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00:00My name is Lachlan Goudie. I'm an artist and the son of an artist who was obsessed
00:10with painting the crucifixion. My father never came to the Holy Land, so I've come here
00:16for him. And for me, I want to come face-to-face with the Easter story, the events described
00:22as Christ's Passion. As a boy, I learnt all about the Bible story from art. Now I've
00:29come to see for myself. This is my kind of Holy Land. I've followed events from Palm
00:35Sunday to Good Friday, the crucifixion. This rock is Golgotha. I've seen biblical places
00:43and faces. I'm giving you a very big nose. My nose is like the beast in the burial. Now
00:51I want to find out what happened after the crucifixion. This is the tomb where Jesus
00:57was resurrected. On Easter Sunday, Christ rose from the dead. The stories inspired great
01:04art for centuries, and I've brought some examples with me. Many pictures of the Easter story
01:11feature a character crucial to the life of Jesus Christ, but who for some reason hardly
01:17appears in the Gospels at all. She was an ordinary human being with a God-given mission
01:22impossible, bearing His Son, a child destined to save humankind. The Madonna, the Virgin,
01:30the Mother of God Herself. She's a shadowy figure in the Bible, but artists have made
01:36her a global icon. In this Holy Week, I want to know, who was Mary? My father was a painter
01:57in love with France, especially the coast of Brittany, and with a God-fearing Breton
02:04woman, my mother. Our family summers were spent down here, and my father's art gradually
02:10fell under the spell of Catholic symbolism and drama. He was fascinated by the Easter
02:19story. He often painted the crucifixion, but also images of Mary, the Madonna, cradling
02:26the baby Jesus. For my mum, like so many Catholics, Mother Mary was central to Jesus's story,
02:34His life and death. My mother's very large family used to come and worship in this very
02:42small chapel, and the whole community was devoted to its wooden effigy of the Madonna.
02:48Every year there was a procession which would end with it being carried to the water's edge,
02:53and when I was little, I used to come and watch this with my mum and dad. So from a
02:57very young age, it seemed to me that the figure of Mary was as revered, and possibly even
03:03as important, as Jesus. So why is it that in the Gospels' telling of the Easter story,
03:10Mary, Jesus's mother, is so often absent?
03:14I grew up only knowing the Holy Land through art. I had to see it through my own eyes.
03:30In my children's illustrated Bible, the Easter story took place in an epic land that looked
03:35like Hollywood. I knew it wasn't real, but then I saw this. A short drive south from
03:52Jerusalem in the Judean desert, this is Marsaba, one of the oldest monasteries on earth. This
04:08is my kind of Holy Land, a place that has the sort of grandeur that makes you feel like
04:12Charlton Heston. But it's more than just kind of visual splendour, I've been stuck in souks
04:19and grottos and small churches throughout this journey, and here finally I'm in God's
04:24open air cathedral. It really is mind-boggling. To me, it's heaven on earth. No artist could
04:39look on Marsaba unboggled. This is a place that's been so parched by the sun that the
04:47colours are bleached out. So I've got to try and find every subtle variation in form
04:55and shadow and colour. It's not easy, we're going from yellow ochre to burnt sienna to
05:05raw umber to burnt umber to van Dyck brown. It does look like a kind of set out of something
05:11like Star Wars. You might just see one of the sand men or maybe Yoda wandering around.
05:18I've come here because when Marsaba was built in the year 483, the Christian church was still
05:25very young. Around this time, the first images of the Virgin Mary were painted.
05:33Although Mary wasn't a big character in the Bible, and almost absent from the Easter story,
05:38she was increasingly popular with early Christians.
05:43In this monastery, the monks believed images of Mary's face would bring her closer to believers.
05:50Marsaba is a 1500-year-old art gallery, full of works by artists ancient and unnamed.
06:11These are icons, an early form of portrait.
06:15Images like these gave humanity to the most famous of all mothers.
06:26More often than not, we're used to looking at this kind of imagery in an art gallery,
06:31where it's admired for its aesthetic quality, for its pretty colours. But in a religious context,
06:37these icons were about so much more than just the picture surface. They were about allowing
06:42Christians to look through the image into another reality, almost as if they were a kind of
06:49magnifying glass that made the source of your own faith and your own personal commitment to Mary
06:55all the more powerful. And what's more, these icons were transportable. You could carry the
07:02Mother of God with you. So whether you were in the city or in the desert, you could place this
07:07portable altarpiece into an alcove in the wall and turn a humble room into a holy space.
07:14At Marsaba, the painter in me finds beauty everywhere, in the stone, in the light,
07:20in the landscape. But most importantly, it's a place of worship for monks of the Greek Orthodox
07:26Church. I wish my mother had been able to come here, because in her childhood she prayed in
07:34chapels in Brittany before a figure of the Madonna. And here, in the Monastery of Saint Saba,
07:41well, the image of Mary is venerated and respected and prayed to in a way that goes far beyond the
07:50experience she had as a child. And it has been actually quite chastening to be here.
