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00:00As a boy, I used to come with my parents to Glasgow Cathedral every Easter.
00:09I knew all about the crucifixion thanks to my illustrated children's Bible.
00:15And in its pages, the story of Good Friday was set in a place
00:19that looked very Hollywood, with a blonde, blue-eyed leading man.
00:24My understanding of the Easter story began with these images.
00:29I was the son of a painter, and now I'm one too.
00:33Growing up, I learnt all about Christ's sacrifice through the work of great artists.
00:39I noticed that most of them had one thing in common.
00:44They hadn't left home.
00:46It was clear that hundreds of years ago,
00:48artists had to guess what the Holy Land looked like,
00:51and what they painted looked suspiciously European.
00:56In this holy week, I'm making my own very personal pilgrimage.
01:01Don't run out of paper.
01:03I've come to draw and paint the faces and places
01:06where the Easter story actually happened.
01:09This is epic stuff, isn't it?
01:11Seeing is believing.
01:13As an artist, it's my job to look at the world
01:16and to see things a little differently.
01:18All of it happened amidst this kind of noise and interruptions and unexpected chaos.
01:24I've brought along some of the masterpieces
01:26that gave me my first ideas about Christ's last days.
01:31Now I want to discover if seeing the Holy Land with my own eyes
01:35changes my understanding of the Bible story.
01:39Standing here on holy ground,
01:41will I be moved by the same places that inspired those amazing artists
01:45who came before me to illustrate the greatest story ever told?
01:54My interest in visiting the Holy Land really began in France.
02:00As a boy, I spent many summers here on the coast of Brittany,
02:05where my mother was born.
02:08But it wasn't all just buckets and spades and lazy days by the beach.
02:15I was always off visiting churches with my dad.
02:20He loved the atmosphere of these sacred buildings.
02:27This chapel, he saw something that helped inspire him
02:31to become a painter of religious subjects.
02:34It was, for him, a kind of vision.
02:37And there it is.
02:39It kick-started a whole series of Easter paintings.
02:44And here are some sketches that my father made of this very sculpture,
02:49standing on this spot 30 years ago.
02:52And I suspect that as a boy,
02:55I was probably nearby looking over his shoulder
02:58as he traced these marks.
03:01My dad repeatedly depicted this scene,
03:05the crucifixion in his work, again and again.
03:08And in doing so,
03:10he joined the ranks of so many artists in history
03:13who have been obsessed with this subject.
03:24Dad painted all these without ever seeing this.
03:30I've come here to paint and draw in the actual places
03:34where the Easter story happened.
03:36At home, the colours can be grey and drab.
03:39Here in the Middle East, it's a whole new palette of golden sunshine.
03:46As an artist, I don't only paint what I see, but what I feel.
03:50And this place is intense.
03:53This puts the whole stories of the Bible onto a whole other level.
03:59This is the original wilderness, isn't it?
04:03The original wilderness.
04:05Isn't it beautiful?
04:09Really, really beautiful.
04:16It transports you.
04:18And I guess that's what faith is all about.
04:23We call this the Holy Land because it's given us three religions
04:28that all worship one God.
04:31Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
04:35Muslims and Christians acknowledge the existence
04:38of a prophet called Jesus.
04:41The life of that man would eventually inspire great faith
04:44and great art for Christians.
04:47Jesus wasn't just a historical figure made out of literal facts.
04:52He was the son of God and a worker of miracles.
04:59The most famous miracle in the Easter story
05:02is Jesus' return from the dead.
05:04But there's another miracle that set the scene
05:07for the events of Holy Week.
05:09It's called the Transfiguration,
05:11and some say it happened on this mountain in Galilee, northern Israel.
05:16It's after this moment that the disciples realise
05:19their leader is the son of God.
05:23Jesus was now a celebrity,
05:25a thorn in the side of the religious authorities.
05:28The countdown had begun to his death on the cross
05:31a few weeks later on Good Friday.
05:34Jesus and three of his disciples came up here
05:37on what was shaping up to be just another day.
05:40But as they reached the summit,
05:42according to my children's illustrated Bible,
05:45something strange happened.
05:47Jesus' face began to shine like the sun
05:50and his clothes were white as light.
05:53Suddenly, beside him there appeared the Old Testament prophets
05:57Moses and Elijah,
05:59and as the apostles fell to the ground,
06:01they heard the voice of God declaring,
06:04this is my beloved son.
06:07As a boy, I loved this magical picture,
06:10but it was a real masterpiece that shaped my understanding
06:14of what miracles looked like.
06:16On this trip, I've brought along
06:18some of my favourite religious paintings,
06:21and this image is by Raphael.
06:24It depicts the Transfiguration,
06:26and he seems to have really breathed life
06:29into this whole religious story.
06:32This painting isn't really about pedantic details and accuracy,
06:36it's about the CGI, the special effects,
06:39and Raphael has really upped the ante
06:41because he's depicted Jesus levitating up into the sky,
06:45something that actually isn't described in the Gospels,
06:48but Raphael knew it was an opportunity for him
06:50to use a little bit of artistic interpretation
06:53to create the most awe-inspiring scene he could dream up.
06:59But being here, beneath these skies,
07:02I think Galilee does look like a setting for miracles.
07:08Standing up here on a day like this,
07:10you do get the sense that this is the kind of place
07:13where God might just flex his muscles.
