Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman (2017) - full transcript

- This is a film about
a woman who probably

never existed, but whose
story changed history.

It's a story that's
soaked into our culture.

It's everywhere,
in every corner.

Sweaty, sensuous, and naughty.

It's the story of
Mary Magdalene.

If you've read this,
and who hasn't,

then you'll know something
about her already,

or, at least, you'll
think you do because,

according to this, Mary
Magdalene and Jesus Christ

were lovers, they
had a baby together



and their descendants
are still among us today,

hiding their secret origins.

If you haven't read this,
you might have seen this.

The popular musical by Andrew
Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.

In this, she's a
former prostitute

who falls hopelessly
in love with Jesus

and who sings that
famous song to him,

I Don't Know How To Love Him.

- Oh, how artists
through the ages have loved

the idea that Mary
Magdalene was a temptress.

- But even if you
haven't seen or read

any of these things,
the chances are you've

still heard of Mary
Magdalene because she's

infiltrated our culture
on such a profound level.



For 2,000 years, we've
been fantasizing about her.

She's in our churches
and on our walls.

In our chapels and
in our windows.

In our paintings.

And in our dreams.

Why are we so obsessed with her?

Why does she ring
our bell so loudly?

And if she wasn't any of
the things they say she was,

who, really, was she?

The Magdalene story
begins in the Holy Land.

Where else?

She's a creature of the Bible.

Its most alluring and
intoxicating presence.

According to the Gospels,
she was a woman from Magdala.

And this.

Is Magdala.

Today, it's just a pokey
sprawl on the banks

of the Sea of Galilee
but, in biblical times,

this was a thriving
fishing port.

Magdala Nunayya, they called it.

Magdala of the fishes.

They still fish here
when the mood takes them.

But once, Magdala was
a biblical hot spot.

A few miles up the road
that way is Nazareth,

where Jesus grew up.

A few miles that way is
Cana, where he turned

water into wine.

And over there is
the Sea of Galilee,

where he walked on the waves.

Or so they say.

So these are crucial
biblical territories

where important things happened.

But the first thing to
note about Mary Magdalene

is that she hardly
features in any of them.

Considering how famous
she is and how many men

through the ages have
drooled over her,

what's remarkable is
how little we know

about her and how
much we've imagined.

In the Bible, she's mentioned
just a handful of times.

A thoroughly minor
character about whom

we learn next to nothing.

Basically, she's
mentioned four times.

And that's it.

The first time is in
the Gospel of Luke,

where we're told that
she was one of the women

who followed Jesus.

Here, I'll read you the passage.

"The 12 were with him,"
that's the 12 Apostles.

And also "certain women
who had been healed

"of evil spirits
and infirmities,"

among them, "Mary that
was called Magdalene,

"from whom seven devils
had been cast out."

So she was one of the women
who'd accompanied Jesus

on his journeys through
these biblical lands

and he had cast seven
demons out of her.

But what the hell
are seven demons?

Was she possessed
by seven devils?

Had she committed
seven types of sin?

There's been endless
speculation, but no answers.

What is clear from this first
spicy mention in the Bible

is that Mary had a
regrettable past.

She was stained with
something sinful

and when women in the
Bible are said to be sinful

the accusation usually points
in a specific direction.

Jerusalem.

Where Christ was flogged,
humiliated, and crucified

and where Mary Magdalene
made the most telling

of her tiny appearances
in the Bible.

So we all know
what happened here,

in the streets of
Jerusalem, the story

of Christ's torture
and crucifixion.

How he was mocked
by the baying crowd

as he carried his
own cross up here

to the place he was crucified,

the place we call Calvary.

Calvary, where Christ
was nailed to the cross,

is actually a mistranslation
from the Latin.

The real name of this
morbid hilltop is Golgotha,

the Place Of The Skulls.

And that's the name
I'm going to use.

It happened right
there, where the

Church Of The Holy
Sepulchre now stands.

That is Golgotha.

At three o'clock in the
afternoon, Jesus was nailed

to the cross, right there,
and hoisted up before us

so we could witness his
suffering and his death.

It's the most powerful
moment in Christian art.

A scene of suffering
so extreme you wonder

how it ever ended
up in a church.

The Crucifixion is one
of art's great subjects.

Every old master of
note has had a go at it.