07:58None of the monks are willing to speak on camera, but they have spoken to me about their
08:03relationship with icons, iconography and the figure of Mary in those images. And they have
08:10made me realise that perhaps, to some extent, the way that I approach making paintings is a little
08:15bit superficial. It's all about the swishy colours in the surface. Whereas here, in this religious
08:22context, these are images which transport you as you look at them and look through them, that make
08:28you consider the importance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and what she can do to you in your life
08:36and for your spiritual self.
08:44One of the highlights of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land has been seeing Jerusalem.
08:53In the old city lies the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
08:59It's built on the site of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Easter happened here.
09:07Pilgrims come to see the shrine built on the rock where the cross stood,
09:11where Christ died for us on Good Friday. Nearby, others queue at the tomb where Jesus was laid,
09:19only to rise from the dead on Easter Sunday.
09:25Between the two, another shrine dedicated to the Virgin, the country girl who bore God's son,
09:32gave birth to him in a manger and encouraged his preaching.
09:39Now, I've never been entirely sure about this, but the Gospels were written 30 to 80 years after
09:46the death of Jesus, and by tradition, the authors were early Christians, Matthew, Mark, Luke and
09:52John, who actually had contact, supposedly, with the disciples and even with Mary, the mother of
09:58Jesus. So you'd have thought that with that kind of access, they'd have accounted more fully for
10:04Mary's actions.
10:16The mystery deepens. We all know Mary cradled her dead son when he was brought down from the cross,
10:22but it's not in the Bible. Artists imagined this scene called the pieta, the pity.
10:29From the 14th century, all the biggies got in on the action depicting the pieta.
10:34There was Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Michelangelo and this artist, Giovanni Bellini. He depicts
10:42Mary as someone who really does appear to be withered with a life of anxiety and worry.
10:50The pieta was an ideal example of compassion, an example of the empathy and the sorrow that
10:57we should demonstrate for the death of Jesus. Mary's hold on her son seems to remind us of the
11:06way that she held her infant child, Jesus. This painting makes us think of the beginning, and
11:14that's because for Christians, Jesus' crucifixion isn't an end. It's a rebirth. It's the moment that
11:22will lead to his resurrection, his greatest victory, his greatest glory.
11:34Anyone who had a heart could look at these and know that artists just want to honour
11:39Mary's place in the Easter tragedy. In this case, my dad. For me, to bring my dad's drawings
11:49to this place is the fulfilment of a journey he certainly never thought his images would make.
11:59My father was not a hugely religious man, but as an artist and as a human being,
12:07he understood the passion of this story, of a mother's tragic horror at the death of her son.
12:16With the pieta, artists have made Mary's grief, unacknowledged in the Gospels, visible to all.
12:28Mary's life wasn't always full of drama. She was born in a rural community in the north of what is
12:35now Israel, an area called Galilee. This is Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph raised the Son of God.
12:46In the south of the country, I got used to painting in bright sun, but up here,
12:51near the border with Syria, the light is grey and the sky is full of rain.
12:59In 1876, British painter William Holman Hunt came here in search of the Virgin Mary's roots.
13:07On this side of the hill, he painted one of my favourite pictures, but he was drenched in sunlight.
13:13And it's kind of hard to imagine the extraordinary colours that he evokes in his painting,
13:22but the truth is that when God hasn't put down a carpet of clouds, those colours are actually here.
13:28I've seen them. The light in Galilee is pink, purple and violet. Hunt wasn't lying,
13:36although you might not believe it today.
13:38He painted the heat and the sunshine. Today, the colours are subdued.
13:48When I'm working out of doors, I take what I'm given.
13:53When William Holman Hunt came here, he found this landscape to be endlessly inspiring,
13:59because where I just see landscape, he saw Armageddon. And although William Holman Hunt
14:06had never seen Arnold Schwarzenegger in action, like many Victorians, he was absolutely obsessed
14:12with epic doomsday scenarios and religious conspiracy theories that were all meant to unfold here.
14:24According to the Book of Revelations, the great battle between good and evil will happen here,
14:30the valley of Jezreel, but not today. Now, I find Hunt's obsession with the scriptures just a little
14:37bit neurotic, and it seems that he even travelled the length and breadth of the country following
14:42the dusty routes taken by Mary and Joseph between Nazareth and Jerusalem.
14:51Down from the hill, deep in Nazareth, you can feel the hustle bustle. It's the biggest city
14:57in northern Israel, with the largest population of Arab Israelis, some Christian, some Muslim.
15:06To anyone who was paying attention in Sunday school, Nazareth will always be Mary's town.
15:15This town, Nazareth, is where Jesus grew up, and I remember my headmistress, Mrs Clark, planting
15:21an image in my imagination of the humble home where Jesus lived. And it was probably similar
15:27to the images in my children's illustrated Bible. It simply had one room for the family,
15:33and then a neighbouring room, a stable, for the animals. The roof would have been flat,
15:37and there Joseph and his family would have eaten, prayed, and in the summer months even slept.
15:43Now, Nazareth at the time was just a small village home to
15:47about 100 families, and most of those people would have been farmers.
