1
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Two years ago, I have to say there was no problem.

2
00:00:03,458 --> 00:00:07,516
Two years ago, I knew exactly 
what an icon looked like.

3
00:00:07,516 --> 00:00:09,871
It looks like this.

4
00:00:09,871 --> 00:00:12,700
Everybody's icon, but also the default position

5
00:00:12,700 --> 00:00:16,523
of a curator of Italian Renaissance 
paintings, which I was then.

6
00:00:16,523 --> 00:00:20,215
And in a way, this is also another default selection.

7
00:00:20,215 --> 00:00:24,762
Leonardo da Vinci's exquisitely soulful image

8
00:00:24,762 --> 00:00:26,062
of the "Lady with an Ermine."

9
00:00:26,062 --> 00:00:28,605
And I use that word, soulful, deliberately.

10
00:00:28,605 --> 00:00:30,988
Or then there's this, or rather these:

11
00:00:30,988 --> 00:00:33,642
the two versions of Leonardo's "Virgin of the Rocks"

12
00:00:33,642 --> 00:00:37,918
that were about to come together 
in London for the very first time.

13
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In the exhibition that I was then in 
the absolute throes of organizing.

14
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I was literally up to my eyes in Leonardo,

15
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and I had been for three years.

16
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So, he was occupying every part of my brain.

17
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Leonardo had taught me, during that three years,

18
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about what a picture can do.

19
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About taking you from your own 
material world into a spiritual world.

20
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He said, actually, that he believed 
the job of the painter

21
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was to paint everything that was visible 
and invisible in the universe.

22
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That's a huge task. And yet, 
somehow he achieves it.

23
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He shows us, I think, the human soul.

24
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He shows us the capacity of ourselves

25
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to move into a spiritual realm.

26
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To see a vision of the universe that's 
more perfect than our own.

27
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To see God's own plan, in some sense.

28
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So this, in a sense, was really 
what I believed an icon was.

29
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At about that time, I started talking to Tom Campbell,

30
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director here of the Metropolitan Museum,

31
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about what my next move might be.

32
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The move, in fact, back to an earlier life,

33
00:01:48,449 --> 00:01:50,407
one I'd begun at the British Museum,

34
00:01:50,407 --> 00:01:52,926
back to the world of three dimensions --

35
00:01:52,926 --> 00:01:55,158
of sculpture and of decorative arts --

36
00:01:55,158 --> 00:01:59,376
to take over the department of European sculpture 
and decorative arts, here at the Met.

37
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But it was an incredibly busy time.

38
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All the conversations were done 
at very peculiar times of the day --

39
00:02:04,223 --> 00:02:07,136
over the phone.

40
00:02:07,136 --> 00:02:09,200
In the end, I accepted the job

41
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:10,573
without actually having been here.

42
00:02:10,573 --> 00:02:13,125
Again, I'd been there a couple of years before,

43
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but on that particular visit.

44
00:02:15,637 --> 00:02:19,729
So, it was just before the time that 
the Leonardo show was due to open

45
00:02:19,729 --> 00:02:23,751
when I finally made it back to the Met, to New York,

46
00:02:23,751 --> 00:02:25,207
to see my new domain.

47
00:02:25,207 --> 00:02:29,150
To see what European sculpture 
and decorative arts looked like,

48
00:02:29,150 --> 00:02:33,941
beyond those Renaissance collections 
with which I was so already familiar.

49
00:02:33,941 --> 00:02:36,938
And I thought, on that very first day, 
I better tour the galleries.

50
00:02:36,938 --> 00:02:38,390
Fifty-seven of these galleries --

51
00:02:38,390 --> 00:02:43,246
like 57 varieties of baked beans, I believe.

52
00:02:43,246 --> 00:02:49,367
I walked through and I started in my comfort zone
in the Italian Renaissance.

53
00:02:49,367 --> 00:02:51,288
And then I moved gradually around,

54
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feeling a little lost sometimes.

55
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My head, also still full of the Leonardo exhibition

56
00:02:57,443 --> 00:03:01,465
that was about to open, and I came across this.

