France, 1400 AD.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 453.

Towers, battlements, a castle - we've come to the middle ages, and the time of chivalry. Now the world is becoming smaller, artists are travelling around and meeting one another – and we're beginning what's called rather pompously - an international style.

The very rich (Book of) Hoursof the Duke of Berry is sure to be a luxurious title for the sunniest middle ages ever painted. Gentry play, happy peasants' toil-it's the rich man's view. And that's Duke of Berry was.

After a thousand years non-religious themes in art have reappeared. And Limbourg brothers painted the Duke's property - castles, lands and peasants, so life in a peace prevoke.

The only castle painted by the Limbourgs would survive today is (Château de) Saumur in Maine-et-Loire valley.

What do we see when we look at this enchanting picture? Well, what the Duke of Berry saw was a page on a most splendid manuscript ever owed by royal prince. And one can imagine him in a bored church looking at these magnificent pictures. This is the month of august from a calendar at the beginning of the book. And it's a miraculous picture because it gives just what he wants.

There's the castle, one of his 17 castles, all purely and gleaming in the light. And here're other courtiers on splendid horses, perhaps the Duke himself on that white horse, are hoking in all that glory of attire. But because the Limbourgs are great artists – they don't just give the duke what he wants he give they actually saw. And they saw these fields and the river, and the peasants swimming, mother naked, unembarrassed, falling in the water. So, in the front the courtiers – living, apparently, the good life. This is august, remember, very hot, they're closed to the neck, in rich tight clothes, look at the women's wastes. They're on these horses following a game of ride hoking -but it's the rules of the game and even those who are quite nude in the back, there're rules for exchanging love looks. So, it's a very constricted life, life being looked at. Where are the peasants, they're free, they`re happy. Which is better of – the Limbourgs might be asking? Is this double-level that I find so marvelous in all that the Limbourgs do? An my favourite painting, I think, is this one. February. Because at first you're to see it's comic. Here is the lady of the house, the peasant lady, warming her underpants before the fire, modestly averting her gaze of the man of the house, who are warming there lack of underpants before the fire. And this`s ability truly to look without fixed ideas of what is fitting that makes great painting.

The Middle Ages was actually a dreadful time of war and disease. Plague probably killed the Limbourgs and the Duke of Berry. While, in England the first Poll Tax caused the peasant rebellion. King Richard II survived - This only to be deposed and imprisoned.

The Wilton Diptych, today got by the National gallery, was painted for him by forgotten artist, perhaps his last comfort in this dark dungeon.

At first sight it's perfectly conventional, but when you take a second look you realize that everybody in this picture is either pointing towards or looking at the least significant figure - young king Richard II, except for other that din angel at the back that has quite certain got the idea, and the idea is a political idea, because Richard was a disastrous king for them. He was handsome and brave but he never a kind made it, he had not the charisma that makes a leader, and all his life he had to struggle against the rejections by his people. For one thing, he didn't want to fight the French which greatly upset the English, and at the end, shortly after that was painted he was deposed and died in suspicious circumstances.

So you can see what he wants here. He wants to convince himself – and this became a kind of linch pinof his kingship that it didn't matter what people thought, all that matter what was Heaven thought. You couldn't unking a king, he was born such and he's showing all the powers of Heaven along his side, that even that vulgar touch.. and the angels are actually wearing his badge of White Hart, if we think that it is Union Jack, you see how very, very close that is. But it comforted him. And you can imagine poverty, rejected and depressed, popping this icon up as he noted to say his prayers and remembering that even his people didn't love him, the power of Heaven did.

In the story so far, we've spent centuries and continents. But in the next program our story becomes focused on one man-his name is Giotto.