It's a scene of spectacular
torture and pain.

But it's also the moment
when Mary Magdalene

makes her second
appearance in the Bible.

Again, it's just
a passing mention.

Mark, chapter 15, verse 27.

"Jesus gave out a loud
cry and breathed his last.

"And there were women
looking on from a distance.

"Among them was Mary Magdalene."

So she was there
at the Crucifixion,

just a brief mention,
but it was enough.

Mary Magdalene was
a witness to the

darkest moment in
the Christian story.

She was there so she
had to be imagined.

Look down to the foot of
the cross in any Crucifixion

and you'll find her.

The most beautiful
of the sobbing women

who've come to mourn
the passing of Christ.

And if none of
them is beautiful,

look for the one who's
screaming the loudest

because Mary Magdalene,
who barely gets a mention

in the Bible, was elevated
in art to the exciting

and dramatic role
of chief mourner.

The third mention of
Mary in the Bible is the

most important of them all.

Having been there at the
Crucifixion and witnessed

the death of Christ,
she's also named,

a few verses later,
as the first witness

to his Resurrection.

On the third day, you'll
remember, Jesus came back

from the dead.

The job of saving us
was done and it was

Mary Magdalene who met him again

and who spread the
word of his return.

In three of the Gospels,
she's one of a group of women,

all called Mary, who
find the tomb empty.

But in the Gospel of
St John, the most vivid

and influential of the
Gospels, it's Mary Magdalene,

and only Mary Magdalene,
who first encounters

the risen Christ.

Savoldo shows the moment
in an unusual fashion.

Dawn is breaking.

And there's Mary Magdalene
turned towards us

with a strange
expression on her face.

She's heard something
and a mysterious light

has fallen on her.

So she turns around and
there's Jesus, looking at her.

The Savoldo, which is in the
National Gallery in London,

is different.

In most paintings of the
scene, Mary doesn't recognize

Jesus because she
thinks he's dead.

And according to St
John, in his Gospel,

she mistakes him for a gardener.

That's why, in Rembrandt's
wacky version of the scene,

Jesus sports that
unlikely horticultural hat

and why, when Fra
Angelico painted it,

he gave him a garden
implement to hold,

slung casually on his shoulder.

So the sobbing Mary mistakes
Jesus for a gardener.

He asks her why she's crying and

she tells him that Jesus'
body has disappeared.

Does he know where
it's been taken?

Mary, he says to her,
and she looks up.

And she knows it's him.

Falling at his feet, the
Magdalene tries to touch Jesus,

but he tells her not to.

Noli me tangere, he
says, Don't touch me.

He's not a man any more.

He's a god.

It's a strange scene.

Why, out of all the important
figures in the Bible,

was Mary Magdalene
singled out to witness

Christ's Resurrection?

In the Middle Ages, when
they were especially unkind

and misogynistic
about these things,

the explanation that was
usually given was that

women were gossips and that,
by showing himself to a woman,

Christ was ensuring
that word of his return

would quickly spread.

But I don't think that's it.

I think it's because, from
the start, Mary Magdalene

was one of us.

A tangibly human presence,
the girl next door,

a sinner, like me and you.

In art, she's never a
creature of the clouds.

There's always something
real about her.

I mean, look at this
superb terracotta

by Niccolo dell'Arca.

How real is that?

So that's it that's all the
mentions of Mary Magdalene

in the Bible.

She's the sinner who had seven
demons thrown out of her.

She witnessed the Crucifixion.

And she was the first
person to see Jesus

when he rose from the dead.

So those are the facts.

And from now on,
everything else is fantasy

or fabrication or it's a
mix-up with all the other

Marys in the Bible, because
there were a lot of them.

And before we go any
further in this film,

we need to clear that up.

So here is.

My handy guide

to all the relevant
Marys in the Bible.

First, there's our
Mary, Mary Magdalene,

who followed Christ and
witnessed his Crucifixion.

In Rogier van der Weyden's
great Descent From The Cross,

she's the sobbing
Mary on the right.

The one who's wearing
a Jesus and Mary chain.

But outranking her in
religious status is Mary,

the mother of Jesus,
the Virgin Mary.

She's everywhere in art.

In the van der Weyden,
she's slumped at the front

at the sight of her dead son.

