 the look on her face, the conflicted look on her face. 00:03:43.551 --> 00:03:45.969 I can't tell if she's happy or sad, 00:03:45.969 --> 00:03:48.936 and I change my mind all the time. 00:03:48.936 --> 00:03:52.535 So that keeps me coming back. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:52.535 --> 00:03:56.544 One day, 16 years after I had this poster on my wall, 00:03:56.544 --> 00:03:59.226 I lay in bed and looked at her, 00:03:59.226 --> 00:04:01.805 and I suddenly thought, I wonder what 00:04:01.805 --> 00:04:05.723 the painter did to her to make her look like that. 00:04:05.723 --> 00:04:08.667 And it was the first time I'd ever thought that 00:04:08.667 --> 00:04:11.467 the expression on her face is actually reflecting 00:04:11.467 --> 00:04:13.606 how she feels about him. 00:04:13.606 --> 00:04:16.762 Always before I'd thought of it as a portrait of a girl. 00:04:16.762 --> 00:04:21.531 Now I began to think of it as a portrait of a relationship. 00:04:21.531 --> 00:04:24.363 And I thought, well, what is that relationship? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:24.363 --> 00:04:27.571 So I went to find out. I did some research and discovered, 00:04:27.571 --> 00:04:29.896 we have no idea who she is. 00:04:29.896 --> 00:04:32.243 In fact, we don't know who any of the models 00:04:32.243 --> 00:04:34.603 in any of Vermeer's paintings are, 00:04:34.603 --> 00:04:36.730 and we know very little about Vermeer himself. 00:04:36.730 --> 00:04:39.504 Which made me go, "Yippee!" 00:04:39.504 --> 00:04:44.163 I can do whatever I want, I can come up with whatever story I want to. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:44.163 --> 00:04:46.759 So here's how I came up with the story. 00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:48.636 First of all, I thought, 00:04:48.636 --> 00:04:50.728 I've got to get her into the house. 00:04:50.728 --> 00:04:53.216 How does Vermeer know her? 00:04:53.216 --> 00:04:54.760 Well, there've been suggestions that 00:04:54.760 --> 00:04:59.183 she is his 12-year-old daughter. 00:04:59.183 --> 00:05:01.408 The daughter at the time was 12 when he painted the painting. 00:05:01.408 --> 00:05:04.104 And I thought, no, it's a very intimate look, 00:05:04.104 --> 00:05:06.288 but it's not a look a daughter gives her father. 00:05:06.288 --> 00:05:08.128 For one thing, in Dutch painting of the time, 00:05:08.128 --> 00:05:11.720 if a woman's mouth was open, it was indicating sexual availability. 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:13.608 It would have been inappropriate for Vermeer 00:05:13.608 --> 00:05:15.504 to paint his daughter like that. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:15.504 --> 00:05:17.384 So it's not his daughter, but it's somebody 00:05:17.384 --> 00:05:19.634 close to him, physically close to him. 00:05:19.634 --> 00:05:21.898 Well, who else would be in the house? 00:05:21.898 --> 00:05:25.281 A servant, a lovely servant. 00:05:25.281 --> 00:05:26.842 So, she's in the house. 00:05:26.842 --> 00:05:29.503 How do we get her into the studio? 00:05:29.503 --> 00:05:31.637 We don't know very much about Vermeer, 00:05:31.637 --> 00:05:33.776 but the little bits that we do know, one thing we know 00:05:33.776 --> 00:05:36.767 is that he married a Catholic woman, they lived with her mother 00:05:36.767 --> 00:05:39.040 in a house where he had his own room 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:43.323 where he -- his studio. He also had 11 children. 00:05:43.323 --> 00:05:46.400 It would have been a chaotic, noisy household. 00:05:46.400 --> 00:05:49.344 And if you've seen Vermeer's paintings before, 00:05:49.344 --> 00:05:53.208 you know that they're incredibly calm and quiet. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:53.208 --> 00:05:57.104 How does a painter paint such calm, quiet paintings with 11 kids around? 00:05:57.104 --> 00:05:59.400 Well, he compartmentalizes his life. 00:05:59.400 --> 00:06:03.080 He gets to his studio, and he says, "Nobody comes in here. 00:06:03.080 --> 00:06:07.808 Not the wife, not the kids. Okay, the maid can come in and clean." 