1 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:14,800 Just around the corner from here, in 1857, 2 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,880 Britain's biggest ever art exhibition was put on show. 3 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:23,200 Manchester Cricket Club had obligingly vacated their ground 4 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:26,560 and in place of the stumps and the nets, 5 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:30,240 vast halls of iron and glass were erected 6 00:00:30,240 --> 00:00:35,200 to hold more than 16,000 works of art. 7 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:37,280 Very many of them 8 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:41,760 were originally crafted or painted or sculpted in Europe 9 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:43,280 and further afield. 10 00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:49,240 But the vast majority were lent by their now British owners 11 00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:50,960 and collectors. 12 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:55,560 From queens and dukes to the ordinary Mr Neville of Essex, 13 00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:59,600 who lent his collection of silver rings. 14 00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:02,440 It's true, there was a certain sniffiness 15 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:06,320 on the part of a few of the metropolitan elite 16 00:01:06,320 --> 00:01:09,520 who wondered if all this really belonged in Manchester, 17 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:12,200 and shouldn't they be sticking to their cotton spinning? 18 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:14,320 But it was hard to be sniffy 19 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:18,840 in the face of such an array of international art. 20 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:24,360 And the treasures on display were just the tip of the iceberg. 21 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:28,440 By the mid 19th century, 22 00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:33,320 you didn't have to go to India, Egypt or Italy 23 00:01:33,320 --> 00:01:36,560 to experience the art of the world. 24 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:38,640 You could see it here in Britain. 25 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:44,800 Brought by adventurers and collectors - 26 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:47,120 and let's be honest, a few thieves - 27 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:49,960 it's had an enormous influence on British culture... 28 00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:52,640 ..changed our landscape... 29 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:57,880 It's shaken up our artistic traditions. 30 00:01:57,880 --> 00:02:03,080 It has even helped shape our idea of what civilisation is. 31 00:02:03,560 --> 00:02:05,200 We now take it for granted 32 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:09,080 that we can see the civilisations of the world here, 33 00:02:09,080 --> 00:02:12,160 but that raises all kinds of questions. 34 00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:14,320 How did it all get here? 35 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:19,640 Why was it brought here? 36 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:22,160 Were we civilising others 37 00:02:22,160 --> 00:02:24,680 or civilising ourselves? 38 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:26,640 And just as important - 39 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:30,720 what does it tell us about who we are? 40 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:51,720 Founded in the sixth century by St Augustine, 41 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:54,960 sent by the Pope to bring Christianity north 42 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:57,400 to the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, 43 00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:01,240 and later rebuilt by the invading Normans, 44 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,200 Canterbury Cathedral is a grand emblem 45 00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:07,760 of this island's long and complicated relationship 46 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:10,240 with the foreign, from the Romans on. 47 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:16,720 And it's also where you can find a surprising piece of evidence 48 00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:20,960 of our modern fascination with bringing the art and artefacts 49 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:23,320 of the outside world back home. 50 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:31,960 This is one of the few cabinets of curiosities 51 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:34,960 to survive from the 17th century - 52 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:40,160 assembled by an ever-so-curious clergyman, Dr John Bargrave. 53 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:45,760 I've never actually got inside 54 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,600 a real 17th-century cabinet of curiosities before. 55 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,600 All these drawers saying, "Open me." 56 00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:59,080 It's rosary beads. 57 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:00,160 Up here... 58 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:02,520 ..is... 59 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:04,840 Well, it's an animal of some sort. 60 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,920 Underneath is a miniature picture of Dr Bargrave himself. 61 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:20,480 Between 1645 and 1662, Bargrave went several times to Europe - 62 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,360 in particular to France and Italy - 63 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:27,840 recording his journeys, drawing his discoveries 64 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:31,480 and bringing whatever caught his eye back home. 65 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:37,920 This ranged from exotic curios given to him as gifts from far-off lands 66 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:44,880 to bizarre objects that had piqued his curiosity far closer to home. 67 00:04:45,280 --> 00:04:48,280 And this one, a strange object, 68 00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:51,560 which looks a bit like a brown finger. 69 00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:53,200 Can't quite be certain. 70 00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:59,480 Happily, Dr Bargrave left a catalogue of his collection 71 00:05:00,280 --> 00:05:03,880 and this, indeed, is a mummified finger 72 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:06,840 which he picked up in Toulouse. 73 00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:10,480 He was offered, apparently, a mummified baby, 74 00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:15,560 but he decided the mummified baby would be a bit too big, 75 00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:20,560 so he took the finger as being more portable instead. 76 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:22,960 And behind it, as if that's not enough, 77 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:26,720 there's something which I believe is a hippopotamus's tooth. 78 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,720 Bargrave was also quite keen on hacking off little bits 79 00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:38,080 from ancient monuments and bringing them back home. 80 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:42,960 This is a bit he's got from one of the obelisks in Rome 81 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:47,240 and he's had it all polished up and made into the shape of a heart. 82 00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:50,720 But others, he's just left as they were. 83 00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:52,720 Wrapped them up in paper. 84 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:56,560 Here is a tiny little bit of the Colosseum. 85 00:05:57,840 --> 00:05:59,400 And... 86 00:05:59,400 --> 00:06:02,040 ..this one, he names them here... 87 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,720 This is a piece of the ruins 88 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:10,200 of the Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome. 89 00:06:10,200 --> 00:06:12,040 And there's a whole box full 90 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:14,840 of things he's picked off other monuments. 91 00:06:16,280 --> 00:06:18,480 We'd call this vandalism now, I think, 92 00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:20,800 and it's definitely not allowed. 93 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:25,440 Poking around Dr Bargrave's drawers 94 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:29,760 gives us a wonderful glimpse into the 17th-century mind, 95 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:33,600 informed as much by religious faith as scientific enquiry. 96 00:06:35,200 --> 00:06:38,640 And if they already show the beginnings of an interest 97 00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:41,280 skewed towards Italy and Rome, 98 00:06:41,280 --> 00:06:43,080 there is no hierarchy here 99 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:46,960 in the display of the civilisations of the world, 100 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:49,800 and that was precisely the point. 101 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:54,000 What Bargrave is doing in assembling this here, 102 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,000 in bringing it home, 103 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:58,920 is representing, in miniature, 104 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:01,560 the wonders of God's world. 105 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:04,000 The ordinary, the extraordinary, 106 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:05,920 the man-made, the natural, 107 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:08,480 the fakes and the forgeries. 108 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:11,440 And at the same time, with all his objects 109 00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:13,560 and his own personal stories, 110 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:16,600 he's asking an even bigger question, 111 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:19,880 which is, "Where do I fit into all this?" 112 00:07:26,120 --> 00:07:30,400 Only a few decades later, this was one answer to that question. 113 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:35,920 This is Castle Howard in Yorkshire, 114 00:07:35,920 --> 00:07:38,120 home, from the early 18th century, 115 00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:40,760 to the very well-heeled Earls of Carlisle. 