15:57Mrs Clark and Mr Holman Hunt wouldn't recognise Nazareth today, but they'd both make a beeline
16:04for a landmark, the place where Mary is supposed to have had a visit from an angel.
16:13In Nazareth, the most important place was the well, the basin of life-giving water where the
16:18community gathered together. And by some traditions, this is where Mary was told that she was going to
16:24bring divine life into the world, that she would be the mother of Jesus. Today, well, it looks
16:32rather like a public convenience rather than the place where God's master plan for humanity was
16:36going to take place. And I think I'll give this a miss. An artist grows a sixth sense for what
16:43makes a good picture. This isn't it. But it's why I came to the Holy Land, to draw the actual places
16:51in the Easter story, unlike hundreds of artists who stayed at home. And this is what Nazareth
16:57looked like if he had never left Rome. Artemisia Gentileschi was that rare thing, a female painter
17:05in the 17th century. She was strong, independent and passionate, and so were the paintings that
17:11she created and the woman that she depicted. So how was she going to represent the teenage
17:16mother of Jesus? In this image, she shows the angel Gabriel kneeling with his message, whilst
17:23Mary seems to bow to the inevitable. She steps into the light of the Holy Spirit. She bows, she's
17:30respectful, but I don't think she looks fragile. Because to bear the son of God, Mary was going to
17:37have to be made of tough stuff. And I think that's exactly how Artemisia depicts her.
17:47Mary's Well is one of several places in Nazareth thought to be built on the spot where Gabriel
17:54gave Mary the good news. An event called the Annunciation.
18:01This is the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation. The Catholic Basilica of the
18:06Annunciation is built over a cave where Mary is supposed to have lived. But this church is built
18:12over a spring, the real spring supposedly, where the Annunciation took place and where Jesus would
18:17have gone to draw water as a boy. For more than a thousand years, pilgrims have come to churches
18:25that stood on this spot to see the spring Jesus knew. If anyone was in any doubt about the love
18:33that Mary inspires in believers like my mother, they should come here. In Nazareth, there are 17
18:41churches of the Annunciation, and in all of them, she is the centre of attention.
18:47There are images of Mary everywhere. Not many of them look very convincing, but then I'm used to
18:54that. For many years, I got my idea of religious truth from this, my children's Bible in colour.
19:02And on the page that's devoted to the Annunciation, there's an image that's inspired by
19:07centuries of medieval art, where we've got Mary as fair-skinned, blue-eyed and receiving the will
19:14of God so gracefully, a bit like a Stepford wife. And then there's even the angel Gabriel
19:21handing her a lily, the sign of humility and devotion.
19:29For a believable picture of Mary, I've brought along my favourite painting by American
19:34painter Henry O Tanner, who put reality and magic in the same image. He undertook two journeys to
19:41the Holy Land in the 1890s to research the paintings he was going to create, and one of my
19:47favourite ones is this one, the Annunciation, in which he seems to paint a kind of conversation
19:53going on between Mary and the angel Gabriel. You're going to have a baby, and it's going to be
20:00the Son of God. I mean, that's the painting that Tanner paints. It's an image which has as its
20:06backdrop the average bedroom of a Jewish teenager in the first century. I mean, this looks like an
20:12episode out of a biblical Hollyoaks. Are you sure, she seems to be saying to the angel, have you got
20:18the right Mary? But the bit I like most is the flash of light, because rather than representing
20:24the angel Gabriel like some kind of winged extraterrestrial, he's just a visual presence,
20:29just a column of golden light. That seems to underline for me the idea that is there
20:35in the scriptures that extraordinary things can happen to ordinary people.
20:46The King of Kings grew up in humble surroundings.
20:54Traces of the world Jesus knew still exist today,
20:58and the faces I've been drawing, people like this shepherd, can't have changed that much.
21:06A sketchbook can help you time travel.
21:11Mohammed, would you like to see your drawing?
21:17You like that one? It's better that one, isn't it? Thank you very much, Mohammed.
21:21Very grateful, and Mohammed was a bit worried about the first drawing because he said I made
21:24his ears too big, but he's better pleased with the second version.
21:32Jesus was a man of the people, but he had noble blood. Even if he hadn't had God as part of his
21:39DNA, Jesus would still have been a peasant princeling with a rather posh ancestry,
21:45because his father Joseph wasn't only the most famous carpenter in history,
21:51he was also descended from the great King David. And it wasn't only Joseph, it was his whole
21:57extended family who seems to have been chosen by God, because, and I wasn't aware of this,
22:03but when Mary is pregnant with Jesus, it turns out that her cousin is also expecting a child
22:09who's going to grow up to be a great prophet named John the Baptist.
22:14And Elizabeth only fell pregnant after she too had been visited by the angel Gabriel.
22:19I mean, what are the odds? This family were truly instrumental to God's purpose.
22:29The birth of Jesus had been foretold as had the place, Bethlehem, the city of King David.
22:37That meant a three-day ride from Nazareth for a heavily pregnant Mary.