00:06:07.808 --> 00:06:14.859 She's in the studio. He's got her in the studio, they're together. 00:06:14.859 --> 00:06:16.939 And he decides to paint her. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:16.939 --> 00:06:19.207 He has her wear very plain clothes. 00:06:19.207 --> 00:06:22.578 Now, all of the women, or most of the women in Vermeer's other paintings 00:06:22.578 --> 00:06:28.544 wore velvet, silk, fur, very sumptuous materials. 00:06:28.544 --> 00:06:31.064 This is very plain; the only thing that isn't plain 00:06:31.064 --> 00:06:33.104 is her pearl earring. 00:06:33.104 --> 00:06:36.551 Now, if she's a servant, there is no way she could afford 00:06:36.551 --> 00:06:38.758 a pair of pearl earrings. 00:06:38.758 --> 00:06:42.020 So those are not her pearl earrings. Whose are they? 00:06:42.020 --> 00:06:47.061 We happen to know, there's a list of Catharina, the wife's clothes. 00:06:47.061 --> 00:06:50.677 Amongst them a yellow coat with white fur, 00:06:50.677 --> 00:06:52.424 a yellow and black bodice, 00:06:52.424 --> 00:06:56.118 and you see these clothes on lots of other paintings, 00:06:56.118 --> 00:06:59.232 different women in the paintings, Vermeer's paintings. 00:06:59.232 --> 00:07:03.710 So clearly, her clothes were lent to various different women. 00:07:03.710 --> 00:07:06.229 It's not such a leap of faith to take 00:07:06.229 --> 00:07:09.813 that that pearl earring actually belongs to his wife. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:09.813 --> 00:07:12.990 So we've got all the elements for our story. 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:15.420 She's in the studio with him for a long time. 00:07:15.420 --> 00:07:17.463 These paintings took a long time to make. 00:07:17.463 --> 00:07:20.334 They would have spent the time alone, all that time. 00:07:20.334 --> 00:07:22.334 She's wearing his wife's pearl earring. 00:07:22.334 --> 00:07:25.149 She's gorgeous. She obviously loves him. She's conflicted. 00:07:25.149 --> 00:07:27.941 And does the wife know? Maybe not. 00:07:27.941 --> 00:07:31.319 And if she doesn't, well -- 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:33.174 that's the story. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:33.174 --> 00:07:35.351 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:35.351 --> 00:07:37.941 The next painting I'm going to talk about 00:07:37.941 --> 00:07:41.188 is called "Boy Building a House of Cards" by Chardin. 00:07:41.188 --> 00:07:45.564 He's an 18th-century French painter best known for his still lifes, 00:07:45.564 --> 00:07:48.157 but he did occasionally paint people. 00:07:48.157 --> 00:07:52.124 And in fact, he painted four versions of this painting, 00:07:52.124 --> 00:07:56.084 different boys building houses of cards, all concentrated. 00:07:56.084 --> 00:07:59.548 I like this version the best, because some of the boys 00:07:59.548 --> 00:08:02.941 are older and some are younger, and to me, this one, 00:08:02.941 --> 00:08:05.893 like Goldilocks's porridge, is just right. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:05.893 --> 00:08:09.884 He's not quite a child, and he's not quite a man. 00:08:09.884 --> 00:08:14.677 He's absolutely balanced between innocence and experience, 00:08:14.677 --> 00:08:19.160 and that made me stop in my tracks in front of this painting. 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.877 And I looked at his face. It's like a Vermeer painting a bit. 00:08:22.877 --> 00:08:25.500 The light comes in from the left, his face is bathed 00:08:25.500 --> 00:08:27.724 in this glowing light. It's right in the center of the painting, 00:08:27.724 --> 00:08:30.736 and you look at it, and I found that when I was looking at it, 00:08:30.736 --> 00:08:31.943 I was standing there going, 00:08:31.943 --> 00:08:34.896 "Look at me. Please look at me." 00:08:34.896 --> 00:08:37.632 And he didn't look at me. He was still looking at his cards, 00:08:37.632 --> 00:08:40.384 and that's one of the seductive elements of this painting is, 00:08:40.384 --> 00:08:44.874 he's so focused on what he's doing that he doesn't look at us. 00:08:44.874 --> 00:08:48.767 And that is, to me, the sign of a masterpiece, 00:08:48.767 --> 00:08:52.744 of a painting when there's a lack of resolution. 