Now, according to some,
and this is very confusing,

the Virgin Mary's sister
was also called Mary,

and she's Mary Salome.

She's in the picture too.

Supporting her sister
and weeping for her.

Then there's a third
Mary, Mary Cleophas,

another female disciple
of Christ who was there,

they say, at the Crucifixion.

Now, confusingly, she
too was another sister

of the Virgin Mary though
why anyone would name

three of their daughters
Mary is beyond me.

What's certain is that her
tears are the most miraculous.

In a masterpiece that's
wet with divine sorrow.

So these three here
form a family group

and they're often
shown together.

But so too

are these three, and
they form another group,

commonly known as
The Three Marys.

And they pop up in a lot of art.

They were especially
popular in the Middle Ages.

And if you want to find
the Magdalene among them,

look down on the ground.

So the Magdalene was lost
in a crowd of biblical Marys

and needed to stand out.

And that's where the
Pharisees come in.

The Pharisees were the bad
guys in the story of Jesus.

They were an Orthodox Jewish
sect who were suspicious

of Jesus and who made
things difficult for him.

Here are some Pharisees
in a painting by Poussin.

That's Simon the Pharisee.

This is his home, and
he's throwing a big feast

to which he's invited Jesus.

By inviting him for
dinner here in Capernaum,

Simon was hoping to
find out more about

this rebellious
fellow from Nazareth,

who was travelling
around the Holy Land

with his disciples,
spreading his new word.

The feast was a test.

Who was this Jesus of Nazareth?

And what was he up to?

Now, in those days, when you
invited a guest for dinner,

one of the first things you
did was to wash their feet.

They'd been travelling
through the dusty desert,

wearing sandals, probably,
so their feet were dirty.

In the Poussin, Simon
himself is getting his feet

washed by a servant.

But look who's
washing Jesus' feet.

That's not a servant.

That's a woman with regrets.

All the Bible tells us about
her is that she was a sinner.

An unnamed woman who
came to the house of

Simon the Pharisee and who saw
that Jesus' feet were dirty.

So she washed them
with her tears,

dried them with her hair
and then kissed them

and anointed them with oils.

It's a scene that
artists through the
ages loved to depict.

A desperate woman, a sinner,
groveling at the feet of Jesus.

Kissing and cleaning them,
begging for forgiveness.

No-one says it's Mary Magdalene.

She could have been anybody.

But quicker than you can
say Whore of Babylon,

the early Christian mind began
putting two and two together,

and the unnamed
sinner in the house of

Simon the Pharisee began to be

recognized as Mary Magdalene.

As for her unnamed sins, well,
she was a woman, wasn't she?

And we all know what sins
women like to commit.

I said there were a lot
of Marys in the Bible,

but there were even
more outside the Bible

in the various tales of
repentance and heroism

that began to be passed
from Christian to Christian.

One such tale, a very
fruity one, was the story

of Mary of Egypt.

The repentant harlot
who lived in the desert.

Mary of Egypt was what they
later called a nymphomaniac.

She loved sex, couldn't
get enough of it.

And although she was a harlot,
she often did it for free,

just for the fun of
it, or so they say.

One day, Mary of Egypt
decided to go to Jerusalem

to tease the pilgrims.

But when she got to the
Church Of The Holy Sepulchre

an invisible force
refused to let her enter.

She couldn't get in.

And she realized that she
needed to change her ways.

So she returned to the
desert and became a hermit.

And for 20 years, she survived
on three loaves of bread

and whatever she could
find in the wilderness.

One day, another
hermit, called Zosimas,

came across her in a cave.

She was naked
except for her hair,

which had grown so
long that it covered

her shameful nakedness.

Zosimas gave her
his cloak to put on

and, when he returned a
year later, she was dead.

A repentant sinner whose
repentance was complete.

In Assisi, in the chapel
devoted to Mary Magdalene,

painted by Giotto,
you can see all this

being acted out on the
walls because, yes,

you guessed it, Mary of
Egypt was another identity

that was quickly
added to the growing

myth of Mary Magdalene.

This idea that Mary Magdalene
was a harlot, a prostitute,

that her sins were
the sins of the flesh,

isn't in the Bible.

There's no evidence
for it of any kind.

But it soon became the big
idea about Mary Magdalene,

the idea everyone
wanted to believe.