57
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And I thought to myself: What the hell have I done?

58
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There was absolutely no connection in my mind

59
00:03:12,748 --> 00:03:15,847
at all and, in fact, if there was any emotion going on,

60
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it was a kind of repulsion.

61
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This object felt utterly and completely alien.

62
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Silly at a level that I hadn't yet 
understood silliness to be.

63
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And then it was made worse --

64
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there were two of them.

65
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(Laughter)

66
00:03:34,100 --> 00:03:37,067
So, I started thinking about why it was, in fact,

67
00:03:37,067 --> 00:03:39,523
that I disliked this object so much.

68
00:03:39,523 --> 00:03:43,329
What was the anatomy of my distaste?

69
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Well, so much gold, so vulgar.

70
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You know, so nouveau riche, frankly.

71
00:03:50,651 --> 00:03:53,564
Leonardo himself had preached 
against the use of gold,

72
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so it was absolutely anathema at that moment.

73
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And then there's little pretty sprigs 
of flowers everywhere. (Laughter)

74
00:04:02,427 --> 00:04:05,946
And finally, that pink. That damned pink.

75
00:04:05,946 --> 00:04:08,842
It's such an extraordinarily artificial color.

76
00:04:08,842 --> 00:04:12,370
I mean, it's a color that I can't think of 
anything that you actually see in nature,

77
00:04:12,370 --> 00:04:15,458
that looks that shade.

78
00:04:15,458 --> 00:04:19,198
The object even has its own tutu. (Laughter)

79
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This little flouncy, spangly, bottomy bit

80
00:04:21,558 --> 00:04:23,593
that sits at the bottom of the vase.

81
00:04:23,593 --> 00:04:25,966
It reminded me, in an odd kind of way,

82
00:04:25,966 --> 00:04:28,065
of my niece's fifth birthday party.

83
00:04:28,065 --> 00:04:32,587
Where all the little girls would come 
either as a princess or a fairy.

84
00:04:32,587 --> 00:04:34,468
There was one who would come as a fairy princess.

85
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You should have seen the looks.

86
00:04:36,890 --> 00:04:38,583
(Laughter)

87
00:04:38,583 --> 00:04:41,925
And I realize that this object was in my mind,

88
00:04:41,925 --> 00:04:44,865
born from the same mind, from the same womb,

89
00:04:44,865 --> 00:04:50,089
practically, as Barbie Ballerina. (Laughter)

90
00:04:50,089 --> 00:04:53,611
And then there's the elephants. (Laughter)

91
00:04:53,611 --> 00:04:55,757
Those extraordinary elephants

92
00:04:55,757 --> 00:04:58,481
with their little, sort of strange, sinister expressions

93
00:04:58,481 --> 00:05:03,778
and Greta Garbo eyelashes, with 
these golden tusks and so on.

94
00:05:03,778 --> 00:05:05,554
I realized this was an elephant that had

95
00:05:05,554 --> 00:05:11,287
absolutely nothing to do with a majestic 
march across the Serengeti.

96
00:05:11,287 --> 00:05:16,782
It was a Dumbo nightmare. (Laughter)

97
00:05:16,782 --> 00:05:19,628
But something more profound 
was happening as well.

98
00:05:19,628 --> 00:05:21,057
These objects, it seemed to me,

99
00:05:21,057 --> 00:05:25,366
were quintessentially the kind that I 
and my liberal left friends in London

100
00:05:25,366 --> 00:05:27,901
had always seen as summing up

101
00:05:27,901 --> 00:05:30,740
something deplorable about the French aristocracy

102
00:05:30,740 --> 00:05:32,912
in the 18th century.

103
00:05:32,912 --> 00:05:35,701
The label had told me that these pieces were made

104
00:05:35,701 --> 00:05:38,412
by the Sèvres Manufactory,

105
00:05:38,412 --> 00:05:41,637
made of porcelain in the late 1750s,

106
00:05:41,637 --> 00:05:44,768
and designed by a designer called 
Jean-Claude Duplessis,

107
00:05:44,768 --> 00:05:46,964
actually somebody of extraordinary distinction

108
00:05:46,964 --> 00:05:49,441
as I later learned.