116 00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:48,640 Not so much a house as a vast cabinet of curiosities, 117 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,440 now with a very one-track mind. 118 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:54,800 This was no longer a representation of the wonder 119 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:59,480 and variety of God's world, but of the Imperial landscape of Rome. 120 00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:07,200 In the place of fragments chipped off ruins 121 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:09,760 into the damp fields of Yorkshire 122 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:13,400 came full-scale recreations of Roman monuments... 123 00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:15,920 ..mausoleums and temples... 124 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:21,800 ..obelisks. 125 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:26,320 Even pyramids, copied not from Egypt, but from Roman tombs. 126 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:33,200 At its centre was the great house 127 00:08:33,200 --> 00:08:37,440 whose corridors were stuffed with a huge collection 128 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:41,680 of Roman statues or marbles, that the Earls of Carlisle 129 00:08:41,680 --> 00:08:44,560 shipped back to Britain at vast expense 130 00:08:44,560 --> 00:08:47,600 from their Italian Grand Tours. 131 00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:51,600 "Unknown Woman." 132 00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:56,760 "Cato The Elder." 133 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:01,800 However they might look now, 134 00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:05,240 at the time, places like this were mind-blowingly radical 135 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:07,920 and had been put together with a singular vision 136 00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:12,800 that hadn't been seen since the Romans were actually here. 137 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,920 This entire house has been designed to walk you through 138 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,400 the landscape of Ancient Rome - 139 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:23,320 not just from the outside, but on the inside, too, 140 00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,240 which is loaded with busts of emperors, 141 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:28,040 statues of gods 142 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:30,920 and heroes and ancestors, 143 00:09:30,920 --> 00:09:34,120 and any number of Roman worthies, 144 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:37,040 and, sometimes, not-so-worthies. 145 00:09:37,040 --> 00:09:40,360 It's an extraordinary collection of art 146 00:09:40,360 --> 00:09:42,640 acquired with cash and clout 147 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:44,760 on a wholly new scale, 148 00:09:44,760 --> 00:09:49,960 but it's also been co-opted to make a very particular point 149 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:53,840 about Britain's place in history. 150 00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:58,080 You can see it as a massive statement of intent. 151 00:09:58,080 --> 00:09:59,920 It's Britain - 152 00:09:59,920 --> 00:10:05,120 not the tawdry, down-at-heel, slightly louche, modern Italians - 153 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:10,280 it's Britain that's going to be the rightful inheritor 154 00:10:10,280 --> 00:10:14,960 and the true guardian of the traditions of Ancient Rome. 155 00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:17,760 Its power, its empire, 156 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:20,840 its virtue, its culture, 157 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:23,640 and the whole of Roman civilisation. 158 00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,320 And Castle Howard wasn't alone. 159 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:30,280 Aristocrats all over the country 160 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,200 succumbed to what was called Marble Mania - 161 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:35,840 scrambling to co-opt the legacy of Rome 162 00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:38,960 into the service of their own politics and power. 163 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:43,800 It was now the classical world, 164 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:46,280 or at least their reconstruction of it, 165 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:50,880 that was seen to embody the highest state of civilisation. 166 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:52,800 Its art was an ideal of beauty 167 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,320 that would determine the British view 168 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:58,240 of other civilisations for centuries to come. 169 00:11:01,640 --> 00:11:05,320 There's huge self-confidence on display here, 170 00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:09,960 but my feeling is that that's only one side of the story. 171 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:14,360 Power plays like this are often a bit smoke and mirrors, 172 00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:17,720 and this ostentatious extravaganza 173 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,960 is actually a bit more improvised, a bit messier - 174 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:26,440 insecure, even - than it tries to make you think. 175 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:29,080 There are some stunning pieces here. 176 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:31,920 But there's also plenty of the rough and ready. 177 00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:34,360 There's heads on the wrong bodies. 178 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:37,000 There's implausible restorations, 179 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,480 plaster casts and fragments. 180 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:44,040 In fact, it's not quite so far as it might look 181 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,960 from the Cabinet of Dr Bargrave. 182 00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:51,240 It's a projection of power, all right, 183 00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:55,280 and it's a fantastic stage set, but look closer, 184 00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:58,760 and like so many grand displays, 185 00:11:58,760 --> 00:12:02,560 it's built on a ragbag of bits and pieces. 186 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:19,080 This would be the story of how Britain built its collections 187 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:21,520 right up to the 20th century. 188 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:24,560 Not through state sponsorship, like in France, 189 00:12:24,560 --> 00:12:28,200 but through the opportunism and ready cash of individuals, 190 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,320 even at the most ruthless height of Empire. 191 00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:36,160 Nowhere is this clearer than at Powis Castle, 192 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:39,280 home to a unique collection of Indian treasures, 193 00:12:39,280 --> 00:12:41,600 brought back - some would say "stolen" - 194 00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:43,840 at the end of the 18th century, 195 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:47,880 by a governor of the East India Company, Sir Edward Clive, 196 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:51,160 son of Robert, the notorious Clive of India. 197 00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:54,800 Containing around 300 objects, 198 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:59,640 from exquisitely carved ivory chess pieces and playing cards... 199 00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:04,360 ..to ceremonial armour and caches of weapons. 200 00:13:05,560 --> 00:13:08,600 Much of it came here after a single event. 201 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:13,320 The defeat of Tipu Sultan, the last ruler 202 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:17,560 to hold out against British dominance in southern India. 203 00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:30,600 After the interception of a letter to the Sultan from Napoleon, in 1799 204 00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:35,840 the East India Company stormed his city and ransacked his palace. 205 00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:40,720 The Clive family got their hand on 206 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:45,200 quite a bit of the loot of Tipu, and these are just three pieces. 207 00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:50,440 The most notorious is this extraordinary tiger head here. 208 00:13:50,680 --> 00:13:54,840 And the tiger was Tipu Sultan's personal symbol, 209 00:13:54,840 --> 00:14:00,000 and it's got set in it rubies and diamonds and emeralds. 210 00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:05,480 This was one of the attachments to the grand throne of Tipu Sultan 211 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:08,120 which, when the British discovered it, 212 00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:10,600 they dismembered it and stripped it. 213 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:14,840 They took off all the gold. They removed all the decorative bits, 214 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:17,720 and this is just one that survived. 215 00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:22,760 But, for me, the most poignant bit are these slippers of Tipu Sultan. 216 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:27,200 The fact is that the looting of Tipu Sultan 217 00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:31,040 went right down to his dress and even worse. 218 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,480 There's a really horrible story 219 00:14:33,480 --> 00:14:37,600 about a British soldier coming along with a pen knife, 220 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:42,480 just after Tipu Sultan had died, and looting his moustache. 221 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:48,360 It's no coincidence that the very word "loot", 222 00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:51,560 from the Hindustani slang for "to plunder", 223 00:14:51,560 --> 00:14:55,360 was first used in English at this time. 224 00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:59,360 And, in fact, there was so much Tipu loot coming to Britain 225 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:02,360 that the East India Company set up their own museum 226 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,200 for people to come and see it. 227 00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:09,840 One piece, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, 228 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:11,520 was the star attraction. 229 00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:18,400 This is a wonderfully sophisticated curiosity. 230 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:21,880 It's not just a wooden tiger mauling 231 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:24,680 a wooden European soldier. 