Thus the life of Mary of
Egypt was stolen from her

and given to Mary Magdalene.

From now on, any artist
seeking to portray

the Magdalene assumed, as
Jusepe de Ribera assumes here,

that she was a repentant harlot

who needed to pay for her sins.

Having been turned
into a naughty sinner,

Mary Magdalene
needed a new look.

So art got busy
inventing one for her.

This stuff here it
is called spikenard.

It's a fragrant oil made
from Himalayan plants

and it was popular in
ancient times as a perfume

and an ointment.

Spikenard was the oil
that the unnamed sinner

in the house of
Simon the Pharisee

rubbed so tenderly
into the feet of Jesus

when she washed them with
her tears and dried them

with her hair.

Prostitutes used it too.

Its delicious aromas would
intoxicate their clients

and fill them with desire.

For all those reasons,
spikenard, in a vase or a jar

or a bowl, became the
symbol of Mary Magdalene

and could always be
found by her side.

So if you see an
unknown woman in art

and there's a pot of
ointment near her,

that's Mary Magdalene.

Look out also for her hair.

If it's loose and falls
down her back like a river,

as it does in this
Guido Mazzoni sculpture,

that's the Magdalene as well.

Another thing to look out for
is the color of her dress.

If it's bright red, like
this, then it's probably her.

Since ancient times, red
has been the color of love.

A dangerous color.

That's why the expression
a scarlet woman

entered our language
because of Mary Magdalene.

Out of almost nothing, out
of a handful of mentions

in the Bible and some
stolen bits of other Marys,

art constructed the giant
myth of Mary Magdalene.

And it didn't stop there.

So far, everything I've
told you has been set

in Galilee or Jerusalem.

But the Holy Land is tiny.

Too tiny to contain
the enlarging myth
of Mary Magdalene.

The more they fantasized about
her, the less recognizable

she became, and the time
soon arrived for the

myth of Mary
Magdalene to travel.

You must have wondered how
Mary Magdalene ended up

in The Da Vinci Code.

After all, that terrible
book is set mostly in France.

But Mary Magdalene's story
is set in the Holy Land.

Okay, it's time for
a bit of geography.

So over here, imagine
that's the Holy Land,

where Mary Magdalene's
story begins in the Bible,

round about here, in Galilee.

And this way, all the way round.

This is what the Romans
used to call Mare Nostrum,

which means Our Sea.

But today, we call
it the Mediterranean.

And also on the
Mediterranean up here,

this is France.

And just about there,
is this very beach

we're standing on in Provence.

And this is the beach
on which Mary Magdalene

actually landed when
she fled the Holy Land

and cast herself

at the mercy of
the Mediterranean.

The facts are pretty unclear
because there aren't any.

It was all made up.

But the story goes that, when
the Jews began persecuting

the Christians, Mary
Magdalene and her fellow Marys

were put on boats with
no oars, no sails,

and they drifted
across the Mare Nostrum

until they reached Provence.

So she landed here
on the beach at

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,
Saint Mary of the Sea.

And having been
miraculously saved,

she set about converting
the French to Christianity.

Provence was to play
a gigantic role,

not just in the story
of Mary Magdalene,

but in the story of art as well.

There's a famous painting of
this very beach by Van Gogh

showing some boats
pulled up on the sand.

At first sight, it looks like
an innocent boat picture.

But at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,

there's no such thing as
an innocent boat picture

as we shall see.

As the saint who'd
converted Provence,

Mary Magdalene was
particularly popular here,

a visiting superstar
from the Bible who'd

made the South of
France her home and whom

the locals were keeping
very, very busy.

Because she'd been a prostitute,

they made her the patron
saint of prostitutes.

Because she'd met
Jesus in the garden,

she became the patron
saint of gardeners too.

And because she'd dried
Christ's feet with her hair,

she looked after
hairdressers as well.

Most importantly of all,
because she'd arrived

in Provence and brought
Christianity with her,

they made her the patron
saint of Provence.

And this was her church, the
Basilica Of Mary Magdalene.

And there she is, the
woman herself or, at least,

her skull, carefully preserved
in a golden reliquary

that shows off her
beautiful hair.

The hair that wiped
Christ's feet.

