Hello I'm Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum.
In view of the global health crisis, Covid 19, we've decided to look into the
collection of the British Museum to identify objects that tell us about
crisis in the past and how people in the past have reacted to these crises that
have transformed their lives, how they have managed to prevail, how they've
managed to adapt and sometimes to falter. Today I have the great privilege of
welcoming my colleague Hugo Chapman, keeper of the Prints and Drawings
department of the British Museum and let's jump right in Hugo and my first
question is obviously what object or what objects have you chosen?
Well, the works that I've chosen from Prints and Drawings actually address it in quite a
literal way, the idea of crisis, because immediately I thought of what what our
health and what a health crisis does, which is makes us very much aware of our
own bodies so the first one I selected it's two heads by Albrecht Durer these
two drawings are very like a lot of Durer's works are dated and also signed
with his characteristic monograph. They're dated 1503 and one of them
has got an inscription which I hope you can read rather than me, your German
accent being slightly better than mine!
Well let's jump straight to the English translation,
what does it say and what does it tell us about illness? how do we
know that these drawings address the question of the personal experience of of illness?
The translation is 'I produce these two admirable faces in my sickness' in my krankheit.
I mean we don't know what that illness was in 1503
but if one thinks, I mean you know, in the mid 1490s a third of Nuremberg
population was killed by the plague I mean obviously death and was
was all around in a way that I don't think we feel it quite so close although
what's something like Covid makes one very aware of one's mortality which is I
suppose why I made this selection but it is very kind of notable that Durer
in that illness wants to make these these heads very close up in charcoal.
A very kind of I suppose if you were kind of feeling weak charcoal as a very
easy drawing technique to use it's not like silver point you just sort of pick
up a stick in it it goes on the paper very quickly but they are you know
especially the head of Christ with his extraordinary thorns digging into
Christ's head reminds me, puts me in mind of Grunewald's crucified Christ
made about 10 years later and of course Grunewald's painting the Isenheim
altarpiece was made for a hospital again a place where you were suffering and
you looked at Christ suffering in order to kind of think about mortality and to
kind of become closer to Christ through the pain that you were suffering.
Looking at the drawing Hugo would you be able to say that he drew this in his 'Krankheit', in his sickness?
Well I don't think I would I mean all I could say is that this is a drawing that's been done with a great
been drawn with kind of great speed and
fluency you know this is not an image that he's spent a lot of time on
this sort of comes out of him and in a very in a very direct way they both
seem to been drawn that their broad in their effect I mean they're very very
beautiful and and it's rather interesting the changes in perspective
you're seeing the head of Christ from from below and then the head of the
man with his mouth open as if you're kind of on the same level slightly above
him but I think I mean I wouldn't you know there's no sign that
have come of his hand in any way being kind of impaired by his illness.
It would be interesting to to know if you've collected anything more recent
that that also speaks to the experience of a personal health crisis.
Well actually you reminded me of this drawing which is by the French artist Nicolas Poussin.
Although some people deny it's Poussin, it's a red short drawing
showing a man staring straight at us with a kind of cap on his head his face
rather kind of arch and he's got a rather kind of disgusted expression on
his face and below is an early 18th century inscription that says it was
done by Poussin in a mirror and he made it following a disease in around 1630 and
we know from one of his biographers that around that period but for over a year
he suffered from what the biographer delicately said was the French disease
which is we know from our present-day predicament we always love to blame
other countries for diseases so the French disease in Italy was Syphilis
there is an involuntary expression of illness in his later work because he
suffered from from Parkinsons and that obviously had an impact later on
especially on his on his drawings where we would see that the hand was
no longer as steady as it used to be, right?
That's true, no, his later drawings
of which there are some in the museum are very, very tremulous and shaky and you
feel that that a real sense of him kind of struggling to to make a line and and
it's you know it's, one, kindof, really feels that physical infirmity and
it's very moving to see him continuing to draw despite the physical discomforts.
And the, I think the drawing that you've brought along more recent drawing
also falls into that category of the artist using his own body as a subject
but at the same time also to document a crucial moment and again marked by health crisis.
That's right this is a drawing by the British artist Michael Landy,
which was done in 2005 so he's in his forties and
it records his orchidectomy, the removal of his left testicle and so it's him
staring down with colored pencils between his legs to record the scar just
just the shaving of it of his pubic hair his his is very kind of kind of bruised
looking member and then his very, very pale legs and it's amazing
drawing. I mean it's big drawing the other the other two drawings are really
quite small they are sort of 20 centimetres high this is you know this is almost
60 centimetres by by 80 over 80 centimetres a wide so it's a it's a large drawing
but he doesn't use all the paper and that's interesting he sort of cuts it
off so just you know is his penis is the subject this and and then the fact that
it looks different because he's had his left testicle, he's got his scar and it's
all rendered with extraordinary kind of with beautiful precision worthy of
worthy of Durer himself
to make a record of his changed body it is it is quite a kind of difficult
drawing to look at, you know it is sort of you know he's confronting, this
was a cancer that almost you know to took me away and took part of me away
and rather delicate parts of it so it's a it's a it's a very unflinching drawing
and and of course it touches upon there's absolutely archaic
fears of of castration and at the same time it's it is an incredible document of artistic prowess.
Well I think, you know, it comes back to the Poussin,
it and the Poussin and in a way the Durer too are all drawings to say 'I have survived this'
And at the same time to speak of your own vulnerability.
Absolutely, I think all all of these drawings while addressing a particular the
particularity of their own experiences also reach out and speak to
us because all of us have been ill and all of us are aware of the fragility of
life and nothing like a health crisis like Covid to remind us that tomorrow we we may be gone.
I'm, you know, very excited by the idea of looking at what Covid
produces in terms of artist reaction to it and I'm sure as is often the way it's
often a little bit you know kind of delayed as it kind of seeps
through the artistic imagination like kind of water through bedrock but that you
know I'm sure there's going to be greater art that comes out in this
crisis and I you know I hope we will collect some of it because this is an
extraordinary moment in human history.
I'm sure Hugo you will, you and your
colleagues who've been so great in in detecting you know significant
developments in contemporary art and making sure that at the British Museum
future generations will be able, through what you have collected, to document what this
time was like and how people felt as
individuals and as communities. Perhaps we leave it at that, Hugo
and I would really like to thank you for this extraordinary moment of
looking at drawings, looking at works thinking about how they how they
document some very profound human experiences and help us to reflect on
them and use them if you like as energy to to move beyond and I would
like to thank our listeners our audience for following this conversation
Yes and also to say to them when we do reopen, the study rooms do reopen and
of course these drawings will be accessible and you know we love to share our
our drawings both digitally but also physically with everyone.
Wonderful, we all can't wait to be back.
Thank you for listening and if you liked it
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Thank-you very much indeed.