22:43Getting to Bethlehem wasn't easy, and it's challenging today if you're coming from Israel.
22:50The town is in the West Bank, and since 2000, it's been behind a wall.
22:55Are you coming over from the other side today? West Bank. West Bank.
22:59You're coming here to work? Yes.
23:01You have a wonderful face.
23:03Where do you work when you come over?
23:07In the city.
23:11Oh, so you don't know if there's work when you come over?
23:14You have to see what happens.
23:19You like it?
23:23We're on the Israeli side of the barrier, and Abu Qayyed and his friend here have come
23:31over from Bethlehem to find work today, perhaps in Jerusalem.
23:38As an artist, you often find yourself in difficult places, and blessed by beautiful lights
23:44and fantastic faces and people, you find yourself inspired by an unlikely kind of beauty.
23:54Joseph was from Bethlehem. He had to bring his family here to be registered in a Roman census.
24:01You get the impression here, sitting beneath watchtowers, that there's a lot of surveillance
24:06going on. And the fact is that for Mary and Joseph, the reason they were going to Bethlehem
24:11was because they were in a world of surveillance. They were being monitored and watched,
24:15and they needed to fill out the right paperwork in the right place.
24:26On the Palestinian side, the barrier has become a 300-mile-long art gallery.
24:41In 2010, the Christian artist Ian Knowles painted this icon on the barrier, and it represents
24:49Mary when she's pregnant, as she would have been when she first arrived in Bethlehem.
24:55She's a picture of motherly love, but also of suffering. In a place where Christians,
25:03Jews and Muslims have all felt pain, it really is an unexpected place for a work of art,
25:10a piece of pockmarked concrete. But what I think it shows is that 1,500 years after this
25:19kind of iconography was invented, wow, an image of Mary can still be something that
25:26gives us a pause for thought, something that in her silence and in her solemnity
25:34puts all of this into a very different kind of context.
25:39With his paintbrush, Ian Knowles made a statement about the Virgin.
25:45She was designed in downtown Bethlehem, at the only icon school in the Middle East.
25:53Nikola Juha is a Greek Orthodox Christian. He came here as a student. Now he's the director.
26:01Nikola Juha is a Greek Orthodox Christian. He came here as a student. Now he's the director.
26:08This is an image which is similar to the image of Mary on the wall. Now, why is that not an
26:13image of Jesus? For sure, Jesus is our God. He's the most important in all the churches.
26:20But when we talk about Mary, here Mary, she has a special relationship with each Christian in
26:27the Holy Land. The birth of Jesus, the Annunciation, the New Testament starts with Mary.
26:33After Jesus Christ, she's the most important human being. We just love to have her in
26:39our houses and our cities, so that's why you can find her everywhere.
26:50Like all the students, Madalena Manar is a Christian.
26:54She draws the same subject all day long, but her enthusiasm is undimmed.
27:00When you are drawing or painting Mary, are you just thinking about getting the features
27:06and the lines correct, or are you thinking about who she is? No, who she is first of all,
27:12and what she's looking at and what she's pointing to, because you want her to come out, to meet you.
27:21So this represents an image of Mary, someone from thousands of years ago.
27:27How relevant is this person to you today? I feel she's like my mother. She's like a teacher
27:33to me, to be a good mother. I feel that she's near me when I pray to her,
27:40Virgin Mary, help my children, help me, help my husband, and she'll always be near to me.
27:48The most important woman in the world.
27:54This is a largely Muslim town, with a small Christian community,
27:58but you wouldn't know it in Manger Square. Mary put the little town of Bethlehem on the map,
28:04forever. As a boy, I got a strong mental picture of the birth of Jesus from my illustrated bible,
28:12but there was another important book. One of the things that I always remember
28:18about Christmas as a child was enjoying singing the carols, and there was one carol in particular
28:25that I remember because it was the first song I ever performed for my parents, and my mother
28:30thought I'd done a pretty good job. So bear with me, here we go. Away in the manger, no crib for
28:39a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky look down where
28:51he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
29:04that little Lord Jesus no crying will make.
29:16Somehow, Sunday school didn't prepare me for all this.
29:24I think that what's so wonderful about being here in Bethlehem is that you realise that
29:31this is the kind of place that Jesus would have experienced. The Easter story, his resurrection,
29:38all of it happened amidst this kind of noise and interruptions and unexpected chaos.
29:46And I think that that allows you to relate to the story more honestly,
29:53so that it's not just a fiction in scripture, it's real. And although we are 2,000 years away from
30:01the moment where all that happened, I still think that these sounds, these sparkling electric colours
30:09feed into my genuine understanding of what the Holy Land has always been about.
30:16Noise and splendour, it's all here.
30:26When you're immersed in a location for, you know, an hour, people gather around you and they
30:34kind of begin to accept you as part of this theatrical space. So, as you observe it,
30:41as you observe it, you're not just a sort of alien intruder, you're part of the story.