This big church in the
small Provencal town

of Saint-Maximin-la-Baume
was where her body

was miraculously
discovered in 1279.

Some monks were
digging up the crypt

when they found an
ancient sarcophagus.

Inside was her perfectly
preserved corpse.

And drifting up from the bones
was the sweet smell of roses.

Now, of course, all
this had been made up.

Why?

Because of the relics.

In medieval Europe, relics
were like gold dust.

If you had some
important ones, like the

body of Mary Magdalene,
people would travel

hundreds of miles to see
them and to touch them.

Relics had magic powers.

They could cure you of terminal
illness or bring you babies.

If you touched a holy
body, even a bit of it.

A toe, a hand, the
saintliness flowed through you

and you'd go to heaven,
or so they said.

As news spread of the
great find, pilgrims

began flocking here in
spectacular numbers.

And where there are pilgrims,
there's money, lots of it.

And money has to be controlled.

So the church was
handed over to the care

of that especially fierce
religious order, the Dominicans,

and Mary Magdalene became
their patron as well.

Ah, yes, the Dominicans,
punishers-in-chief

of the medieval church.

As the patron saint
of the Dominicans,

Mary Magdalene makes
a beautiful appearance

in the Dominican Convent
of San Marco in Florence

in some deceptively exquisite
Renaissance frescoes

by the Dominican
friar Fra Angelico.

And all around her,
the Dominicans,

the great flagellators
of the monkish orders,

suffer mightily for their sins,

and make sure the rest of
us suffer mightily as well.

Darkness and punishment
were now creeping

into the story of
Mary Magdalene.

Having invented her sinful past,

art was now determined
to make her pay for it.

Mary Magdalene had
touched Christ.

She'd kissed his feet,
rubbed spikenard into them

and smelt them, and as
a former prostitute,

her erotic past could never
be scrubbed completely clean.

But as always, with sin,
it's both deeply regrettable

and deeply attractive.

In the battered porches
of medieval France,

she's always easy to spot.

A rare horizontal
in a vertical world.

Crawling about on the
ground, washing Jesus' feet

with her tears.

She was everywhere.

But here in Provence,
they had one thing

that no-one else had.

It's up there, at the end
of this exhausting climb,

the Cave of Mary Magdalene.

When her work in
Provence was complete and

the pagans had been converted,

the Magdalene was said
to have retired here.

High in the hills above Aix.

Just one duty remained
for her to fulfill.

The scarlet woman needed to
pay for the sins of her youth.

Originally, this was a grotto
devoted to the Virgin Mary,

Mary, the mother of Jesus.

But as the Provencal legend of
Mary Magdalene grew and grew,

the cave switched
identities and became the

Cave of Mary Magdalene.

This is where she spent
the final 30 years

of her life, paying her penance.

She didn't eat,
she didn't drink.

All she did was repent.

Mary Magdalene had already
played a spectacular

number of roles in art.

What she hadn't done yet is
suffer properly for her sins.

Really suffer.

And that's what happened
here, in this cave.

To show the Magdalene
atoning for her past,

for all those young
men she'd led astray

with her dangerous beauty,
art invented a new genre.

The penitent Magdalene.

Pretty much every notable
artist of the 16th, 17th,

and 18th centuries produced
a penitent Magdalene.

They were phenomenally popular.

She was usually shown
at night, home alone,

remembering her naughty
past and regretting it.

It all got very
sweaty and strange.

You remember Mary of Egypt?

The harlot who lived in the
desert, wore no clothes,

and whose identity
was subsumed in the

identity of Mary Magdalene?

Well, it was in this cave
that the Mary of Egypt

side of Mary Magdalene found
its weirdest expression.

This peculiar creature
is the hairy Magdalene,

carved by Tilman
Riemenschneider at the end

of the 15th century.

Naked in the wilderness,
she's grown a thick pelt

of neck-to-ankle body
hair to cover her modesty.

Riemenschneider was a
German, whose attitude

to female nudity was
furtive and uncomfortable.

But when the Italians
started to paint

penitent Magdalenes,
they had no such problem.

See, for instance,
Titian's Magdalene.

Big-haired and beautiful,
in a plump, Venetian way.

She tries to cover her modesty
with her gorgeous hair,

but it's all a bit
half-hearted, isn't it?

So she's naked in this
cave for 30 years,

no food, no drink,
how did she survive?