109
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But for me, they summed up a kind of,

110
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that sort of sheer uselessness of the aristocracy

111
00:05:57,663 --> 00:06:01,136
in the 18th century.

112
00:06:01,136 --> 00:06:03,602
I and my colleagues had always thought

113
00:06:03,602 --> 00:06:06,558
that these objects, in way, summed up the idea of,

114
00:06:06,558 --> 00:06:08,922
you know -- no wonder there was a revolution.

115
00:06:08,922 --> 00:06:13,465
Or, indeed, thank God there was a revolution.

116
00:06:13,465 --> 00:06:15,224
There was a sort of idea really, that,

117
00:06:15,224 --> 00:06:17,897
if you owned a vase like this,

118
00:06:17,897 --> 00:06:21,621
then there was really only one fate possible.

119
00:06:21,621 --> 00:06:25,685
(Laughter)

120
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So, there I was -- in a sort of paroxysm of horror.

121
00:06:30,349 --> 00:06:34,309
But I took the job and I went 
on looking at these vases.

122
00:06:34,309 --> 00:06:37,840
I sort of had to because they're 
on a through route in the Met.

123
00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:40,472
So, almost anywhere I went, there they were.

124
00:06:40,472 --> 00:06:43,241
They had this kind of odd sort of fascination,

125
00:06:43,241 --> 00:06:46,259
like a car accident.

126
00:06:46,259 --> 00:06:48,983
Where I couldn't stop looking.

127
00:06:48,983 --> 00:06:51,205
And as I did so, I started thinking:

128
00:06:51,205 --> 00:06:55,733
Well, what are we actually looking at here?

129
00:06:55,733 --> 00:06:59,064
And what I started with was understanding this

130
00:06:59,064 --> 00:07:02,616
as really a supreme piece of design.

131
00:07:02,616 --> 00:07:03,713
It took me a little time.

132
00:07:03,713 --> 00:07:05,151
But, that tutu for example --

133
00:07:05,151 --> 00:07:08,273
actually, this is a piece that 
does dance in its own way.

134
00:07:08,273 --> 00:07:09,915
It has an extraordinary lightness

135
00:07:09,915 --> 00:07:12,430
and yet, it is also amazing balanced.

136
00:07:12,430 --> 00:07:15,905
It has these kinds of sculptural ingredients.

137
00:07:15,905 --> 00:07:17,544
And then the play between --

138
00:07:17,544 --> 00:07:22,156
actually really quite carefully disposed 
color and gilding, and the sculptural surface,

139
00:07:22,156 --> 00:07:24,431
is really rather remarkable.

140
00:07:24,431 --> 00:07:27,261
And then I realized that this piece went into the kiln

141
00:07:27,261 --> 00:07:30,651
four times, at least four times 
in order to arrive at this.

142
00:07:30,651 --> 00:07:33,705
How many moments for accident can you think of

143
00:07:33,705 --> 00:07:35,209
that could have happened to this piece?

144
00:07:35,209 --> 00:07:37,771
And then remember, not just one, but two.

145
00:07:37,771 --> 00:07:42,036
So he's having to arrive at two exactly matched

146
00:07:42,036 --> 00:07:44,548
vases of this kind.

147
00:07:44,548 --> 00:07:45,954
And then this question of uselessness.

148
00:07:45,954 --> 00:07:50,913
Well actually, the end of the trunks 
were originally candle holders.

149
00:07:50,913 --> 00:07:54,663
So what you would have had 
were candles on either side.

150
00:07:54,663 --> 00:07:57,219
Imagine that effect of candlelight on that surface.

151
00:07:57,219 --> 00:07:59,951
On the slightly uneven pink, on the beautiful gold.

152
00:07:59,951 --> 00:08:02,697
It would have glittered in an interior,

153
00:08:02,697 --> 00:08:05,779
a little like a little firework.

154
00:08:05,779 --> 00:08:09,431
And at that point, actually, 
a firework went off in my brain.