30:52All the sounds, all the noise, all the smells that are cascading around me, I feel
30:58as if I'm part of it and I'm trying to put all of that experience into my painting. So,
31:04it's not just about what it looks like, it's about all the senses. And everyone who comes
31:09to speak to me and exchanges a word with me motivates me, excites me, tells me something
31:15about this place I didn't know. Maybe just in their accent, maybe just in their attitude,
31:21and I put all of that into this particular picture of the Holy Land.
31:26And we've got to stand together.
31:36Hotels are plenty today, but on the night Mary and Joseph pitched up, Bethlehem was full.
31:44The only accommodation available was distinctly one star.
31:48For most people, Jesus' big adventure starts in a stable in a snowy Bethlehem at Christmas.
31:56The miracle birth represents the first great surge of good news in the Gospels.
32:02The joy of the resurrection at Easter is the other. And although plenty happens in between,
32:07the beginning and the end are the blockbuster moments. And although Mary is conspicuous by
32:13her absence in the closing chapter, here in the drafty stable, she takes centre stage.
32:21For artists in Renaissance Italy, the landscape around Bethlehem appeared reassuringly familiar.
32:29This is an image of a painting called The Madonna of the Meadow by Giovanni Bellini.
32:34And I think it's one of the most beautiful religious works of art ever created. I mean,
32:39it's exquisite, isn't it? It's a painting of symbols and signals. And throughout the image,
32:45you find little signs, for example, the buds of new growth in the branches of the trees
32:51that are supposed to suggest that this is the season of spring, a season of rebirth.
32:57But the most important symbol in this entire painting is the exchange that's going on between
33:04Mary and her child. This definitely is the look of love, but there is a poignancy, a sadness in
33:11there. The way the baby is sitting in her lap, we seem to have a premonition. If you remember
33:18the painting that Bellini created of Mary holding her dead son at the bottom of the crucifix,
33:25well, this symbolises that that moment is still to come. This image is a premonition of the future.
33:34Within 300 years, Mary's manger was buried under the Church of the Nativity.
33:46This is amongst the holiest sites in all Christendom. For nearly 2,000 years,
33:52pilgrims have crossed the world to see the place where it's said the Virgin Mary delivered God's
33:57Son. It's nuts, all the chaos, the crowds, the iPhones flashing, the tinfoil-style glitter and
34:06decorations, but it still feels very real. All these people, this river of humanity is coming
34:14through here every day, and there are thousands, not because for them it's a fairy story,
34:20but because it affects their everyday lives, and I feel that.
34:25I feel the intensity of their own relationship with this space.
34:44It's not easy concentrating on a drawing when the action around you is so exciting,
34:49but I'm not going to be able to get close to the site of the manger for a verse or two.
34:58In all the religious art I grew up with, the place Jesus was born was a barn. To see people
35:05pass through here, to be aware of them kneeling and contemplating what for them is the birth
35:11of an extraordinary thing, their faith, well, it's very humbling. Over the centuries,
35:18artists have felt compelled to interpret the scene of what is supposed to have happened here,
35:25and eventually, over time, that humble stable evolved into a place that glistered with gold,
35:32and I guess to some extent, maybe, the gold and the theatrics takes a little bit away from that
35:39sense of this being the humblest of settings for the birth of the mightiest of kings.
35:46My father painted his own versions of what happened here, and I've brought this little
35:52sketchbook with me, which shows his drawings of Mary and the baby Jesus, and even a particular
35:59sketch where she's breastfeeding the baby, and to have this little sketchbook here, well,
36:07it's quite intense, really, because my father saw himself as a part of the great story of art
36:13history, and all around me here are images by other artists from centuries ago who have interpreted
36:21scenes from the life of Jesus and have honoured this particular place through the images that
36:26they have created, and my dad's part of that legacy, and, well, I think he would have been
36:34surprised and quite amazed to think that this little sketchbook would have come to a place
36:39that he himself never visited, and if he's looking down, well, he might be grinning
36:45with a smile of delight, I think.
36:54The birth was world-changing and very ordinary. What Mary experienced has been shared by every
37:01mother since, but that's where the similarities end. If there's one thing we all know about the
37:07mother of Jesus, it's that, rather like the British, she had a particular attitude towards
37:12carnal relations. No sex, please, and the Virgin Mary. But things do get rather more complicated,
37:19because Mary was supposed to have been a virgin all her life, and this was news to me that in
37:25the Gospels, Jesus is described as having four named brothers and some anonymous sisters.
37:35Every month, about 300 of the babies born in Bethlehem are delivered here,
37:40at the Holy Family Hospital, looked over by the Holy Mother. She's everywhere.
37:47Drawing is about observation, staying slightly removed.
37:52As a new dad myself, surrounded by these newborns, that's absolutely impossible.
37:58Oh, are you going to kick off too?
38:02We've so recently been in a cowshed, the kind of environment where Jesus was born,
38:07a place full of livestock, a place full of unsightly mess, but here, here we are.
38:15But here, here we're in a place of cleanliness, and a place full of clinicians ready to help.
38:22Well, Jesus had his mother, Jesus had Mary, and she was the nurse
38:27that helped him through those early steps in the cowshed in Bethlehem.