07:19Raphael dreamt up this painting in Italy.
07:24But I've come here to see the real faces and places
07:27of the Easter story with my own eyes.
07:30I'll be using my children's Bible as a guide.
07:33The New Testament contains four accounts, the Gospels.
07:38They tell of Jesus' last days, what's called Holy Week.
07:42I've never been entirely clear about this,
07:45but by tradition, they were written by four early Christians,
07:4930 to 70 years after the life of Jesus.
07:52And although they do differ in certain details,
07:55when they're read together,
07:57they help give you an almost blow-by-blow account
08:00of Jesus' last days.
08:02It's a bit of a detective story, trying to piece it all together.
08:05And the picture that emerges from history
08:08is that of a peasant preacher
08:10wandering from village to village in the first century,
08:13forecasting the end of the world.
08:22Jesus and his disciples were gathering followers
08:25as they travelled south from Galilee, heading for Jerusalem,
08:29and what Jesus knew would be the final showdown.
08:34Holy Week would begin with his glorious entry
08:37into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday,
08:39but on the Friday or Saturday before,
08:42they came here to Jericho.
08:47It's an oasis town with a tropical climate.
08:50Back then, it was popular with Roman high rollers,
08:54a glamorous place.
08:57He would have known all about the glitz
08:59and the architectural splendour of this place,
09:02but his interest was in the poor.
09:04All along the way, Jesus had been telling his disciples
09:07that he was going to die in Jerusalem,
09:09but they seemed to have paid no attention.
09:11Jesus, however, knew that the time he had left
09:14to get his message across was running out.
09:24I love sketching on this spot.
09:27You have to look closely and draw fast.
09:32A sketchbook, making notes, looking at the costumes,
09:35capturing the faces, really absorbing this environment.
09:40My dad would have absolutely loved this place
09:43because although it's chaotically, boisterously modern,
09:47in the faces, in the costumes, in the clothing,
09:52in the atmosphere, in the language that he would have overheard,
09:56in the smells and the perfumes coming off the stalls,
09:59he would have been able to transport himself
10:02back into ancient times
10:04because there is...
10:06there is a kind of line through all these places
10:10in the eyes of the people that you meet
10:12that I know it sounds romantic, but they do transport you.
10:18News of Jesus and his preaching
10:20had made him something of a controversial celebrity
10:23and as our Easter story begins,
10:25he and his entourage were making their way
10:27through the dusty outskirts of Jericho
10:30when suddenly a blind beggar called out to him.
10:33Have mercy on me, he said.
10:35Let me recover my sight.
10:37And Jesus picks him out,
10:39the scruffiest and most unfortunate member of the crowd,
10:42and he heals him.
10:44Now, of course, it's a miracle, but it also has another meaning.
10:48Jesus had given him faith.
10:50He'd allowed him to see the word and the message of God.
11:03This painting is of Christ healing the blind man
11:07and it's by El Greco,
11:09who was one of my dad's favourite artists.
11:12But even my father would have to agree
11:14that it takes a stretch of the imagination
11:17to see the events El Greco has described
11:20as belonging to this place, Jericho.
11:23I mean, for a start, he's missed out the falafel stalls
11:26and the noisy yellow cabs.
11:28I mean, he's made this place look as grand as ancient Rome.
11:34MUSIC CONTINUES
11:46On my old bedroom wall, this made Jericho look European.
11:53I knew it probably wasn't accurate.
11:57The place is a bit faded now,
11:59but it's seen the bad times and the good.
12:03Jericho's about 11,000 years old.
12:10The oldest city in the world.
12:12Absolute cacophony of chaos.
12:18Modern, noisy, sirens.
12:26Hello.
12:28Drawing people always attracts a crowd,
12:31but the subject is all I see.
12:34I grew up with religious pictures
12:36featuring people who looked European,
12:39but you find the truth in the faces of men like this.
12:47My dad would have loved drawing here.
12:49He'd probably have tried out his pidgin Arabic.
12:55What do you think?
12:58Good. Thank you very much.
13:00Oh, he doesn't look too happy.
13:02It's all right.
13:04Try harder, lad.
13:14Jesus mixed with the poor and the needy.
13:17Some powerful people found this threatening and he made enemies.
13:22In six days' time, on Good Friday,
13:25they'd have their revenge here in Jerusalem.
13:30This city was the setting for the key events
13:33of the last week of Jesus' life,
13:35what's called the Passion of Christ,
13:38the Easter story that ends with the crucifixion and the resurrection.
13:44There's been a settlement here forever,
13:47but for me, it all starts with the Bible stories.
13:51I mean, you're really staring into the eyes of history here.
13:55Since the days of King Solomon,
13:57since the days of Herod the Great and Jesus of Nazareth,
14:01there has been a Jerusalem.
14:04Here, on the Mount of Olives,
14:06you begin to realise that for billions of people,
14:10over thousands of years,
14:12this has represented the centre of their world,
14:15the centre of their faith.
14:18So to actually be here
14:20and to realise that this is a place of beauty,
14:25of gilded light,
14:28of a variety of noises,
14:31from the church bells to the Muslim calls to prayer
14:34to the bird song of the Holy Land,
14:37well, it's quite overwhelming.