155
00:08:09,431 --> 00:08:12,266
Somebody reminded me that, that word 'fancy' --

156
00:08:12,266 --> 00:08:15,376
which in a sense for me, encapsulated this object --

157
00:08:15,376 --> 00:08:19,422
actually comes from the same 
root as the word 'fantasy.'

158
00:08:19,422 --> 00:08:22,038
And that what this object was just as much in a way,

159
00:08:22,038 --> 00:08:24,490
in its own way, as a Leonardo da Vinci painting,

160
00:08:24,490 --> 00:08:26,697
is a portal to somewhere else.

161
00:08:26,697 --> 00:08:30,892
This is an object of the imagination.

162
00:08:30,892 --> 00:08:37,701
If you think about the mad 18th-century 
operas of the time -- set in the Orient.

163
00:08:37,721 --> 00:08:44,200
If you think about divans and perhaps even 
opium-induced visions of pink elephants,

164
00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:47,501
then at that point, this object starts to make sense.

165
00:08:47,501 --> 00:08:51,557
This is an object which is all about escapism.

166
00:08:51,557 --> 00:08:54,754
It's about an escapism that happens --

167
00:08:54,754 --> 00:08:56,775
that the aristocracy in France sought

168
00:08:56,775 --> 00:08:58,561
very deliberately

169
00:08:58,561 --> 00:09:03,129
to distinguish themselves from ordinary people.

170
00:09:03,129 --> 00:09:05,093
It's not an escapism that

171
00:09:05,093 --> 00:09:08,960
we feel particularly happy with today, however.

172
00:09:08,960 --> 00:09:11,945
And again, going on thinking about this,

173
00:09:11,945 --> 00:09:15,119
I realize that in a way we're all victims

174
00:09:15,119 --> 00:09:17,130
of a certain kind of tyranny

175
00:09:17,130 --> 00:09:19,151
of the triumph of modernism

176
00:09:19,151 --> 00:09:21,877
whereby form and function in an object

177
00:09:21,877 --> 00:09:25,282
have to follow one another, or are deemed to do so.

178
00:09:25,282 --> 00:09:28,246
And the extraneous ornament is seen as really,

179
00:09:28,246 --> 00:09:31,266
essentially, criminal.

180
00:09:31,266 --> 00:09:34,417
It's a triumph, in a way, of bourgeois
values rather than aristocratic ones.

181
00:09:34,417 --> 00:09:36,240
And that seems fine.

182
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:43,697
Except for the fact that it becomes a kind of 
sequestration of imagination.

183
00:09:43,697 --> 00:09:46,387
So just as in the 20th century, so many people

184
00:09:46,387 --> 00:09:48,375
had the idea that their faith

185
00:09:48,375 --> 00:09:51,057
took place on the Sabbath day,

186
00:09:51,057 --> 00:09:52,431
and the rest of their lives --

187
00:09:52,431 --> 00:09:56,409
their lives of washing machines and orthodontics --

188
00:09:56,409 --> 00:09:58,441
took place on another day.

189
00:09:58,441 --> 00:10:02,209
Then, I think we've started doing the same.

190
00:10:02,209 --> 00:10:05,541
We've allowed ourselves to

191
00:10:05,541 --> 00:10:07,898
lead our fantasy lives in front of screens.

192
00:10:07,898 --> 00:10:11,880
In the dark of the cinema, with the
television in the corner of the room.

193
00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:15,958
We've eliminated, in a sense, that constant

194
00:10:15,958 --> 00:10:20,886
of the imagination that these vases 
represented in people's lives.

195
00:10:20,886 --> 00:10:24,922
So maybe it's time we got this back a little.

196
00:10:24,922 --> 00:10:27,272
I think it's beginning to happen.

197
00:10:27,272 --> 00:10:28,538
In London, for example,

198
00:10:28,538 --> 00:10:30,687
with these extraordinary buildings

199
00:10:30,687 --> 00:10:33,678
that have been appearing over the last few years.