38:37When you come into a space like this, and you hear these first breaths of a child born into
38:43this world, you realise that of all things, that love, that maternal care and power,
38:49is probably the most valuable we'll ever experience.
38:56He's beautiful.
39:00You've gone all quiet now. Is that because your mum's here?
39:05There you go, first portrait. I give it to you. Yes, I give you the drawing.
39:11There you go. And good luck, your baby's wonderful. Very best of luck.
39:20About 10% of the babies born here need intensive care.
39:25They've got the latest technology, and they're getting the most out of it.
39:30For me, the Virgin Mary plays a big role in my life.
39:34You need strength. It's not easy work. It's full of stress.
39:38So when you see a baby is dying, the only thing that you can do is to pray.
39:42You need support, and I feel the strength and support from the Virgin Mary, from my prayer, you know.
39:48I feel the strength and support from the Virgin Mary, from my prayer, you know.
39:51I feel the strength and support from the Virgin Mary, from my prayer, you know.
39:55She's an example of the great mother.
39:59She's an example of the great mother.
40:06I feel the Holy Family Hospital is like the nativity, you know.
40:09It's the cave that welcomes everybody in need, regardless of their religion.
40:15If it's rich or poor, you know, it's for everybody.
40:19Do you mind me asking, are you Christian or Muslim?
40:21I'm Christian.
40:22And a lot of the patients that you have here are not Christian, they are Muslim.
40:25No, 99%. They are Muslims, but they believe in the Virgin Mary.
40:30When they come here and they see that, you know, we have here an icon,
40:35some families, they ask from the Virgin Mary to help.
40:38So you've seen Muslim families before the icon of the Virgin Mary asking for help.
40:42That's extraordinary. It really is.
40:53Over the centuries, battling Christians and Muslims have destroyed and rebuilt
40:57churches and mosques built over this, the tomb of Mary in East Jerusalem.
41:04By tradition, Mary was buried here and this structure has never been damaged
41:09because the Virgin is so sacred to both faiths.
41:15The Virgin Mary's place in Muslim hearts was news to me.
41:19This is my first time in a mosque. So you pray this way.
41:23To get chapter and verse on her status in Islamic tradition,
41:27I went to the city mosque of Imam Sheikh Abed al-Majid.
41:32I wasn't aware I could even enter an Islamic house of worship.
41:36It was a morning full of revelations.
41:38They said, oh, Mary, you have certainly done a thing unprecedented.
41:41So by now she's given birth, I think.
41:43They said, how can we speak to one who is in the cradle, a child?
41:47And then the baby begins to speak.
41:48Jesus said, indeed, I am the servant of Allah.
41:53He has given me the scripture and made me a prophet.
41:58So Jesus is an important figure in Islam.
42:01Yes. If we don't believe in Jesus, we are not Muslims.
42:04So the role of Mary is as significant in the Koran
42:10as it is for Christians in the Bible.
42:12Yeah, more.
42:13There is a chapter, the name of the chapter is Mary.
42:16The mother of Muhammad and the wives of Muhammad
42:19didn't mention in the Koran.
42:20Mary is mentioned in the Koran.
42:23Mary is the only named woman in the Koran?
42:25Yes. That's extraordinary.
42:27We love Mary, yeah, and we teach her story to our daughters and boys.
42:33Does that mean that you offer prayers to Mary in any sense?
42:37We ask God to bless her, yeah,
42:40and God made her an example of purity, yeah.
42:44And He made her an example for the wives of Muhammad.
42:48So she's an example to all women?
42:49To all women, yes.
42:59Mary is a major star in the Koran,
43:01with not much more than a walk-on part in the Bible.
43:05Her most noticeable absence is on Easter Sunday,
43:08when Jesus rose from the dead.
43:10Here, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Old Jerusalem,
43:14stands what's said to be the tomb of Christ.
43:19And tonight, I'm going to enter it.
43:22My name is Adib Judah al-Husayni.
43:24I am the keys custodian of the Holy Sepulchral Church, since 1187.
43:29Sorry, your family has been the custodians of the keys
43:32for this building for how long?
43:34For more than 850 years.
43:36That's extraordinary.
43:38Why has your family been blessed with this particular role?
43:40The story, it's beginning since Muslim's leader, the Khalifa,
43:44want to protect the church for the whole world.
43:46Why would a Muslim sultan want to protect a Christian church?
43:49Because we are believe also in Jesus.
43:51Is your family a Muslim family?
43:53Yes, and they gave the key of the church for our family.
43:57So this is one of the most important Christian sites in the world.
44:00Yes.
44:01And the key holder are a Muslim family?
44:03A Muslim family, yes.
44:05And this is the key holder?
44:06This key has been opening this door for 800 years?
44:08Yes.
44:10That's really holding one of the most magnificent sculptures
44:12I've ever had in my hand.
44:14And so tonight, this is the alarm bell for everyone to leave,
44:18but tonight you're going to lock me in the building.
44:20Yes.
44:21So you must trust me.