232 00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:28,120 If you turn that handle, the tiger starts to roar 233 00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:32,440 and the soldier raises his hand and starts to scream. 234 00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:36,320 And what's more, if you take the top of the tiger off, 235 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:39,960 you'll find inside a little portable organ. 236 00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:44,440 It's as if this is a combination of musical instrument, 237 00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:49,360 executive toy and hi-tech 18th-century gadget. 238 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:51,240 But that wasn't the only reason 239 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:54,880 why people came to see this in their thousands. 240 00:15:54,880 --> 00:15:56,840 The fact that it had been part 241 00:15:56,840 --> 00:15:59,880 of the interior decoration of Tipu's palace 242 00:15:59,880 --> 00:16:03,120 meant that, for all its sophistication, 243 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:06,960 it was still proof of Tipu Sultan's savagery. 244 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:10,560 That played into a wider narrative, 245 00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:12,640 because it was at this period 246 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:17,720 that the word "civilisation" first entered the English language 247 00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:23,000 and the ancient contrast between civilisation and barbarity 248 00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:26,200 was reinvented and redeployed 249 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:31,400 to describe modern differences between us and them on the outside. 250 00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:37,680 And that, in turn, served to justify British Imperial takeover, plunder, 251 00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:43,760 or as some people chose to put it, the "civilising mission". 252 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:57,960 Tipu's story tells us that, from the beginning, 253 00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,280 civilisation was a loaded word, 254 00:17:00,280 --> 00:17:04,640 coined with one eye on the Latin word for citizen, "civis", 255 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:09,520 to express a particular Western version of the world order. 256 00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:17,080 But also at the V&A is another work of art, 257 00:17:17,080 --> 00:17:20,280 this time from Japan, which flips that story 258 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:23,360 and reminds us that one person's civilisation 259 00:17:23,360 --> 00:17:25,280 can be another's barbarity. 260 00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:36,560 It's an image of an encounter 261 00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:41,840 between a Western European and Japanese prostitute. 262 00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:45,640 Now, the precise mechanics of what's going on 263 00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:48,120 is a bit difficult to work out, 264 00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:51,800 but, basically, they're at it by an open window 265 00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:54,640 and it looks as if it must be rather wintry weather 266 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:59,400 because they're very wrapped up in all these clothes. 267 00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:04,680 But what's striking for me is how, here, it's the Western European 268 00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:09,120 who's shown as the monstrous barbarian. 269 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:14,320 He's got shaggy, unkempt hair and beard, these starey eyes. 270 00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:18,000 The hand here - his hand with his very long nails - 271 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:21,440 is really more like an animal's claw. 272 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:26,200 and here you've got a bowl of incense smoking away, 273 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:31,280 which probably hints that the guy might be just a bit pongy. 274 00:18:31,400 --> 00:18:34,840 Now, the image is explained to us, really, 275 00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:37,600 in these almost speech bubbles, 276 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:41,760 his and hers, down the side of the picture. 277 00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:46,200 Now, his speech bubble just includes gibberish. 278 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:49,640 And that reminds me of how the Ancient Greeks 279 00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,840 looked at the people they called barbarians. 280 00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:56,600 Because what "barbarian" originally meant 281 00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:58,800 was someone who went, "Baa, baa, baa, baa..." 282 00:18:58,800 --> 00:19:01,840 and you couldn't understand a word they said. 283 00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:06,160 Which is exactly what the woman is saying over here. 284 00:19:06,160 --> 00:19:09,800 "I don't know what you're going on about, but get on with it." 285 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,040 What's absolutely clear here 286 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:16,080 is that this isn't playing to a Western audience. 287 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,520 It's playing to a local, Japanese audience 288 00:19:19,520 --> 00:19:22,880 and the joke, very definitely, is on us. 289 00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:33,960 The word "town hall" doesn't usually conjure up wonder and awe 290 00:19:33,960 --> 00:19:36,240 in most of us, but it should. 291 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,560 By the early 19th century, Britain's engagement with the outside world 292 00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:45,200 helped to transform our city centres, 293 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:49,600 and some of our civic buildings are becoming just as impressive 294 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:51,840 as any aristocratic country house. 295 00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:57,520 In order to bring civilisation to their growing cities, 296 00:19:57,520 --> 00:19:59,960 a new class of wealthy industrialists 297 00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:04,680 invested in architecture in the grandest style, like this. 298 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,520 Home to law courts, a concert hall, 299 00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:14,960 all built from the best British stone, 300 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,440 it was part of a great cultural competition 301 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:22,360 that saw rival towns attempt to outdo each other 302 00:20:22,360 --> 00:20:25,680 in their lavish displays of civic pride. 303 00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:33,600 They, too, looked to the classical world. 304 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,720 This time with their cultural confidence, 305 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,960 self-governance and mercantile wealth 306 00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:44,960 to declare themselves as the new Athens, the new Florence, 307 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:48,920 the heirs of the independent city states of the past. 308 00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:55,000 The industrial world that once surrounded them has long gone, 309 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:59,080 but they still stand as monuments to the civic spirit 310 00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:01,480 of those citizens that built them. 311 00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:12,680 And it didn't stop at public buildings, or at Greece and Rome. 312 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:24,680 Believe it or not, this incredible building in downtown Leeds 313 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:27,160 was once a flax-spinning factory 314 00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,760 built by the Yorkshire mill-owner John Marshall 315 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:34,800 as a replica of the temple of falcon god Horus 316 00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:38,160 in the Ancient Egyptian town of Edfu. 317 00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:47,440 A marriage of Ancient Egyptian culture and British technology, 318 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:52,640 its two-acre roof was covered not only with pyramidal skylights 319 00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:55,960 but also, once upon a time, with grass, 320 00:21:55,960 --> 00:22:00,920 grazed monthly by flocks of sheep that kept the factory floor below 321 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:05,280 at the perfect temperature and humidity to spin the flax. 322 00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:14,160 In 1840, this was the largest single room in the world. 323 00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,080 Housing over 2,000 workers, 324 00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,480 its debt to Egypt was no coincidence. 325 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,600 Flax was an Ancient Egyptian product 326 00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:28,000 that was now to be spun into linen here 327 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:31,120 in a new temple to British industry. 328 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:36,760 THEY MURMUR 329 00:22:46,120 --> 00:22:49,480 That symbolic link between Britain and Egypt 330 00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:53,240 sometimes came out in even more surprising ways. 331 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,840 One of the most beloved exhibits at the Ulster Museum in Belfast 332 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,520 is an Ancient Egyptian mummy. 333 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,600 Another classic piece of British collecting, 334 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,880 it was one of many brought back by enterprising merchants 335 00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:11,520 after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. 336 00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:14,080 There's something very moving, 337 00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:15,880 and almost unnerving, 338 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,000 being up quite so close 339 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:22,080 to the body of this young woman in her mid-20s, 340 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,520 who's very, very far away from her home. 341 00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,800 She was acquired in the city of Luxor in Egypt 342 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,480 in a so-called mummy market 343 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:35,480 by a wealthy local Ulsterman, 344 00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:40,440 whose family had made their cash in the British milling industry 345 00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:44,200 and in the slave plantations of the Americas. 