00:08:52.744 --> 00:08:54.265 He's never going to look at me. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:54.265 --> 00:08:55.944 So I was thinking of a story where, 00:08:55.944 --> 00:08:59.160 if I'm in this position, who could be there looking at him? 00:08:59.160 --> 00:09:01.362 Not the painter, I don't want to think about the painter. 00:09:01.362 --> 00:09:03.888 I'm thinking of an older version of himself. 00:09:03.888 --> 00:09:09.833 He's a man, a servant, an older servant looking at this younger servant, 00:09:09.833 --> 00:09:12.304 saying, "Look at me. I want to warn you about 00:09:12.304 --> 00:09:14.754 what you're about to go through. Please look at me." 00:09:14.754 --> 00:09:16.280 And he never does. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:16.280 --> 00:09:20.083 And that lack of resolution, the lack of resolution in "Girl with a Pearl Earring" -- 00:09:20.083 --> 00:09:22.127 we don't know if she's happy or sad. 00:09:22.127 --> 00:09:23.776 I've written an entire novel about her, 00:09:23.776 --> 00:09:25.776 and I still don't know if she's happy or sad. 00:09:25.776 --> 00:09:27.880 Again and again, back to the painting, 00:09:27.880 --> 00:09:32.561 looking for the answer, looking for the story to fill in that gap. 00:09:32.561 --> 00:09:36.008 And we may make a story, and it satisfies us momentarily, 00:09:36.008 --> 00:09:41.823 but not really, and we come back again and again. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:41.823 --> 00:09:44.361 The last painting I'm going to talk about 00:09:44.361 --> 00:09:49.225 is called "Anonymous" by anonymous. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:09:49.225 --> 00:09:52.276 This is a Tudor portrait bought by the National Portrait Gallery. 00:09:52.276 --> 00:09:54.889 They thought it was a man named Sir Thomas Overbury, 00:09:54.889 --> 00:09:57.553 and then they discovered that it wasn't him, 00:09:57.553 --> 00:09:59.153 and they have no idea who it is. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:59.153 --> 00:10:01.296 Now, in the National Portrait Gallery, 00:10:01.296 --> 00:10:03.065 if you don't know the biography of the painting, 00:10:03.065 --> 00:10:04.689 it's kind of useless to you. 00:10:04.689 --> 00:10:07.113 They can't hang it on the wall, because they don't know who he is. 00:10:07.113 --> 00:10:12.017 So unfortunately, this orphan spends most of his time in storage, 00:10:12.017 --> 00:10:14.161 along with quite a number of other orphans, 00:10:14.161 --> 00:10:16.672 some of them some beautiful paintings. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:16.672 --> 00:10:21.675 This painting made me stop in my tracks for three reasons: 00:10:21.675 --> 00:10:24.552 One is the disconnection between his mouth 00:10:24.552 --> 00:10:27.257 that's smiling and his eyes that are wistful. 00:10:27.257 --> 00:10:30.264 He's not happy, and why isn't he happy? 00:10:30.264 --> 00:10:33.981 The second thing that really attracted me 00:10:33.981 --> 00:10:35.697 were his bright red cheeks. 00:10:35.697 --> 00:10:39.304 He is blushing. He's blushing for his portrait being made! 00:10:39.304 --> 00:10:42.338 This must be a guy who blushes all the time. 00:10:42.338 --> 00:10:44.480 What is he thinking about that's making him blush? 00:10:44.480 --> 00:10:48.256 The third thing that made me stop in my tracks 00:10:48.256 --> 00:10:51.056 is his absolutely gorgeous doublet. 00:10:51.056 --> 00:10:54.624 Silk, gray, those beautiful buttons. 00:10:54.624 --> 00:10:56.256 And you know what it makes me think of, 00:10:56.256 --> 00:11:01.048 is it's sort of snug and puffy; it's like a duvet spread over a bed. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:01.048 --> 00:11:03.704 I kept thinking of beds and red cheeks, 00:11:03.704 --> 00:11:06.464 and of course I kept thinking of sex when I looked at him, 00:11:06.464 --> 00:11:09.072 and I thought, is that what he's thinking about? 