14:40And every Easter, at church perhaps in Glasgow,
14:44when I tried to imagine the backdrop to the Easter story,
14:49well, I always reverted to painted images I had seen before.
15:01According to the Gospels,
15:03Jesus stood here on the morning of Palm Sunday.
15:08Crowds of his supporters were waiting to welcome him into the city,
15:12their Messiah.
15:20Jesus entered Jerusalem through an ancient gate,
15:23buried long ago beneath this one.
15:28He was surrounded by cheering crowds,
15:31but he now had five days left to live.
15:35And he knew it.
15:38Now, this painting is by the 14th-century Italian artist called Giotto.
15:44You've got Jerusalem looking like a kind of fantastical place
15:48with towers and turrets, beautiful, elegant arcades.
15:52And, in fact, it actually resembles 14th-century Florence,
15:55where Giotto lived, much more than 1st-century Jerusalem.
15:59As an artist, Giotto was renowned for being able to paint figures
16:03that seemed to be believable,
16:05that seemed to be human.
16:07And I certainly can believe in this Jesus
16:10as he arrives in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
16:13He's celebrated and welcomed as the Messiah.
16:16People are even trying to climb the trees in order to get a better view.
16:19And, look, the donkey's got a smile on too.
16:23The church was really keen to encourage this kind of imagery
16:27because what it did was it allowed people
16:29who were thousands of miles away from Jerusalem,
16:32even those who couldn't read,
16:34to come to a much better understanding of a narrative
16:37that the church wanted everyone to become familiar with.
16:41Once he'd ridden into the city, Jesus' fate was sealed.
16:46Every step took him nearer Golgotha, the site of the cross, five days away.
16:55Jerusalem was then a Jewish city ruled by Romans.
16:59In time, it would be briefly Christian,
17:01but it's been Islamic and Jewish ever since.
17:08Today, at the Damascus Gate Market in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem,
17:13you see Muslims, Jews and Christians all shopping for tasty vegetables.
17:24The old master painters were Christians.
17:27The Jerusalem they imagined rang with the sound of church bells.
17:31But being here, the reality sounds very different.
17:35The old city echoes with the Adhan,
17:38the Muslim call to prayer coming from mosques all around.
17:46How you see Jerusalem, how you understand the Easter story
17:50depends on your point of view.
17:52I've been brought up with an entirely Christian understanding of history
17:56and one of the things that brushes under the carpet, I think,
17:59is that Jesus was Jewish.
18:01He was a temple-worshipping, kosher-keeping, circumcised Jew.
18:06We're on the southern side of what was once the Jewish Temple Mount,
18:10a huge religious complex dominating the city.
18:14So this place would have been extremely familiar
18:17and extremely holy to Jews.
18:19And what we see around us is a surviving piece of 1st-century Jerusalem
18:24because Jesus would have climbed these steps
18:27on his way up to the entrance of the temple.
18:36On the Monday of Holy Week, Jesus and the disciples came here.
18:41Today, thousands more come to be close to the stones
18:45that were the stage for the Easter drama.
18:51As an artist, you sometimes have to make sense of complicated subjects.
19:00I often have to imagine things that have disappeared,
19:04the same skill that archaeologist Joe Uriel needs for his job.
19:09Well, we are located to the south of the Temple Mount.
19:13This is where the Jewish Temple stood exactly during the time of Jesus.
19:18Over the past 2,000 years, this is the heart of Jerusalem,
19:22the religious focal point of the city.
19:25The Temple was one of the largest temples in the Roman Empire.
19:29We're talking about one of the most magnificent structures in the Roman Empire.
19:33It would have been a place to come, just as you would go visit today,
19:37the Taj Mahal, so too the Temple Mount.
19:40When it's hard to separate myth and miracle from fact,
19:43the real can take you by surprise.
19:46So we're actually in a place where we can walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
19:50That's wonderful because Jesus still remains in my head,
19:54this kind of imaginary figure,
19:57but to have something physical that we can connect to him, wonderful.
20:02So 2,000-year-old blocks of stone from the Jewish Temple
20:08of Herod the Great.
20:10Looking at these blocks, we have some physical certainty.
20:14This is a passport into King Herod's magnificent temple.
20:18That's right.
20:20We must assume then that if Jesus walked through these places,
20:24who knows, his hands might have brushed against the stone.
20:27Possibly. Possibly. But I'm going to have to touch it now, won't I?
20:30Fantastic.
20:32I mean, I still find it in my imagination quite hard to believe
20:36that this subtle little groove which has been carved into the block
20:40is 2,000 years old.
20:42There was a mason, there was a guy with a little chisel
20:45making this impression, and by touching it,
20:47hello, I've got another artist touching back here.
20:49I can feel his handprint.
20:51To be in the shadow of a building that has stood for 20 centuries
20:55puts your own human existence into perspective.
20:59We've got a short span here, 70 years,
21:02and every so often you need a touchstone
21:05to make you realise not only how small you are
21:08but how magnificent this world we live in is.
21:11And I really do get that feeling here.
21:18Only the base of what was the Jewish temple complex remains.
21:24These walls now support an Islamic site
21:27and the surviving western wall is as close as Jews can get
21:32to their spiritual home.
21:35To approach it, I must cover my head.
21:43When I go to places of sacred worship within the Christian culture,
21:49I'm used to finding a cathedral,
21:51I'm used to finding a place that is ornate,
21:53decorated, full of silver and frescoes.