346 00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:48,760 He shipped her back home and gave her to the local museum, 347 00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:53,960 and, in 1835, there was a ceremonial unwrapping of the mummy. 348 00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,680 A slightly prurient occasion, it seems to me. 349 00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:05,720 135 men, and only men, had come to watch. 350 00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:07,760 Now, there were experts on hand. 351 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:09,720 There was the hieroglyphs man, 352 00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:14,720 who explained by looking at the writing on the case 353 00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,920 that her name was Kabuti or Takabuti 354 00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:21,000 and that she had been the daughter of a priest of Amun. 355 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,640 Then were the state-of-the-art 19th-century scientists, 356 00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:29,600 who looked very, very carefully at the shape and form of the skull 357 00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:33,960 and tried to deduce from that what her character must have been. 358 00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,720 It seems completely mad to us, 359 00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,760 but they thought she was an affectionate young person, 360 00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:43,120 slightly risk-averse, not terribly tasteful, 361 00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:46,760 and, for some reason, would have made a good naturalist. 362 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,640 But there were people in the audience who are interested 363 00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:52,280 in something quite different. 364 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:56,840 What struck them was the staggering quality of the linen 365 00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:00,600 in which the body had been wrapped thousands of years ago. 366 00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,640 Now, at this point, Belfast was well on the way 367 00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:09,520 to becoming the linen capital of the British Empire - Linenopolis. 368 00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:14,720 Many people watching had a big stake in that industry. 369 00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,480 What Takabuti gave them and Belfast 370 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:23,360 was a direct connection between their modern city 371 00:25:23,360 --> 00:25:26,600 and the civilisation of Ancient Egypt. 372 00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,080 However tenuous they might have been, 373 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,720 these cultural connections were a sign of the confidence 374 00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:41,120 with which 19th-century Britain was writing itself 375 00:25:41,120 --> 00:25:43,840 into the story of civilisation. 376 00:25:45,840 --> 00:25:48,840 But they also betrayed a deep insecurity 377 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:52,600 about how civilised Britain's cities really were. 378 00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,880 Nowhere was this more apparent than in Manchester 379 00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,360 and its surrounding towns, which, by now, 380 00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:04,800 had become the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution 381 00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,400 and the centre of the global cotton trade, Cottonopolis. 382 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,400 Home to around half a million people, 383 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:31,400 Manchester had been industrialised so quickly that it was described 384 00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,840 not just as the miracle of modern civilisation 385 00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:37,080 from which pure gold flowed, 386 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:41,000 but also, with its belching factories and overcrowded slums, 387 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,800 as "hell on earth", where civilised man 388 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:48,200 was turned back almost into a savage. 389 00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,560 And so, partly as a riposte to the city's reputation 390 00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,800 as a place of profit and exploitation, 391 00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:02,040 Manchester decided to stage what remains to this day 392 00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:06,320 the largest art exhibition ever seen in Britain, 393 00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,760 the Manchester Art Treasures of 1857. 394 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:15,680 But to pull it off, 395 00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,720 they first had to convince Britain's private collectors 396 00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,760 to lend their precious stashes of art, 397 00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,200 in many cases, for the very first time. 398 00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,720 We might not be able to visit the buildings 399 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:31,920 that this exhibition was in, 400 00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,360 but we've got tonnes of evidence 401 00:27:34,360 --> 00:27:38,440 for how these rich men put the whole show together. 402 00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,680 We've got the minutes of the meetings that they held. 403 00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:46,120 They transcribe the letters that they'd received 404 00:27:46,120 --> 00:27:48,520 offering stuff or refusing, 405 00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:52,640 and then they transcribe it all again into ledgers, 406 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,680 object by object and person by person. 407 00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,960 Sometimes they make quite funny reading. 408 00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:03,800 Here, you've got the entry for Lord Lansdowne - 409 00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,440 that's no less than three addresses. 410 00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,240 He says he wishes the exhibition success, 411 00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:11,520 will contribute pictures, but - 412 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,800 and you can almost hear him saying this - 413 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,840 not without great reluctance, his ancient marbles. 414 00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:23,760 Here's the Earl of Carlisle from Castle Howard in Yorkshire. 415 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:25,920 He's definitely coming up trumps 416 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,360 because he promises to lend the pictures 417 00:28:28,360 --> 00:28:31,040 named in the list they sent him, 418 00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:35,720 and those are fine portraits of Snyder by Van Dijk, Velazquez, 419 00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,120 Jackson, a Mignard by himself, 420 00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,400 and it looks as if he's added a bonus ball, 421 00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:45,680 "His Excellency will lend a Zoffany if desired." 422 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,440 But it's at the back that you find the kind of list of shame 423 00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:51,920 of those who decided they weren't going to lend, 424 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,600 even though they are asked. 425 00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,920 There's the Duke of Wellington. 426 00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,960 He declines "on the ground that it may be used 427 00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:03,560 "as a precedent to borrow on all hands 428 00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,160 "and so keep his house empty." 429 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:07,400 Poor love! 430 00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,120 In the end, the call-out was such a success 431 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:21,400 that the exhibition boasted a staggering 16,000, mostly foreign, 432 00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,280 works of art in British hands, 433 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:27,760 from ceramics and sculpture, to prints and paintings. 434 00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,840 Of the 1,173 Old Masters on display, 435 00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,640 there were 93 Spanish works, 436 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:39,720 including Diego Velazquez' 437 00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:41,920 only surviving nude... 438 00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:45,760 ..and almost 200 works 439 00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:47,800 of the Italian Renaissance. 440 00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,240 One of the biggest hits of the show 441 00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,480 was this rare, unfinished painting 442 00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,680 by Michelangelo, which had only just been attributed to him, 443 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,200 and which, ever since, has been known as the Manchester Madonna. 444 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:11,360 And the Earl of Carlisle's painting by Carracci also drew the crowds - 445 00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:16,720 partly, some said, because of its heart-rending displays of grief. 446 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:19,480 Partly, according to others, 447 00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,920 because Louis Napoleon of France 448 00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:26,400 had offered 20 grand to get his hands on it. 449 00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:29,480 But the exhibition also bore witness 450 00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,920 to the emergence of a new kind of cultural confidence. 