200
00:10:33,678 --> 00:10:36,081
Redolent, in a sense, of science fiction,

201
00:10:36,081 --> 00:10:38,195
turning London into a kind of fantasy playground.

202
00:10:38,195 --> 00:10:43,049
It's actually amazing to look out of 
a high building nowadays there.

203
00:10:43,049 --> 00:10:44,853
But even then, there's a resistance.

204
00:10:44,853 --> 00:10:49,189
London has called these buildings the 
Gherkin, the Shard, the Walkie Talkie --

205
00:10:49,189 --> 00:10:52,494
bringing these soaring buildings down to Earth.

206
00:10:52,494 --> 00:10:56,574
There's an idea that we don't want these

207
00:10:56,574 --> 00:11:01,435
anxious-making, imaginative journeys 
to happen in our daily lives.

208
00:11:01,435 --> 00:11:04,703
I feel lucky in a way,

209
00:11:04,703 --> 00:11:07,251
I've encountered this object.

210
00:11:07,251 --> 00:11:09,692
(Laughter)

211
00:11:09,692 --> 00:11:12,994
I found him on the Internet when 
I was looking up a reference.

212
00:11:12,994 --> 00:11:15,888
And there he was.

213
00:11:15,888 --> 00:11:19,202
And unlike the pink elephant vase,

214
00:11:19,202 --> 00:11:21,175
this was a kind of love at first sight.

215
00:11:21,175 --> 00:11:24,031
In fact, reader, I married him. I bought him.

216
00:11:24,031 --> 00:11:27,895
And he now adorns my office.

217
00:11:27,895 --> 00:11:31,436
He's a Staffordshire figure made 
in the middle of the 19th century.

218
00:11:31,436 --> 00:11:36,242
He represents the actor, Edmund Kean, 
playing Shakespeare's Richard III.

219
00:11:36,242 --> 00:11:38,695
And it's based, actually, on a more 
elevated piece of porcelain.

220
00:11:38,695 --> 00:11:40,849
So I loved, on an art historical level,

221
00:11:40,849 --> 00:11:45,509
I loved that layered quality that he has.

222
00:11:45,509 --> 00:11:48,002
But more than that, I love him.

223
00:11:48,002 --> 00:11:49,680
In a way that I think would have been impossible

224
00:11:49,680 --> 00:11:52,292
without the pink Sèvres vase in my Leonardo days.

225
00:11:52,292 --> 00:11:55,509
I love his orange and pink breeches.

226
00:11:55,509 --> 00:11:58,259
I love the fact that he seems to be going off to war,

227
00:11:58,259 --> 00:12:02,691
having just finished the washing up. (Laughter)

228
00:12:02,691 --> 00:12:05,168
He seems also to have forgotten his sword.

229
00:12:05,168 --> 00:12:07,787
I love his pink little cheeks, his munchkin energy.

230
00:12:07,787 --> 00:12:10,978
In a way, he's become my sort of alter ego.

231
00:12:10,978 --> 00:12:13,279
He's, I hope, a little bit dignified,

232
00:12:13,279 --> 00:12:18,453
but mostly rather vulgar. (Laughter)

233
00:12:18,453 --> 00:12:21,671
And energetic, I hope, too.

234
00:12:21,671 --> 00:12:26,826
I let him into my life because the Sèvres
pink elephant vase allowed me to do so.

235
00:12:26,826 --> 00:12:28,394
And before that Leonardo,

236
00:12:28,394 --> 00:12:33,500
I understood that this object could become 
part of a journey for me every day,

237
00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:36,245
sitting in my office.

238
00:12:36,245 --> 00:12:39,234
I really hope that others, all of you,

239
00:12:39,234 --> 00:12:40,809
visiting objects in the museum,

240
00:12:40,809 --> 00:12:43,263
and taking them home and 
finding them for yourselves,

241
00:12:43,263 --> 00:12:47,577
will allow those objects to flourish 
in your imaginative lives.

242
00:12:47,577 --> 00:12:49,130
Thank you very much.

243
00:12:49,130 --> 00:12:53,013
(Applause)