21:55But this, this is raw.
21:59It's as real as any holy building, but it no longer exists.
22:04The Romans destroyed the Jewish temple in the year 70.
22:10I've never been in a sacred place like this.
22:13It's...it's chaotic, noisy,
22:18the songs of people celebrating and the songs of people praying
22:23have a kind of intensity that seems,
22:26when you listen to them up against the wall, actually quite sad.
22:32And that's because, for centuries...
22:38..the great story of Jewish culture
22:40has been a narrative of loss and longing.
22:44To Jews visiting in the first century,
22:47the temple that stood here was the awe-inspiring House of God,
22:51visible for miles around.
23:05It's the Monday of Holy Week.
23:07Jesus has just four more days to live.
23:11The drama intensifies when he and the disciples enter the temple
23:16and find it full of birds, beasts and money men.
23:21According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke,
23:24Jesus goes into the temple and he kicks off.
23:28It's really not what the Prince of Peace is supposed to do,
23:31but he is furious.
23:36As a boy, I spent hours enjoying the detail
23:39in this 16th-century picture by an unnamed Dutch artist.
23:45Now, this is a painting of Christ
23:47driving the moneylenders out of the temple.
23:50Artists have always loved depicting this subject
23:52because it reveals Jesus in a human light,
23:55as someone who can lose his rag.
23:57Although this scene isn't really very accurate.
24:00It's a figment of the artist's imagination.
24:03The architecture, the costumes that people are wearing,
24:06they belong to the Dutch 16th century,
24:09not the first century in Judea.
24:11But what does ring true
24:13is that the cast of gurning characters
24:15really do reveal the kinds of things
24:17that were cheesing Jesus off about what was going on in the temple.
24:20I mean, just look at them. They're grotesque.
24:23They're spreading their filth and dishevelment
24:26across this sacred place.
24:28You've got a quack doctor here.
24:30You've got people who appear to be gambling.
24:32There's a pig that's running through the courtyard.
24:35I mean, they really are charlatans, hucksters,
24:37and they have turned this sacred place
24:40into a den of thieves.
24:42And right there in the middle of the painting, you've got Jesus,
24:45and he's got a whip, and he's getting medieval
24:48on the asses of the moneylenders.
24:51This is an extraordinary bust-up in a biblical soap opera.
24:56In the first century, the huge temple made Jerusalem famous
25:00throughout the Roman Empire as a religious centre.
25:03But, of course, it was also a city of business.
25:08SONG PLAYS
25:19I guess I never really thought of Jerusalem as a real place,
25:23you know, somewhere that people take the bins out at night
25:26and go out and buy toilet roll.
25:28I've only ever experienced this city through paintings,
25:32and in my imagination, it's just been a kind of sacred vision.
25:37And sitting here in the souk, I do feel I'm inside a painting.
25:42The light above me is gold and there's a blue sky
25:45with doves flying across it.
25:47I can hear Hebrew, I can hear Arabic.
25:49I can see the colourful wares and the sparkles of things
25:53in shops for sale.
25:55But real life happens in these streets.
25:58You know, this is a place of traders and merchants
26:01and the hard sell.
26:03He never shied away from the seedier side of life,
26:07but he just wouldn't tolerate it in the front room of his dad's house.
26:13Old Jerusalem is full of visual contrasts.
26:17Under these high stone walls, shadows are a deep blue.
26:22But just around the corner, it's a rainbow of colours and sunshine.
26:27In the old city, every street's a shopping centre.
26:31I'm not used to someone stopping with a sketchbook.
26:34It usually takes about five minutes,
26:36but Mustafa was on me in moments.
26:40Is your shop in the picture? Let me see.
26:43Oh, I've just missed it out.
26:45Let me show you my grandfather's picture.
26:47Your grandfather painted? Ah, wonderful.
26:49What kind of things does he do? He's a professional, he's an artist.
26:52And did he paint landscapes? Everything.
26:54I hope you like the drawings.
26:56They're gorgeous pictures.
26:58I like to paint on it because each colour,
27:01you make me feel you have a story.
27:04Ah, what kind of story?
27:06Muslims, Christians and Jews.
27:09Well, I'm delighted to hear that you see that in my painting.
27:12How I looking on, because what I see,
27:16you have beautiful, great stuff.
27:19That's very good.
27:29The countdown to Jesus' execution had begun,
27:33and behind the scenes, the authorities were watching and worrying,
27:37trying to figure out how they could get their hands
27:40on this troublesome preacher man from Nazareth.
27:43Jesus was aware that his earthly days were now numbered,
27:48and he was dropping heavy hints at a dinner party
27:51at the home of someone called Simon the Leper.
27:56According to some accounts, it was on the Wednesday of Holy Week.
28:00Jesus had just 48 hours left,
28:03but still the disciples hadn't fully cottoned on.
28:06This meal is a turning point.
28:09Over the food, a row breaks out that leads directly
28:12to Jesus' capture and crucifixion.
28:15It all begins with a bottle of perfume.
28:18If you follow your nose through the souk,
28:21you can still find the scent that Jesus smelled that night.
28:25Can you tell me a little more about this? What is this?
28:28This is the nard oil, the original one.
28:31It's made from original flower, spikenard, it's called.
