[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER 1: So here we are
looking at William Holman Hunt's "Claudio and Isabella"
from 1850 in Tate, Britain. This is 1850. So it's two years
after the formation of the pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood. So we've got real, pure
pre-Raphaelite style here. SPEAKER 2: Not just
style, but in terms of subject matter, also, right? SPEAKER 1: How integrated
text and image are here, that there's text on the top of
the frame that has Claudius's line, "Death is
a fearful thing." And Isabella's, "And a
shamed life, a hateful." SPEAKER 2: And then
below, in a beautiful kind of Medieval script,
"Measure for Measure." SPEAKER 1: The Shakespeare
play that this is from. And so what's happening,
is that Claudio has been arrested, a little
bit under false charges, for impregnating his mistress. SPEAKER 2: Though
they're engaged. SPEAKER 1: Right. Claudio's sister, Isabella,
is about to become a nun. And the man who's arrested
and imprisoned Claudio, has said, well, maybe if your
sister agrees to sleep with me, maybe I'll release
you from prison. SPEAKER 2: And she refuses
to give away her virginity. And remember, she's
about to enter a nunnery. SPEAKER 1: Right. She's very chaste,
she's very devout. This has been interpreted as
the moment when Claudio appeals to Isabella to save his life. And she refuses, although
there are somewhat differing interpretations about
exactly what moment this is. SPEAKER 2: I think there's
ambiguity even in his reaction, right? But what's interesting
for me is that Hunt has chosen this really
high-pitched moral moment, where we don't know which
way it's going to go. And in a sense, we
have to ask ourselves, how would we act in that moment. SPEAKER 1: It's that key moment,
a thing that pre-Raphaelites love to do, that
totally pregnant moment. When I'm looking
at that back light and I see that cherry tree
behind them, that's in bloom. And then did you notice
what's between them? SPEAKER 2: There's that
little spire of a church. SPEAKER 1: Right that
kind of rose between them. And so, you can't
really blame Claudio for asking his sister
to betray her chastity and her vows, because he's going
to die, and give his life up for nothing. And you can't blame
her, either, for not wanting to do what
she's asked to do. SPEAKER 2: And look at the
way that he's portrayed her, the look of concern
on her face-- SPEAKER 1: And sympathy. SPEAKER 2: --is extraordinary. She's got her hands
over his heart. SPEAKER 1: She's comforting him. SPEAKER 2: There's
this tremendous sense of responsibility
that she feels. SPEAKER 1: And I'm noticing
how close everything is to us, these two figures. That wall of the prison behind. And actually, I think , Hunt
visited a prison in order to paint it directly from life. SPEAKER 2: There's an incredible
amount of attention and detail in the rendering, even
of the insignificant. I mean, that's what's
so extraordinary is the focus is not simply on the
hands, it's not on the face. In fact, one could even argue
that the face is somewhat de-emphasized. Claudio's face is
in shadow as it looks at us, which is a
really interesting choice. He's in front of
a brighter window. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, they're back
lit, which is very strange. SPEAKER 2: It's
extremely unusual. But what that means
is that there's a very, very even light
throughout the entire image, which allows our eye to
meander down both their bodies, beyond the hands, down
his legs to the shackle. And then, as much attention
is lavished on the chain, on the boards of the
floor, on the brick that is exposed in the window frame. SPEAKER 1: On the
moss that seems to be growing on the stone. SPEAKER 2: Look at the
vividness of that stone in back of the lyre. I mean, you can really
see the age and the wear. SPEAKER 1: All of this is this
idea that the pre-Raphaelites have of not using
academic formulas, and this return to nature. And a return to the
Renaissance primitives, the pre-Raphaelites. SPEAKER 2: So before Raphael. SPEAKER 1: Right, looking at
northern Renaissance painting, looking at the history
of art before things became kind of so
easy and formulaic. And when artists were,
in a way, discovering nature for the first time
again after the Middle Ages. If we look at the
color, it's nothing like we would see in
Royal Academy paintings before the pre-Raphaelites. SPEAKER 2: The purple
of his velvet leggings, the red of his velvet
and fur-lined tunic. And then what I find
most extraordinary is the color of her
presumably white robes. There's no white in any of that. SPEAKER 1: No, there's blues and
greens and yellows and golds. This is a kind of depth
and intensity of color that would never
have been possible before the pre-Raphaelites. SPEAKER 2: So what
that does for me is it creates a kind of
visual parallel to the intensity of the emotion
that's being represented here. And in the sense of
the emotional dilemma that's being presented here. SPEAKER 1: Yeah. [MUSIC PLAYING]