451 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,600 For alongside the Old Masters 452 00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:41,720 were 689, mostly British, New Masters, 453 00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,440 so called in order to put British art 454 00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:48,120 firmly into the great traditions of the past. 455 00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:53,440 And some of these were as stunning as the old. 456 00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,680 This was one of the big highlights of the show. 457 00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,120 It's John Everett Millais' Autumn Leaves 458 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:04,240 and it's a decidedly eerie exercise in nostalgia. 459 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,680 There are four moody girls stoking a bonfire 460 00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,920 which hasn't quite caught light yet, 461 00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,560 and one of them's got an apple in her hand. 462 00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:18,640 There are more than enough hints here 463 00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,760 that we're to think about death and decay, 464 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,800 innocence lost, and the passing of time. 465 00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,480 I have to confess that when I was a moody teenager, 466 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,600 this was one of my favourite paintings. 467 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:36,120 I rather vainly imagined I looked a bit like the central figure. 468 00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,520 But in the show at Manchester, 469 00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:43,000 you came upon this in the modern British painting section. 470 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,840 You'd walked through earlier European art 471 00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,080 and you experienced that linear development 472 00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:52,480 which takes you to Britain's production now. 473 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,200 And something of that chronological development 474 00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:59,440 was in the mind of the painters, too, 475 00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,880 because Millais was a leading member 476 00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:06,360 of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood of artists 477 00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:10,800 who claimed to be seeking their artistic inspiration 478 00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:15,680 back beyond Raphael, beyond Michelangelo and Leonardo, 479 00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:20,560 at the very earliest wellsprings of the Italian Renaissance. 480 00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:22,800 It's as if they were asserting 481 00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:26,000 that they were rekindling, here in Britain, 482 00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:28,680 the very origins of European art. 483 00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:37,600 Ennobling as all this was, I can't help getting a distinct sniff 484 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,680 of 19th-century paternalism lurking behind the show. 485 00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:46,880 Special trains were laid on by mill-owners, 486 00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:50,080 like Bradford's Titus Salt, to ferry the workers 487 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:53,960 from their "Satanic mills" directly to the exhibition. 488 00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:59,760 Slightly patronising guidebooks were even printed in local dialect, 489 00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,440 perhaps to poke fun at the lower orders, 490 00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,440 perhaps to direct them to the works they might enjoy. 491 00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:10,520 The truth is they weren't all at the level of Michelangelo. 492 00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:19,480 Heaven only knows what workers or farmers, or anybody, really, 493 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:24,080 would have made of this piece of high-brow soft porn. 494 00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:29,000 It's supposed to illustrate a scene from Homer's Odyssey. 495 00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,280 The hero, Odysseus, is being restrained on his ship 496 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,120 to prevent him falling into the clutches 497 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,640 of those temptresses on the beach. 498 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,640 The problem was, if you didn't know your Homer, 499 00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,680 there were no labels in this exhibition 500 00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,720 to explain what anything actually was, 501 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:51,560 and the official catalogue - 502 00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,360 though there were cheaper unofficial ones - 503 00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,040 cost a whole shilling, 504 00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:00,520 which was a big chunk of the average weekly wage. 505 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,720 And that detail alone points 506 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,760 to some rather different undercurrents in the show. 507 00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,840 To be sure, there were some well-intentioned philanthropists 508 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,120 involved who were keen to democratise art 509 00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,760 and to share its treasures with the workers, 510 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:21,360 but philanthropy always has a flip side. 511 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,440 I think it's worth pausing a moment 512 00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,560 and wondering what it might have felt like 513 00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,160 to be one of Titus Salt's workers, 514 00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,800 who, after a long week at the mill, 515 00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:36,800 were corralled into a stuffy train, bundled off to Manchester 516 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,480 and made to enjoy the kind of art 517 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,280 that their master thought they should. 518 00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:50,200 Five months and over a million visitors later, 519 00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:54,640 the exhibition disappeared as quickly as it was staged. 520 00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:57,480 So, to capitalise on its success, 521 00:34:57,480 --> 00:35:01,040 in the late 1860s, Manchester city fathers 522 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,160 commissioned their own civic monument, with a lasting legacy. 523 00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,480 This time, they rejected the classical 524 00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:11,720 for something that felt more British, 525 00:35:11,720 --> 00:35:13,440 although it, too, was foreign. 526 00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:17,520 Seeing themselves as the inheritors 527 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,320 of the medieval textile centres of Europe, 528 00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,560 they modelled their civic palace 529 00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:25,480 on the Gothic guildhalls of Flanders and Germany. 530 00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,280 To decorate its gobsmacking Central Hall - 531 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,160 and gobsmacking is exactly what it is - 532 00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:49,800 they commissioned a series of murals 533 00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:53,280 from the British painter Ford Madox Brown, 534 00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:55,480 to celebrate the history 535 00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:59,960 of their proudly mercantile industrial civilisation. 536 00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,440 The first thing you come to 537 00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,800 is the foundation of Manchester by the Romans, 538 00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,480 and it's true that the Romans did build a fort here, 539 00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,280 but this has been worked up into a very symbolic scene. 540 00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:24,520 Here's the Roman governor and he's got a plan that he's consulting. 541 00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:31,000 We've got a few Roman soldiers here doing some craft bricklaying, 542 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,280 but the guys who are doing the real heavy lifting 543 00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:36,240 are obviously the Brits. 544 00:36:36,240 --> 00:36:40,720 This one, with his splendid tattoos here. 545 00:36:40,720 --> 00:36:43,240 It's as if, right at the very, very beginning 546 00:36:43,240 --> 00:36:45,240 of the history of Manchester, 547 00:36:45,240 --> 00:36:47,640 we have the labouring poor labouring, 548 00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:50,320 but we quickly move on. That's 80 AD. 549 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,560 We quickly move on several centuries to... 550 00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,400 ..this was a key moment in the history of British Christianity, 551 00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,440 the baptism of King Edwin. 552 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,680 This actually happened in York, 553 00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,360 but it's been conscripted to the story of Manchester. 554 00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:12,240 Then we're getting rid of the Danes. 555 00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:14,960 This poor old porker has got caught up 556 00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,160 in the feet of a dead or dying Dane. 557 00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:23,840 And at this point, we're into the 14th century, 558 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:25,480 and the title says, 559 00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,520 "The Establishment Of Flemish Weavers In Manchester." 560 00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:33,760 Now, this is really the start of the weaving and the cotton industry 561 00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:38,280 in this tale. And there's a royal visit coming from the Queen, 562 00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,480 who very much backed the idea of introducing skills 563 00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,000 from the Low Countries. 