28:34A flower called spikenard?
28:36Yes, this is a very expensive flower.
28:38Where do you find that?
28:40You find it in the Alps and the Himalaya, yes.
28:43So it's very rare. It's a very rare one.
28:46So it was brought from all those exotic places,
28:50here to the Holy Land? To the Holy Land, yes.
28:53And what was it used for at the time?
28:56This is to anoint the body of the dead people.
28:59When they're dead, in Jewish time, they put an anointing.
29:03OK. They fill it with perfume.
29:05The whole body or just a part of the body?
29:07No, the whole body. The whole body?
29:09So they wash the whole body in this?
29:11Yes. That must be an expensive process.
29:13Yes. For one bottle, it costs about 300 dinars.
29:16More than people might earn in a year.
29:19Yes, very expensive.
29:21How much does this cost today?
29:24This is around... When you come to our shop,
29:26we'll give you good prices. Absolutely.
29:28Yes, I just hope so.
29:30Turns out the nard oil is now just a few pounds.
29:34Back then, one denarius was a day's wages.
29:38Jesus' oil cost 300.
29:42The use of this fragrance gives the name
29:44to this Easter landmark moment, the anointing.
29:48It's another occasion when Jesus surprises his friends
29:52by mixing with a kind of social outcast.
29:58Present at the dinner is a woman called Mary.
30:01There are so many Marys,
30:03but according to the Gospel of Luke, a sinner.
30:06She might even have been a prostitute.
30:08And during the dinner,
30:09she begins to anoint Jesus' head and his feet,
30:13and then she wipes it off using her hair.
30:15Now, the disciples who are also present at the dinner
30:18get themselves all worked up,
30:19particularly Judas, who looks after the money box.
30:22They turn round and they say, what is she doing?
30:25This is an expensive perfume.
30:27We could have sold it and then given the money to the poor.
30:30At which point, Jesus says, stop.
30:33She has done me a good deed.
30:35She has done me a good deed.
30:37You will always have the poor, but you won't always have me.
30:41She has done this for my burial.
30:48It's the fatal moment.
30:50Judas storms off to the Jewish authorities for a bribe.
30:54He tells them where they'll find Jesus the next night,
30:58in Jerusalem, for a Passover dinner.
31:01The saviour is doomed.
31:06We've entered the last 24 hours of Jesus' life,
31:10and these moments will inspire more works of art
31:13than any other day in human history.
31:16Amen.
31:21At Passover, Jews celebrate their ancestors' escape
31:25from enslavement in Egypt with a special meal.
31:29The Ein Moore family of Jerusalem
31:31have kindly invited me into their home
31:33to witness another ritual meal, the Friday night Shabbat dinner.
31:38In Jewish culture,
31:40meals like this link all generations to their history.
31:44Ingredients are symbolic, preparation and procedure are everything.
31:51The disciples didn't know the Passover meal
31:54would be their last supper with Jesus.
31:56They met to eat and give thanks,
31:58but they were left divided and in dismay.
32:04It wasn't just Jesus' last supper.
32:08These were his final hours as a free man.
32:11The closing moments of fellowship with his disciples,
32:14a quiet pause in the drama of Easter.
32:19It took place in what the Gospels call the upper room,
32:23and here it isn't.
32:26This room is called the Cynical,
32:28and by tradition, it's where the most famous meal in history
32:33took place, the Last Supper.
32:35But nothing that you can see here actually dates from the 1st century.
32:39And there are never many tourists here,
32:42because I think some people are slightly cynical about the Cynical.
32:45They don't believe necessarily
32:47that those events could have taken place in this room,
32:50because what we see is really a stage set
32:53that was built in the 13th to 14th century.
32:57And although it's not entirely authentic,
33:00what's extraordinary is it resembles exactly the space imagined
33:04by those artists in faraway Europe
33:07when they pictured the events of the Last Supper.
33:11In my children's Bible, it's all very Hollywood.
33:15Or maybe...Hollywood.
33:19We've got Jesus here with his blue eyes and blonde hair,
33:24our fantastic leading man, all dressed in purse white.
33:27Someone that looks a bit like Kirk Douglas.
33:30And a sneaky-looking Judas.
33:33This is a cinematic Last Supper.
33:36But there's one other source for this image, I think,
33:40and that's a painting by one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance.
33:46Leonardo da Vinci's version of the Last Supper
33:49was painted on the wall of a dining room in an Italian monastery.
33:54And it was designed in such a way
33:56that the monks, munching on their pasta, could dine in good company.
34:01And the first thing that you notice about da Vinci's painting
34:05is that he actually has a very, very, very, very, very, very, very,
34:10And the first thing that you notice about da Vinci's painting
34:14is that he has a very unconventional seating plan.
34:17Everybody is placed on one side of the table,
34:21so it's almost as if this meal is being performed for our benefit
34:25in a space whose exaggerated perspective
34:28seems to draw us into the very heart of the action
34:32and the figure of Jesus himself.
34:35There seems to be lots of consternation and hand-waving going on
34:39and very pointedly, the face of Judas Iscariot is cast into shadow.
34:52That night, Jesus kept turning what should have been a celebratory feast
34:56into a gloomy premonition of betrayal and suffering.