With divine help, of course.

Seven times a day,
the legends say,

angels would come down
to her from heaven

and feed her on celestial music.

For 30 years, Mary Magdalene
survived on ecstasy.

And in art, religious
ecstasy and sexual ecstasy

are always difficult
to tell apart.

When Artemisia Gentileschi
came to paint the scene,

she produced something
that goes off the scale

on the steamy front.

Mary came to the cave
to repent for her sins,

but by the time Artemisia
got her hands on her,

she seemed to be
enjoying them again.

And when you start enjoying
the sin of fornication,

we all know what happens next.

There's a painting by
Caravaggio of the Magdalene

in ecstasy.

It was lost for many years,
but it's recently turned up.

There she is, open mouthed,
transported in a dark pleasure.

Caravaggio was especially
fond of Mary Magdalene.

He painted her a
number of times.

And one image in
particular haunts me.

It's a penitent Magdalene, but
a particularly awkward one.

What a strange pose.

There's her spikenard, and the
pearls she no longer needs.

But why would anyone
sit like that?

I'm going to explain it to
you, but first, a little quiz.

Here we have two low chairs.

Both have a specific purpose.

Do you know what it is?

Well, this one here

is what they call
a prayer chair.

A prie-dieu.

You use it when
you want to pray.

And the usual explanation
for Caravaggio's Magdalene

is that she's sitting
in one of these.

The trouble is, these
aren't meant for sitting.

They're meant for kneeling.

Like so.

And that's not what
the Magdalene is doing.

So I think she's actually
sitting on one of these.

A birthing chair.

This is a modern one,
but they've been used

for thousands of years,
an especially low chair,

on which a woman sits when
she's giving birth to a baby.

Look at the way Caravaggio's
Magdalene holds her hands.

The tenderness on her face.

It isn't just Dan
Brown who insinuated

that she was pregnant
when she came to France,

lots of artists have implied it.

Rogier van der Weyden,
the master of the tear,

implied it with
exceptional subtlety

in his beautiful Braque
Triptych in the Louvre.

See how the laces of
the Magdalene's corset

are loosened at the tummy.

In Flemish art, loosened laces
are the sign of pregnancy.

There are various
ways to read all this.

There's the Dan Brown
way, the sensational way,

that she really was
pregnant with Jesus' baby,

and that their descendants
are still among us today,

plotting their return.

Or there's something
more subtle.

The van der Weyden way,
in which Mary Magdalene's

love of Jesus is understood
as a spiritual state.

What she's carrying
is the Word of God.

That's what she
came to France with.

She's the bride of Christ,
but in the spiritual sense.

Inside Mary Magdalene
is the Christian future.

You recognize that
view, don't you?

It's one of the most famous
views, not just in Provence,

but in the whole of art.

It is, of course, the
Mont Sainte-Victoire,

Cezanne's favorite mountain.

Heaven knows how many
times he painted it.

He was a local boy, a
Provencal through and through.

And the great mountain
was always on his horizon.

What you may not know,
is that our cave,

the Cave of Mary Magdalene,
is also over there

on the other side
of the mountain.

And Saint-Maximin-la-Baume
is there as well

With Mary Magdalene's skull.

The presence of the
Magdalene is something

you feel everywhere in Provence.

She's soaked into
the region's history.

She's soaked into Cezanne.

Although he's thought
of as the great pioneer

of modern art, which
he was, Cezanne

had another side to him.

He was very religious in
a blunt and Provencal way.

His views on art
were progressive,

but his views on women were not.

This spectacularly
awkward painting is

Cezanne's penitent Magdalene.

He painted her in
her cave, kneeling,

praying for forgiveness.

There's a misshapen
skull on her table,

and Mary herself is
bulky and unglamorous.

So unglamorous she looks
more like a man than a woman.

When you first see it, it's
a very unappealing picture,

clumsy and dark.

But one of the great
things about film cameras

is that they allow you to get
really close to paintings.

When you get really close
to Cezanne's Magdalene,

the clumsiness fades down,
and the pathos fades up.

Those white blobs above
her head, incidentally,

are the pearls that fell
from the roof of her cave.

Pearls, they say, made out
of the Magdalene's tears.

Tears are the scarlet
woman's great gift to art.