00:11:09.072 --> 00:11:11.344 And I thought, if I'm going to make a story, 00:11:11.344 --> 00:11:13.328 what's the last thing I'm going to put in there? 00:11:13.328 --> 00:11:16.958 Well, what would a Tudor gentleman be preoccupied with? 00:11:16.958 --> 00:11:18.888 And I thought, well, Henry VIII, okay. 00:11:18.888 --> 00:11:23.032 He'd be preoccupied with his inheritance, with his heir. 00:11:23.032 --> 00:11:26.681 Who is going to inherit his name and his fortune? 00:11:26.681 --> 00:11:30.561 You put all those together, and you've got your story 00:11:30.561 --> 00:11:33.915 to fill in that gap that makes you keep coming back. 00:11:33.915 --> 00:11:38.636 Now, here's the story. 00:11:38.636 --> 00:11:41.566 It's short. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:41.566 --> 00:11:44.297 "Rosy" NOTE Paragraph 00:11:44.297 --> 00:11:48.347 I am still wearing the white brocade doublet Caroline gave me. 00:11:48.347 --> 00:11:52.658 It has a plain high collar, detachable sleeves 00:11:52.658 --> 00:11:55.834 and intricate buttons of twisted silk thread, 00:11:55.834 --> 00:11:58.760 set close together so that the fit is snug. 00:11:58.760 --> 00:12:02.323 The doublet makes me think of a coverlet on the vast bed. 00:12:02.323 --> 00:12:06.073 Perhaps that was the intention. 00:12:06.073 --> 00:12:10.991 I first wore it at an elaborate dinner her parents held in our honor. 00:12:10.991 --> 00:12:12.817 I knew even before I stood up to speak 00:12:12.817 --> 00:12:15.386 that my cheeks were inflamed. 00:12:15.386 --> 00:12:19.087 I have always flushed easily, from physical exertion, 00:12:19.087 --> 00:12:21.442 from wine, from high emotion. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:21.442 --> 00:12:25.907 As a boy, I was teased by my sisters and by schoolboys, 00:12:25.907 --> 00:12:28.354 but not by George. 00:12:28.354 --> 00:12:31.428 Only George could call me Rosy. 00:12:31.428 --> 00:12:33.587 I would not allow anyone else. 00:12:33.587 --> 00:12:37.811 He managed to make the word tender. 00:12:37.811 --> 00:12:40.610 When I made the announcement, George did not 00:12:40.610 --> 00:12:43.674 turn rosy, but went pale as my doublet. 00:12:43.674 --> 00:12:45.578 He should not have been surprised. 00:12:45.578 --> 00:12:47.250 It has been a common assumption 00:12:47.250 --> 00:12:51.098 that I would one day marry his cousin. 00:12:51.098 --> 00:12:53.682 But it is difficult to hear the words aloud. 00:12:53.682 --> 00:12:56.983 I know, I could barely utter them. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:56.983 --> 00:13:01.385 Afterwards, I found George on the terrace overlooking the kitchen garden. 00:13:01.385 --> 00:13:06.642 Despite drinking steadily all afternoon, he was still pale. 00:13:06.642 --> 00:13:10.867 We stood together and watched the maids cut lettuces. 00:13:10.867 --> 00:13:13.129 "What do you think of my doublet?" I asked. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:13.129 --> 00:13:18.573 He glanced at me. "That collar looks to be strangling you." NOTE Paragraph 00:13:18.573 --> 00:13:20.577 "We will still see each other," I insisted. 00:13:20.577 --> 00:13:23.865 "We can still hunt and play cards and attend court. 00:13:23.865 --> 00:13:25.601 Nothing need change." 00:13:25.601 --> 00:13:29.318 George did not speak. 00:13:29.318 --> 00:13:32.712 "I am 23 years old. It is time for me to marry 00:13:32.712 --> 00:13:36.817 and produce an heir. It is expected of me." NOTE Paragraph 00:13:36.817 --> 00:13:40.398 George drained another glass of claret and turned to me. 00:13:40.398 --> 00:13:44.481 "Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials, James. 00:13:44.481 --> 00:13:49.317 I'm sure you'll be content together." 00:13:49.317 --> 00:13:52.634 He never used my nickname again. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:52.634 --> 00:13:54.393 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:54.393 --> 00:13:57.775 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:57.775 --> 00:13:58.957 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:58.957 --> 00:14:00.504 (Applause)