35:00And when the food finally arrived,
35:02he told the famished apostles that the bread and the wine
35:06were to be seen as symbols of his own body and blood,
35:10a sign of the bond between himself, his followers and God.
35:27The Last Supper was a Jewish ritual that became a Christian one,
35:31Holy Communion,
35:33a little bit of the Easter story that happens all year round.
35:50Every week, in Christian churches across the world,
35:54this ceremony is repeated.
35:56Bread and wine are shared,
35:58symbolising the body and the blood of Christ.
36:04The Gospels tell how at the Last Supper, Jesus dropped heavy hints.
36:09He knew that amongst his brothers, there was a traitor.
36:21Jesus handed a piece of bread to Judas.
36:24The message was clear.
36:33Judas left the room.
36:42After dinner, the remaining disciples trooped out into the dusk,
36:46probably a bit dazed.
36:48Jesus led them to an olive grove.
36:51According to tradition, this is the Garden of Gethsemane.
37:04Well, the olive trees seem ancient enough,
37:08but this is the place where the saviour of humankind
37:11is supposed to have been betrayed.
37:16This might be the site of the Garden of Gethsemane,
37:19but to me, it just doesn't feel like it.
37:27Being an artist is about pencils and paint and paper,
37:31but it's also about feeling the inspiration.
37:34At dusk, this olive grove just outside Jerusalem
37:38feels to me like a more convincing Gethsemane.
37:42Jesus wanted a quiet place to pray,
37:45and although he was accompanied by a few of his disciples,
37:49he must have been at this moment the loneliest man in the world.
37:53He knew exactly what was coming,
37:55and he prayed to God to be released from the ordeal.
37:59But there was no way out,
38:02and so an angel was sent to give him strength.
38:17For me, this is one of the most poignant moments in the New Testament.
38:21It's the anxious calm before the storm,
38:25and it's immortalised in two great paintings
38:28by a pair of 15th-century Italian artists
38:31who just happen to be brothers-in-law,
38:33Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini.
38:37Now, their two versions of the agony in the garden
38:40appear to be quite similar,
38:42and I love the idea that both of these characters
38:44might have been looking over one another's shoulders,
38:46trying to outdo each other.
38:48Now, whereas Andrea depicts a Jerusalem
38:51in the background of his painting
38:53that looks like a fantasy castle out of The Wizard of Oz,
38:56Giovanni gives us a small hilltop town.
39:00He doesn't want to exaggerate things too much,
39:02but where they both agree
39:04is that their garden of Gethsemane is a boulder-strewn place,
39:09perhaps symbolising the bleak story that is about to unfold.
39:14And there, in the middle distance,
39:16you can see a little cavalcade of figures,
39:19a colourful bunch of soldiers,
39:22all clinking as they approach to arrest Jesus.
39:26I mean, the paintings are so serene,
39:30they're so beautiful,
39:31that I find myself wanting to shout out to Jesus
39:34in this moment of calm,
39:36please, please just run.
39:38You don't have to do this for us.
39:45Now, the Son of God gets tangled up in a legal system
39:48that's complicated,
39:50because his country is run by both Roman and Jewish officials.
39:5921 centuries later,
40:01the same land is again home to two different peoples.
40:09Every day, on the occupied West Bank,
40:12workers queue before dawn to leave the territory.
40:17Here, at Bethlehem,
40:19the Palestinian Authority has a form of control.
40:25Once through Israel's wall,
40:27these men travel to jobs in Jerusalem under Israeli administration.
40:33From the arrest in the garden onwards,
40:36the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are very detailed.
40:40The Easter story becomes almost a minute-by-minute drama.
40:44Thousands are flocking into Jerusalem for the Passover holiday,
40:48but the Roman and the Jewish authorities
40:50are interested in just one visitor,
40:53the preacher from Nazareth.
40:56The Jesus problem must be solved as quickly and as quietly as possible.
41:06It's the Thursday evening of Holy Week.
41:09The first chapter of the Easter story will end soon,
41:13with Jesus badly.
41:16The Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin,
41:18hate this upstart preacher from Nazareth, but they're worried.
41:22Jerusalem is like a tinderbox
41:24and the guy they've got banged up in jail is the fuse.
41:28Some people believe he's the Messiah,
41:30but whichever way this pans out,
41:32they don't want to be seen executing one of their own,
41:35they want the Romans to do the dirty work.
41:43Jesus is in jail.
41:45The disciples are in hiding, in shock, probably.
41:49They've finally got the message that his prophecies are coming true.
41:54But surely, they think to themselves,
41:56we've seen Jesus perform miracles,
41:58he's going to escape, is he?
42:02In the dead of night, Jesus is brought before a hastily set-up court.
42:07They're desperate to charge him with blasphemy,
42:10but Jesus simply won't take the bait.
42:13Tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God, they demand to know.
42:17But all Jesus says is, well, if you say so.
42:21It infuriates him, so they slap him,
42:24but everybody knows that Jesus is guilty.
42:28And in the morning, he's brought to the offices of the Roman administrator,
42:32Pontius Pilate.
42:34It's Good Friday.
42:37I always got the impression that Pontius Pilate wasn't such a bad guy.
42:42I mean, at school, I learnt about someone
42:44who didn't really want to execute Jesus in the first place,
42:47and in my children's illustrated Bible,
42:49he declares, I find in him no fault at all.