564 00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,200 Painted on both sides of the hall, 565 00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:52,160 the murals divided Manchester's story into two halves. 566 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:56,320 If, on one side, were the bits of the foreign that the city fathers 567 00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:58,560 wanted to conscript to their story... 568 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,880 ..then on the other were the fruits of British civilisation 569 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,720 that these imports had helped create, 570 00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:11,120 with later Mancunians now picking up the baton. 571 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,400 There was science - 572 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:16,840 the cloth merchant William Crabtree 573 00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:21,320 discovering the transit of Venus above his shop. 574 00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,400 Education - the draper Humphrey Chatham's library and school. 575 00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,080 And technology - John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle 576 00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,000 that revolutionised the weaving industry. 577 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,560 And here, in 1761, 578 00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,320 we're at the opening 579 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:45,520 of one of Manchester's greatest commercial assets, 580 00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:47,320 the Bridgewater Canal, 581 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,440 which brought coal from the Duke of Bridgewater's estates, 582 00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:53,600 his mines on his estates, 583 00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,800 into the centre of the city. 584 00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:57,680 And up here at the back, 585 00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:02,320 there's the Duke of Bridgewater enjoying a quick drink 586 00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,360 at the opening ceremony. 587 00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,440 But, as often with these paintings, 588 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:12,320 these upper-class heroes are there in the picture, 589 00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,160 but they're slightly backgrounded, they're side-lined. 590 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,400 It's as if we're really meant to see 591 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,920 the working people of Manchester centre stage. 592 00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:30,360 Taken as a whole, the Manchester Murals 593 00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,600 brought the native and foreign, 594 00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:34,840 the rich and the poor, together, 595 00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,280 to create a modern and progressive vision of a city 596 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,680 that traded with the world. 597 00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:46,520 In 1877, around the time these paintings were being commissioned, 598 00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:51,080 John Ruskin, one of Britain's most influential art gurus, 599 00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:53,680 remarked that Manchester could 600 00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,000 "produce no good art and no good culture". 601 00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:02,160 In a way, this building and its decoration are a riposte to that. 602 00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:07,320 What the local worthies wanted to see in their town hall 603 00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:12,440 was a history, an identity and a foundation myth for Manchester. 604 00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:18,280 Now, the paintings may seem just a bit cosy to us, 605 00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,080 with their little comic details, 606 00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:25,440 their apparently easy interaction between rich and poor, 607 00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:29,280 and their occasionally rather loose grip on history, 608 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,960 but there are big claims being made here. 609 00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,600 Whatever Ruskin may have thought, 610 00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:39,360 this was a vision of a civilised Manchester, 611 00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,920 and a civilisation based not just on Christianity 612 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:46,560 or a sense of community or philanthropy, 613 00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:51,040 but on trade, on profit, on scientific progress, 614 00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:56,120 on immigration, internationalism and ingenuity. 615 00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:00,160 They were giving us a new vision of culture. 616 00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,240 If the message of the Manchester Murals 617 00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:13,360 was that trade and the profits of trade could lead to art and culture, 618 00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,240 then the poster boy for this story 619 00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:20,040 was one of Ford Madox Brown's principal characters. 620 00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:23,560 Manchester's very own Duke of Bridgewater. 621 00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:27,120 Having made his fortune from the Bridgewater Canal, 622 00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:29,400 he put his money into what would become 623 00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,040 Britain's most famous collection of art. 624 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:38,960 The collection has since been split up, 625 00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:40,600 but its most valuable pieces 626 00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,240 are now in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. 627 00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:47,480 It included some of the most beautiful paintings 628 00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,480 of the Italian Renaissance. 629 00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,400 And as luscious as they all are, 630 00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:58,880 it's this one by Titian that has the best story to tell. 631 00:41:58,880 --> 00:42:02,320 This painting now looks completely at home here, 632 00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,360 but, actually, this is only its most recent stop 633 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,840 on a much more tortuous journey. 634 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:12,280 It's one of a series of canvases depicting classical myth 635 00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:15,560 painted by Titian in the 16th century, 636 00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,120 for the man who was then effectively the ruler of the Western world, 637 00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:22,000 Philip II of Spain. 638 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:26,280 They're all of them dripping with luxury, 639 00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,280 with female flesh dressed up in classical learning, 640 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,000 and with the power of monarchy. 641 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,840 And as some of the most sought-after paintings anywhere, 642 00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,480 they were soon on the move. 643 00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,360 Some of the series went into the hands of other European monarchs, 644 00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:47,200 from Queen Christina of Sweden to the Archduke of Austria. 645 00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:51,480 This one was almost bagged by Charles I, 646 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,960 but then it was given by Philip V of Spain to the French ambassador, 647 00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,400 who gave it to the Royal Collection of France. 648 00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:00,640 In the late 18th century, 649 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,200 considerably helped by the French Revolution, 650 00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:06,400 Bridgewater managed to acquire it 651 00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:11,200 as part of a job lot of hundreds of other Old Masters. 652 00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:16,480 Traditional aristocracy of Europe was snobbishly outraged 653 00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:19,520 at the idea that some Northern industrialist 654 00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:23,920 could hoover up their art treasures just cos he gotta lot of ready cash! 655 00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,360 Well, the complaint was not unlike 656 00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:31,560 what you now sometimes hear about "our treasures" ending up in Doha. 657 00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,840 But the basic rule is and always has been 658 00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,120 that masterpieces follow power and money. 659 00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:42,480 The men who rule the world 660 00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:44,880 get to own the Titians. 661 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:52,640 By the end of the 19th century, 662 00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,920 you no longer had to go abroad to see the civilisations of the world. 663 00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:01,360 They were here. It was thanks to the success of exhibitions 664 00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,280 like the Manchester Art Treasures 665 00:44:03,280 --> 00:44:06,840 that museums and galleries were opened or enlarged 666 00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,600 right across the country. 667 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:14,600 And with a substantial injection of cash to help them acquire art, 668 00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:18,400 Britain's collections began to change hands for the first time 669 00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:21,280 from the private to the public. 