44:22I trust you, yes.
44:37The process of getting everyone out
44:39has probably gone on like this for centuries.
44:43Even the priests are looking for a bit of entertainment.
44:46I'm trying to draw you from the wrong angle.
44:48I'm giving you a very big nose.
44:50Sorry about this.
44:51Yes, I have big nose because I am from Macedonia.
44:53No, but I'm...
44:54I have the nose of great Alexander.
44:56You have a beautiful nose.
44:58I am somewhat exaggerating its size.
45:01In the school, they learn you to make like this.
45:04No, my dad.
45:06My father, he taught me better.
45:08My nose is like the beast and the beauty.
45:10I know, I've given you a terrible nose.
45:12So where are you from?
45:14From Greece.
45:15From Greece?
45:16But now maybe you make me from Turkey.
45:18Oh, no.
45:20This is the portrait of madness.
45:22It is.
45:25OK, good night, everybody.
45:27Mr. Hosseini shuts us in and himself out
45:31and passes his ladder back inside.
45:37As a kid, I dreamed of spending a night shut in a museum.
45:41It felt like a huge adventure and so does this.
45:46Right, it's a lock-in.
45:51The most important church in Christendom
45:54The most important church in Christendom
45:57is a hive of holy activity.
46:00And then silence falls.
46:07Easter didn't end with the crucifixion.
46:10It began.
46:11Jesus was taken down from the cross
46:13and placed in a nearby tomb.
46:16And this is it.
46:18For many people, the precise location of Jesus's tomb
46:22is beside the point.
46:24It's the events that are associated with this place that matter.
46:28The triumph of the Easter story.
46:43So this is it.
46:45This is the tomb where Jesus was laid
46:49and from where he was resurrected.
46:54There is an atmosphere in here unlike anything I've ever experienced.
46:57And this tiny little space which represents such
47:02an enormously potent idea for the whole Christian world.
47:08Wow.
47:09It's like being inside an atom from which explodes out
47:14a whole universe of faith and belief and hope
47:19that from here the Messiah was resurrected
47:23and the Christian faith was born.
47:29On Easter Sunday, women came to wash his body.
47:33But Jesus was gone.
47:39The Gospels say some of them were called Mary
47:42but mysteriously there's no mention of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
47:48This Dutch masterpiece was possibly painted by two brothers,
47:51the Van Eycks.
47:53They tried to smuggle the Virgin into the Easter story.
47:57It's almost as if the Van Eyck brothers have lifted the lid
48:00of the building behind me and revealed the tomb of Jesus.
48:04We accompany the three Marys at the moment of their great astonishment
48:09when they realise the twist in the tale of the New Testament.
48:13Jesus is alive.
48:15Everything in this image has been carefully positioned,
48:19designed and researched to give us a truthful rendition
48:23of what happened in the Gospels.
48:25Everything except, I think,
48:28perhaps this figure here dressed in cerulean blue.
48:32Could this be Mary photobombing the resurrection,
48:35an event at which she was never meant to be present?
48:39DRAMATIC MUSIC
48:46As if the Easter story wasn't miraculous enough,
48:49Christ now appears to several disciples who are astonished.
48:54Apostle Thomas, though, only hears about it.
48:57He doesn't believe in ghosts.
49:00Then Jesus appears to him.
49:03As a child, I always felt a bit queasy looking at Caravaggio's picture.
49:08Caravaggio was not a dainty painter.
49:13In fact, he was a bit of a rough diamond.
49:15And he knew that the money shot in this whole story
49:19was the point at which Thomas here touches the wounds of Jesus.
49:24And in this painting, it's not just touching,
49:27it's really sticking his finger inside the wound
49:30and running it around the punctured flesh.
49:33He wanted to create an image that was so physical, so visceral,
49:37I just have to believe in what I'm seeing.
49:41And this makes me think about, well, what did Thomas feel
49:45in this instant of eye-bulging realisation
49:48if I'm so convinced by a 400-year-old painting?
49:52And this too underlines what is the message of the Gospels at this moment.
49:57As Jesus says,
49:59Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.
50:04SONG PLAYS
50:09Now the curtain lifts on the final act of the resurrection drama,
50:14here in Galilee, where Jesus grew up
50:17and where the Easter story began.
50:20Some disciples have gone back to their old jobs as fishermen.
50:24It's not going well.
50:27Then a stranger on the shore tells them to cast their nets
50:30to the other side of their boat, and bingo!
50:33It's fish suppers all round.
50:35They know Jesus has returned.
50:39These fishermen of Galilee are used to changeable weather conditions
50:44and that's one thing I've got in common with them
50:47because I'm used to painting in the open air
50:50on the west coast of Scotland,
50:52which, surprisingly, appears to have the same weather as Galilee.
50:58We've got blustery wind, we've got rain squalls and showers
51:02and I've got to try not to incorporate too many raindrops into my picture.
51:11This trip has been an opportunity to do so much fast sketching and drawing.
51:18I've been overwhelmed by subjects
51:21and it has actually been quite frustrating
51:24to stop, be still and paint one thing.