42:53Pontius Pilate wasn't interested in the blasphemy charges,
42:57but his Jewish colleagues kept telling him
42:59that Jesus was trying to lead a tax revolt,
43:02and that was a much more serious matter.
43:05But still, Pilate starts to wriggle.
43:11This painting by Hieronymus Bosch
43:13shows the moment Pilate tried to avoid taking responsibility
43:17for killing Jesus.
43:19At Passover, it was traditional for the Roman governor
43:23to release a prisoner,
43:25and Hieronymus Bosch paints the scene as if it's a kind of pantomime.
43:29We've got this figure here, who I think is Pilate,
43:31wearing a very fancy hat,
43:33presenting Jesus to the crowd.
43:36Behold the man, he declares,
43:38and he offers to release the King of the Jews.
43:42The crowd, however, have been prepped by their priests
43:46to demand the release of someone else,
43:48a robber called Barabbas.
43:50They chant his name and eventually they shriek,
43:53let the blood be on our hands and on our children.
43:59Now we're on the final pages of the Easter story.
44:02Jesus has less than 24 hours left on Earth
44:06as he begins to walk to the place of execution.
44:11Oh, don't run out of paper.
44:17Move faster.
44:21Church towers and the minarets.
44:26Every Friday, Christians gather to follow the route
44:29Jesus travelled carrying his cross.
44:32It's called the Via Dolorosa, which means Way of Grief.
44:37Pilgrims have been doing this for centuries,
44:42on these same stones,
44:44where they believe Jesus walked towards death.
44:52This is extra-sensory, non-stop.
44:56The procession stops at places where Jesus paused,
45:00where he was helped, where he stumbled.
45:03These are the famous stations of the cross.
45:07First station, here Jesus meets his mother.
45:11CHANT
45:26CHANT
45:35It's such an immersive experience
45:37because you're moving from tight little alleys
45:40into open spaces, through passageways under minarets,
45:45beside the souk and the bazaar,
45:47and people are singing and chanting.
45:50The crowd passes straight through the middle of Arab Jerusalem,
45:54but the market stallholders don't seem to take any notice.
45:59It does give you some sense of the physical, sensory chaos and bustle
46:05that must have accompanied Jesus on that last day.
46:11The Via Dolorosa ends in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
46:15said to stand where the crucifixion and the resurrection happened.
46:20For Christians, the holiest of holy ground.
46:35In here, it's Easter every day.
46:39I definitely felt the energy of history and belief.
46:44Well, that was guerrilla sketching.
46:47Through the streets, through the pathways, through the souk,
46:51to combine speedy sketching with an environment of passion
46:58and devotion like I've just experienced,
47:01it's not anything I've ever done before.
47:04But I'll treasure this sketchbook.
47:07Being here in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at this moment,
47:12kind of redefines awesome.
47:14Good Friday. Never felt like this.
47:17In our cold, Protestant church in Scotland, we sang hymns,
47:22we had a few scriptures read out loud,
47:25but to really, really feel the core of what this moment in the scriptures is about,
47:32well, I tell you to come here,
47:34because then, then you'll really get a taste of why people of great faith
47:39feel so strongly, so poignantly, and eventually so joyfully about the Easter story.
47:47And all along that way, all along through the procession,
47:53there was talk of suffering.
47:55There was talk of this figure, Jesus, being burdened with the cross,
47:59with his spirit being crushed, with the pain he was enduring,
48:02with the insults that were being flung at him.
48:06And I tell you, in those passageways, bumped from side to side with all the people,
48:11in the darkness emerging into the light, in the shadows, in the heat,
48:16wow, you felt a little, a little of what that atmosphere of Good Friday must have been like.
48:27Outside, blinking in the glare, travellers from all over Christendom take a breather.
48:34For them, this is a pilgrimage, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
48:41The scene is drenched in sunlight. It's perfect for watercolour.
48:46You've got to move fast, though.
48:48The shadows are lengthening, the colours will be fleeting.
48:52One moment bright, then gone forever.
48:56The blue sky of Jerusalem.
48:59You've got to get this right, straight away, onto the white paper, no mistakes.
49:07I love this job.
49:10Painting pictures takes me to the most fantastic places.
49:14And it's not really like hard work.
49:17You see amazing sights, you sit next to extraordinary folk.
49:22And every day is a little lesson in life, I tell you, when you've got a paintbrush in your hand.
49:30MUSIC PLAYS
49:35Inside the church, I was caught up in the exhilaration
49:38and the strong emotions this place inspires.
49:42Whether something actually happened here or over there isn't really the point.
49:47It's not about facts, it's about faith.
49:51The place of the skull Golgotha.
49:54Sounds about right, doesn't it?
49:56Somewhere that a master of the universe would be executed.
50:00But in actual fact, it was probably just a small pile of rubble outside the city walls.
50:05A wasteland.
50:08Today, the extraordinary Church of the Holy Sepulchre
50:12stands where legend has it the crucifixion took place.
50:16There have been many incarnations of this building,
50:19but there's always been something standing here where the Easter story comes to its climax.
50:27This is a kind of pilgrimage for me, standing where my father never did.
50:33Most of the great artists who depicted scenes from the Bible story
50:37journeyed here only in their imaginations.
50:41They believed, even though they hadn't seen all this.