670 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:24,760 Collecting and displaying the world's treasures 671 00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,160 had now become central to Britain's public sense 672 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,200 of what it meant to be civilised. 673 00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,280 But this would soon lead to questions... 674 00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:42,400 ..kicked off by one painting in particular, 675 00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:46,520 one of the stars of the Manchester exhibition, The Rokeby Venus. 676 00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:54,240 So called because it once graced the walls of Rokeby Park 677 00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:56,200 in County Durham, 678 00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,880 it was acquired for the nation in 1906 679 00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:03,000 for the vast sum of £45,000 - 680 00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,840 what would now be a multi-million-pound price tag - 681 00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,960 and it's been on display in the National Gallery ever since. 682 00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,680 At first sight, the composition is very simple. 683 00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:20,360 There's Venus, the goddess of love, 684 00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:25,240 with her back to us here, and her little son Cupid, with his wings, 685 00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:28,520 is holding up a mirror for his mum. 686 00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:34,880 But it isn't at all as simple as it might at first appear. 687 00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,880 One question is, who's Venus looking at? 688 00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:42,320 Is it the viewer, us, outside the painting? 689 00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,480 Or is she completely wrapped up in herself? 690 00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,520 It really is a "who's looking at who?" kind of painting 691 00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:53,680 and it's been one of the star attractions 692 00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,320 of the gallery since it arrived. 693 00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:00,200 People used to call it Our Venus, 694 00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:03,200 but it's also become famous for another reason. 695 00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,280 In March 1914, Mary Richardson, 696 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,640 a militant suffragette, 697 00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,600 smuggled a meat cleaver into the gallery, 698 00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,800 came up to this Venus, 699 00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,480 and repeatedly slashed it. 700 00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:29,440 Over the next four months, 701 00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:33,880 a further 13 works of art were attacked by nine different women. 702 00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,000 But it was the attack on "Our Venus" 703 00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:42,040 by "Slasher Mary", as she was called, 704 00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:44,640 that caused the most public outrage, 705 00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,320 and which, as she herself later explained, 706 00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,280 had the most pointed message. 707 00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:54,600 The question is, why did she do it? 708 00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:56,880 Modern viewers tend to assume 709 00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:01,760 that she was attacking the objectification of female flesh, 710 00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:05,000 but that is not what she said at the time, 711 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,240 which was much more fundamentally political. 712 00:47:08,240 --> 00:47:12,720 She was attacking the celebrity status of this painting, 713 00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:15,760 the veneration that was lavished upon it, 714 00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:19,400 and the enormous cost that it had taken to acquire it 715 00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,640 when real-life women and children 716 00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:27,320 were being oppressed, exploited and excluded. 717 00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:31,400 Richardson was raising the question that we must still face. 718 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,240 What is the value of the painted body 719 00:47:35,240 --> 00:47:39,160 versus the living human body? 720 00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:44,400 Ultimately, she was challenging conventional assumptions 721 00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,680 about what civilised society was all about. 722 00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:57,400 It wasn't just the financial and moral value of art 723 00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:02,160 that was called into question. So, too, were the cultural assumptions 724 00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,080 that underpinned its display. 725 00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:08,360 The Pitt Rivers in Oxford 726 00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,840 is one of the most eccentric, eclectic, wonderful, 727 00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:17,120 but also slightly unsettling museums in the country. 728 00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:22,360 Founded in 1884 by the British Army officer, General Pitt Rivers, 729 00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:25,000 and added to ever since, 730 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,880 the collection now includes objects from all over the world, 731 00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:31,520 from the ordinary to the extraordinary. 732 00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,000 First curated when, on the back of Empire, 733 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:41,120 Britain's confidence in its own civilisation was at its highest, 734 00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:45,120 here, objects were organised not by geography 735 00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,560 but by type, so as to demonstrate 736 00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:52,600 the development of artefacts from the simple to the complex, 737 00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,120 and of world cultures from the primitive 738 00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,520 to the civilised. 739 00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:03,000 Even children's toys are part of this vision of culture. 740 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,280 There is an amazing one here which is from Borneo, 741 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:10,720 and it's actually a little monkey skull which has been painted. 742 00:49:10,720 --> 00:49:12,760 The eyes have been filled in 743 00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:17,560 and there is a cord on the top so you could swing it around. 744 00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:21,480 It was apparently taken from a child in Borneo 745 00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:25,560 who was using it to pretend to be a head-hunter, 746 00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:30,040 and the old label says that that headhunting 747 00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:35,280 was "an occupation followed in grim earnest by adult warriors" there. 748 00:49:37,240 --> 00:49:40,320 Now, I'm sure the label writer is trying to warn us 749 00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,120 about the dangers of headhunting. 750 00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:46,680 For us, it's hard not to feel sorry for the child 751 00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:48,640 who's had his toy taken away. 752 00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:55,600 It's very different, of course, today, 753 00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:57,440 but the founders of this museum 754 00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:59,960 used the emerging science of anthropology 755 00:49:59,960 --> 00:50:04,040 to put different cultures on a sliding scale of evolution. 756 00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,360 They created a narrative 757 00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:09,560 to put the "civilised" West at the top, 758 00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:11,640 and those they would have called "savages", 759 00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:14,720 trapped in a state of arrested development, below. 760 00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:23,640 This is just part of the collection of model boats 761 00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,440 and there's a very splendid one in front of me. 762 00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:31,240 Written on it, it says that it was from New Guinea 763 00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:34,240 and it was collected by Beatrice Blackwood, 764 00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:36,560 who was one of the curators here, 765 00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:40,480 who travelled far and wide to collect this material. 766 00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:44,720 There's a story of her when she goes to the Solomon Islands 767 00:50:44,720 --> 00:50:46,960 also looking for model boats 768 00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,560 and she rejects one that's offered to her, 769 00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:55,720 because she discovers that it had been made using European tools 770 00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,080 and European paint, 771 00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:00,880 and she wanted something that was, 772 00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:03,680 in her head, absolutely native. 773 00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,320 But the natives didn't have quite the same idea. 774 00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:19,720 One thing that story shows is how, back then, 775 00:51:19,720 --> 00:51:24,200 some museums, at least, were actively editing their collections 776 00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:28,040 to suit a very particular imperial world view, 777 00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:32,840 but others built theirs along very different lines. 