51:29And that's the opportunity I have just now
51:32to take the time and really paint what I see.
51:44There's no doubt that coming to the place where the Easter story is set
51:49brings its own inspiration.
51:51This isn't just, for me, a landscape or a seascape.
51:55It's loaded with resonance
51:59from all the stories that I've read in the Bible
52:02and thought about throughout my childhood and growing up.
52:05So when I put the brush to paper,
52:07although I'm trying to just reproduce what I can see,
52:10at the back of my mind there is a lot more going on.
52:15And I think it influences how I interpret this subject.
52:20This isn't just any old fisherman.
52:23It's the Sea of Galilee
52:25and whether that's expressed in the painting,
52:28it's certainly filtering through me
52:31as I put every little pool of colour onto paper.
52:41This here is a man's world and it was in the first century.
52:45But Mary is the most important woman in her son's life.
52:49Shouldn't she have been the first person Jesus appeared to?
52:52She was instrumental to everything he'd done.
52:56She sat beside him at the wedding feast here in Galilee
53:00where Jesus performs his first miracle, turning water into wine.
53:04In fact, it's Mary that urges him to do something miraculous.
53:08"'They have no wine,' she says.
53:11And Jesus replies, "'What has this to do with me?
53:14"'My hour is not yet come.'"
53:16But as with most mothers, Mary knows better
53:19and she watches as Jesus transforms the water into wine
53:24and everybody around realises that her boy has special powers.
53:29And then that's it. The lady vanishes.
53:32She makes a brief appearance at the base of the crucifix
53:36and then she's gone again from the dramatic events that follow.
53:4740 days after the resurrection, the Easter drama ends.
53:53Jesus makes his last appearance on the Mount of Olives,
53:57passing up to heaven in a blaze of light,
54:00a miracle called the Ascension.
54:03According to the Gospel of Luke, the disciples are all there,
54:07but Mary misses out.
54:10Jesus is gone.
54:14Jesus is gone.
54:16But there's something about Mary.
54:18She's always there when you need her.
54:20Her time has come again.
54:23In the vacuum left by the Ascension,
54:26the disciples are all drawn towards Mary,
54:29their last point of contact
54:31with the fleshy, physical reality of the Messiah.
54:35Jesus had instructed his disciples to wait for a signal from God,
54:39so for ten days they cling together
54:42and Mary, the mother figure,
54:44is the person that gives them all reassurance.
54:52The event is celebrated by Christians 50 days after Easter
54:56at a celebration called Pentecost.
55:02El Greco paints the moment when the sign from God arrives.
55:06The room is filled with a rushing noise from heaven
55:09like a mighty gust of wind.
55:11Everybody starts to talk excitedly in different languages.
55:14They are delirious with joy
55:17and individually they are suddenly blessed with the Holy Spirit
55:21in the form of a flame at the forehead.
55:24In a room filled with men, in a society governed by men,
55:28in an early church that would take centuries
55:31to recognise anything other than the authority of men,
55:34El Greco places a woman, Mary, holding everything together.
55:42Mary is, I think, the figure
55:45that it's easiest to relate to in the Bible.
55:48She's an ordinary person caught up in a world of miracles.
55:53In the Gospels, she's left as a bit of a mystery,
55:57but that gap in turn allows us to paint her picture
56:01the way we want her to be,
56:03to make her what we need her to be.
56:07That's what painting pictures of the Holy Land has been all about.
56:11Artists who dream dreams,
56:13artists who see visions on our behalf,
56:16artists who transform the words of Scripture
56:20into images that help us to grasp
56:23what is happening in the world around us.
56:26I think that's what it's all about.
56:28I think that's what it's all about.
56:30I think that's what it's all about.
56:33It's making the words of Scripture into images
56:36that help us to grasp the real meaning behind events
56:40like the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus,
56:44the Easter story.
56:47Those masterpieces gave me my first impressions of the Holy Land,
56:51but I had to see it for myself.
56:54These sketches are memories
56:56of my personal encounters with the Easter story.
57:00and mountaintops, places Jesus walked but the modern Israel and the occupied
57:07Palestinian territories have helped give me a new understanding of Christ's passion.
57:13Now I haven't tried to paint you a crucifixion scene as my father
57:19would have done but because the Holy Land is a place that's still so alive
57:24with the memory of biblical events, because faith is still so important to
57:29the people that live there, I do feel that by sketching the places and the
57:35faces that I encountered I have in some small way become a painter of religious
57:40subjects just like my dad.
57:47The thing that struck me most during my journey, more than the buildings and the
57:53sacred sites and relics, was the simple power of human faith because I didn't
57:59meet many people who didn't believe in a God. I didn't meet many people who
58:04didn't in some way believe in the sanctity of Mary and standing beneath
58:09this effigy as my mother would have done so often during her childhood, I still
58:14feel that I am in the Holy Land and that's because art makes that possible.
58:20Art has the power to take us there. You don't always have to travel thousands of
58:24miles, sometimes you just need to open your eyes.
58:54you