And in Provence, the
Magdalene and her tears

are never far away.

So, in this, Mary Magdalene
comes to France pregnant.

She has Jesus' baby, and
establishes a dynasty

that marries into the
French royal family.

And they're still out
there today, somewhere.

It's complete nonsense.

Utter fantasy.

But Mary Magdalene's
story is 99% fantasy.

Most of it has been made up.

What's really remarkable though,

is how influential it's been.

That's why I've brought
you to this beach again.

And this is where
Van Gogh comes in.

We're just up the
road from Arles,

deep in Van Gogh country.

We all know what Van
Gogh did in Provence.

He painted some of the most
celebrated masterpieces

of postimpressionist art.

And on this beach, at
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,

he painted his famous boats
pulled up on the sand.

It's the same beach on which
Mary Magdalene was said

to have landed with
her fellow Marys.

Three boatloads of
ancient Christians,

washed up without
rudders or sails at

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

And if you look carefully,
you'll see that the

battered box also
washed up on the beach

is signed Vincent.

One of the big
mysteries of Van Gogh

that's always puzzled people,
is why he came to this

bit of Provence in
the first place.

I mean, he had the whole
of the South of France

to choose from.

So why pick somewhere as
pokey and backward as this?

Well, I have a
theory about that.

It involves Mary Magdalene
and this book here.

Mireio by Frederic Mistral,
the greatest Provencal poet.

It's set at
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,
right here,

and a few miles up
the road in Arles,

where Van Gogh cut off
his ear, so notoriously.

And it tells the story
of a beautiful local girl

called Mireio, and
a soulful young man,

who falls in love with
her, named Vincent.

Vincent is a humble
basket weaver.

An itinerant craftsman
who fixes chairs.

Like the one Van Gogh painted
as a stand in for himself

in the yellow house in Arles.

Mireio, meanwhile, was from
the other side of the tracks,

the daughter of a
local landowner.

Rich, spirited, and lovely.

They meet in an orchard,
Vincent loves Mireio

immediately, and she loves him.

But her father disapproves,
so they make a pact.

If anything is to happen
to either of them,

they should meet
over there at the

Church of
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer,

where Mary Magdalene
and her fellow Marys

will look after
them, and save them.

Mireio was turned into an
opera by Charles Gounod.

And it was playing in
Brussels when Van Gogh

lived there, studying
to be a preacher.

In the opera, there's
an important moment set

in the arena in Arles,
where Vincent meets Mireio

at the bullfights, and
they grab a secret moment

to express their love.

Interestingly, just
before he came to Arles,

Van Gogh started to
sign his work Vincent.

It's an unusual thing to
do, to use your Christian

name so often, so prominently.

He said it was because
people found Van Gogh

difficult to pronounce.

But there's something
insistent about that signature,

something declamatory, and loud.

While we're on the
subject of names,

Mireio is Provencal
for Mireille,

and both are
derived from Miriam,

a biblical name that's
also used sometimes

for Mary Magdalene.

Mireio, Mireille, Miriam, Mary.

She switched identities more
often than Jason Bourne.

But whatever she called herself,

artists couldn't stop
dreaming about her.

So what am I saying?

What I'm saying is that
this poem and the opera made

from it played a decisive
role in Van Gogh's life.

I'm saying that Van Gogh came to

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
because of it.

And that's why he painted
the beach, and the boats.

I'm saying he painted
the bullring in Arles

because that's where
Vincent met Mireio.

And that this could be
him and her, right there.

I'm saying that Van Gogh
began calling himself Vincent,

not for reasons
of pronunciation,

but because he
identified so fiercely

with the humble basket weaver.

I think he came here
looking for love.

Mistral's poem haunted him.

It singled him out and
filled him with yearning.

I think he came to Arles because
that's where Mireio is set.

And I think he came here
to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

because this is where
Vincent and Mireio ended up,

in this church, in
front of Mary Magdalene.

And that's the thing about
the story of Mary Magdalene.

It twists here and there, but
it keeps coming back to love.

So there we have it.

How a few grains of truth
were turned into the

mountain of fantasy
that is Mary Magdalene.

She's a work of fiction.

One of the great female leads
created by the artistic mind.

But where most fictional
characters are the work

of a single author,
Mary Magdalene is a

communal achievement.