50:55Rembrandt was one of the most prolific illustrators of the Bible stories
50:59and one of his favourite subjects was the crucifixion.
51:03And here, in this etching, he gives us the full works there are.
51:07Here, in this etching, he gives us the full works there are.
51:10Crowds, there are men in armour, there are costumes and horses.
51:14And depicted as it is, in brutal black and white,
51:18it really gives you the sense that this shaft of light descending from the sky
51:22represents God's love for his son, but also in the shadows,
51:26his fury at the rest of humanity.
51:29I mean, it's a cinematic image and it really does remind me
51:33of all those Hollywood epic movies I used to watch.
51:36I used to watch at Easter time when I was little.
51:39And to see this image that I actually copied when I was a child,
51:43here against the backdrop where this event happened,
51:46supposedly in that building,
51:48well, that makes this experience all the more powerful for me.
52:00The church is built around a rocky outcrop,
52:04a high fist in a glove of gold and marble,
52:08low lit by candles, night and day.
52:15This rock is Golgotha.
52:18This is the place where the cross was erected,
52:21with one on either side for the two thieves
52:24who were executed alongside Jesus.
52:28Now, the death was an appalling one,
52:31and Jesus was moved to cry out,
52:34My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
52:39And in spite of all this horror,
52:43this moment in the Christian story is actually about a victory.
52:48It's about Jesus' victory over his persecutors, his oppressors,
52:52but most importantly, his victory over death,
52:56because this is the moment that will lead to his resurrection
52:59and to his greatest glory.
53:08Even as a child, I couldn't quite believe
53:11in the earliest pictures of the crucifixion.
53:14They always made Jesus look triumphant and strong.
53:20This later painting by Dutchman, Dirk Boots,
53:24felt like it was speaking directly to me.
53:29And we are no longer in a place
53:31where the image is emphasising Jesus' divine superhuman power.
53:37What we see here is a picture of suffering.
53:41This painting declares he was fragile, he was vulnerable,
53:46he wept tears, just as you would
53:49if you had to go through this ordeal yourself.
53:53The greatest pictures are worth a thousand biblical words.
53:58They go straight to the heart.
54:01The week that shook the world ended down there at Golgotha.
54:06It began with Jesus here on the Mount of Olives,
54:10staring down at Jerusalem.
54:15Looking out across the city helps me put what I have experienced
54:19in those streets into perspective.
54:23Now I've actually explored this city.
54:26I think I... I know its colours and I know its shape,
54:30so I can identify places on this horizon I've actually been to.
54:33This is not a stranger any more.
54:35I've been through all those little streets,
54:37been through the soup, been in the churches,
54:40been in the grottos and at the Western Wall,
54:43and now I think I need the bigger picture.
54:45I think I'm ready to try and paint its portrait, really.
54:50One of the things about painting is you've got to be very sensitive
54:54to the light that surrounds you.
54:57That might just sound obvious, but light in different places,
55:00in different countries, has different colours,
55:03and I'm used to northern Scottish, British light,
55:07which is a bit cool and cold,
55:09whereas here there is a golden warmth to the sun,
55:13and I'm not making this up.
55:15There's also a crimson, pink quality to it.
55:18I've never seen anything like it.
55:29I think it's amazing how the art of the Holy Land
55:34really does have the ability to provoke great empathy and emotion,
55:39even in people who don't have enormous faith.
55:46I thought I knew all about the Easter story from paintings
55:51and from my illustrated Bible,
55:53but the Holy Land has changed the way I think about Jesus' death.
55:58Now it's more than a story in a picture book.
56:01It's about a real person in a real landscape.
56:06Well, I wouldn't use this as a route map to get around Jerusalem.
56:11The details are a bit all over the place,
56:14but I think I've managed to capture
56:17just a little bit of the higgledy-piggledy wonder
56:23of this ancient place.
56:26I feel so much closer to this subject
56:29than I did on the first day of my journey.
56:33Back in Glasgow, the pages of my sketchbook
56:36remind me of what I saw, heard and felt
56:39as I followed Jesus' journey to the cross.
56:45My father's not here to look through my sketchbook's windows
56:49to see what I've done,
56:51but he's here to tell me what I've done.
56:54He's here to tell me what I've done.
56:57He's here to tell me what I've done.
57:00My father's not here to look through my sketchbook's with me,
57:04but he's the person who inspired me to undertake this voyage.
57:08Digging out some of his crucifixion studies,
57:11I can now see them and him in a new light.
57:16These are just a few of the works of art that he created,
57:20inspired by that subject.
57:24But my father had to imagine Golgotha
57:28in places associated with the Easter story.
57:32And for me, one of the most poignant parts of this whole pilgrimage
57:36has been being able to go and make work
57:39in places I know he would have found so thrilling.
57:43And now I have to say I am even more impressed
57:46because my dad wasn't a very religious man,
57:50but in these images,
57:52I find that he manages to convey the passion
57:56and the emotional intensity that I have now actually experienced
58:00following my journey into the Holy Land.
58:05Next time, the journey that ends with Jesus' death on the cross
58:09continues with his miraculous resurrection.
58:13I'll follow this next chapter in the Easter story
58:16as painted by great artists
58:18and ask my question about his mother.
58:21Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:25Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:29Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:33Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:37Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:41Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:45Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?
58:49Why do we see more of Mary in art than in the Bible?