778 00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:35,960 In the early 20th century, 779 00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:37,920 the World Museum in Liverpool 780 00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,800 was assembling Britain's most extensive collection of African art, 781 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:47,280 much of it coming here thanks to one man, Arnold Ridyard. 782 00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:52,120 A chief engineer of the Elder Dempster shipping line, 783 00:51:52,120 --> 00:51:55,480 between 1895 and 1916, 784 00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:00,120 Ridyard made 77 voyages to the West Coast of Africa, 785 00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:04,400 each time bringing back hundreds of artefacts for the museum. 786 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,240 But what made his collections different 787 00:52:09,240 --> 00:52:14,160 was that many of the objects were given by African donors, 788 00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:18,600 whose names were meticulously inscribed in the museum's records. 789 00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:25,520 From tribal chiefs and traders, to lawyers and local governors, 790 00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:27,560 these donors were Creoles, 791 00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,400 Christian descendants of freed slaves 792 00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,440 who had been resettled in West Africa. 793 00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:39,120 And their donations reflected the realities of that world, 794 00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:43,200 influenced by both European and African civilisation. 795 00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:06,360 These donors were the successful products of Empire 796 00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:09,320 and they wanted to leave their mark 797 00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:13,720 on the way people in Britain saw the cultures of Africa 798 00:53:13,720 --> 00:53:16,680 in their museums and galleries. 799 00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,960 They wanted to change the then dominant image 800 00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:23,640 of innocence or primitivism or even savagery, 801 00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:26,840 and they wanted to leave the mark of a modern Africa. 802 00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:30,640 In short, they wanted to change our narrative. 803 00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:47,400 And it wasn't just a narrative of the civilised and the savage 804 00:53:47,400 --> 00:53:50,640 that these donors wanted to challenge, 805 00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,240 but also the aesthetic value of African art. 806 00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:57,760 Up to then, objects like these 807 00:53:57,760 --> 00:53:59,560 were considered curios 808 00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:03,200 of colonised cultures, not art. 809 00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:06,360 And if the Manchester Art Treasures had made a gesture to India 810 00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:09,520 and the Middle East with an Oriental court, 811 00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,800 nothing at all from Africa had been included. 812 00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:22,200 One of Ridyard's major donors was the London-trained barrister 813 00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:27,440 from Freetown in Sierra Leone, Claudius Dionysius Hotobah During. 814 00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:30,520 Why did he donate? 815 00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,120 It was the height of the Empire, it was a colonial world, 816 00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,120 and maybe he wanted to show the world that Africa could produce 817 00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,000 something aesthetic and of value, 818 00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:43,640 when perhaps it wasn't deemed possible at the time 819 00:54:43,640 --> 00:54:46,480 that there was anything of great artistic value 820 00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:49,520 coming out from Africa - that's what I suspect may have been the reason 821 00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,920 that he donated. He chose, I think, the pieces very carefully. 822 00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,040 They're beautifully carved in wood. 823 00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,880 And he thought it was a worthwhile thing to do, as a young student, 824 00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:01,120 maybe to give something to the country he was studying in. 825 00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:03,640 I think, certainly, culturally, 826 00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,240 he thought it was a good way of sharing 827 00:55:06,240 --> 00:55:08,440 the art of Africa with England. 828 00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:18,680 As a Christian Creole, 829 00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:21,800 Hotobah During may also have been trying to show 830 00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:25,480 that the art of non-Christian African cultures 831 00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:29,120 had as much sophistication and aesthetic power 832 00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,000 as any other piece of art in our national collections. 833 00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:36,280 That's a good way of bringing it home, 834 00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:38,000 that Africa's NOT so different. 835 00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:41,120 And yet, it's difficult in a good way, in a positive way. 836 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:43,160 You have strong cultures and strong traditions 837 00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,000 which perhaps had been misunderstood. 838 00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:46,760 Perhaps by bringing it to England, 839 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:49,440 people will be able to understand them better. 840 00:55:49,440 --> 00:55:52,640 It's a world culture, as well. There's only one world. 841 00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:56,760 And, perhaps, the museums are a melting pot of that culture. 842 00:56:01,240 --> 00:56:05,120 For me, that story sums up the many complex ways 843 00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:08,120 in which Britain has become a repository 844 00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,760 of the art and artefacts of the world. 845 00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,240 The products of Empire, once here, 846 00:56:14,240 --> 00:56:17,720 have become ambassadors for their cultures. 847 00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:21,680 They've opened British eyes to other civilisations 848 00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,400 and created new ways of seeing, 849 00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:28,880 that continue to amaze and educate the millions of us 850 00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:32,160 who will never have the chance to travel the globe. 851 00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:37,200 They also force us to ask more difficult questions 852 00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:39,040 about how they got here, 853 00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,880 about the cultural assumptions - even exploitation - 854 00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,640 that lay beneath their appropriation into our world. 855 00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:51,360 And, ultimately, about what British civilisation is. 856 00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,680 The answers will, I'm sure, continue to change, 857 00:56:55,680 --> 00:57:00,840 but the questions do point to one universal truth about civilisation, 858 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,200 best summed up in the story of what was once 859 00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,120 one of our most famous national monuments. 860 00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,960 First built by the Romans, by the late 19th century, 861 00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:18,720 London Bridge had become the gateway to what many people here assume 862 00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:21,400 to be the centre of the civilised world. 863 00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:29,400 Yet, in 1967, it was put up for auction, 864 00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:33,240 bought by an American oil tycoon for $2.5 million 865 00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:37,080 and shipped, granite piece by granite piece, to Arizona, 866 00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:40,560 where it was rebuilt by the developer of Disneyland 867 00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,400 to bring a bit of civilisation to the American desert. 868 00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:50,720 Inaugurated in 1971, 869 00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:55,400 at an event attended by the Lord Mayor of London himself, 870 00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:57,640 it offers a final twist 871 00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,000 to the story of OUR civilisation. 872 00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:04,920 We had now become the "other", 873 00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,600 and just as we had done to other great civilisations, 874 00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,640 Britain had now been commodified, shipped off 875 00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:15,360 and repackaged on the other side of the world. 876 00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:18,480 # London Bridge was taken down 877 00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:21,400 # Piece by piece and shipped away 878 00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:23,880 # London Bridge has now gone up 879 00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:29,160 # In the USA! # 880 00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:39,680 I guess what this tells us is that civilisation's always on the move. 881 00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:43,240 It's always going...somewhere else. 882 00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:46,040 # It's not just like anywhere 883 00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:48,800 # Everyone will pass by there 884 00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,880 # And if you go there and enquire 885 00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,720 # You'll get your wish, your heart's desire 886 00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:57,360 # For London Bridge was taken down 887 00:58:57,360 --> 00:59:00,400 # Piece by piece and shipped away 888 00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:03,240 # London Bridge has now gone up 889 00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:08,520 # In the USA! #