BBC2’s documentary, A Very British Renaissance, spans three episodes and captures the birth and development of the Renaissance in England. Written and presented by Dr. James Fox, the documentary’s main raison d’etre seems to be convincing viewers that Britain did in fact have a renaissance — that it wasn’t just those exceptionally creative and inventive Italians like Petrarch, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and others that produced for their own country an artistic and cultural rebirth.
It’s a rather gimmicky, and unnecessary, way to kick things off. Italy, of course, did experience their renaissance a solid 150 years before Britain did (who was busy with a century long war and then infighting). There’s no doubting, either, that the Italian Renaissance, beginning around 1300, holds a more immediate and vivid imagination in the minds of people when they hear the word “renaissance.” But does anyone think that no renaissance in Britain ever took place, or that figures like Holbein, Wyatt, Tallis, and Shakespeare were more or less random artistic geniuses living and working in an environment devoid of great intellectual and artistic ferment? Probably not.
It seems almost conventional now that even well-presented and thoughtful documentaries must begin with a kind of overblown (even outlandish) thesis, which provides justification for making a film on whatever subject; as if without such a dramatic premise no viewers would ever be drawn into an area which is thoroughly interesting in its own right.
And the English Renaissance is certainly that. Beginning in the first quarter of the 16th century, and ending roughly a century later, the story of the British Renaissance is a story of dynamic cultural influence, political and religious upheaval, a striving for individuality and distinctiveness, and, last but not least, a cast of brilliant minds. This last feature is what Fox’s documentary centers around: the pioneering individuals, rather the kings and queens or the prevailing forces of the time — though it does bring these into play.
This approach has its weaknesses, but its great benefit is that viewers get a relatively in-depth look at a diverse panorama of some twenty five individuals — very well known ones, like Shakespeare, but also much less familiar ones like Nicholas Hilliard and Emery Molyneux.
As Dr. Fox tell his viewers at the beginning of this three-part series, however, it wasn’t a British figure at all who started the renaissance in England; it was, not terribly surprisingly, an Italian, one by the name of Pietro Torrigiano. Apparently feisty and rather violent by nature, Torrigiano had the gall to punch Michelangelo in the nose, which soon sent him (Torriangio) on the run, and eventually the fearful Italian made his way to court of Henry VIII. After being commissioned by the King, he then designed a remarkable, and wholly new, piece of renaissance style art for Britain in the form of a tomb for Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York.
As bizarre as the story may sound, it was this which gradually set in motion the beginnings of the renaissance in Britain. Torriango had helped show the important and expanded roles that artists could have; and under the stable enough reign of Henry VIII, this new conception of the artist could grow.
Through figures like Hans Holbein, a Swiss-German court painter for the King, and Nicholas Kratzer, a German mathematician and astronomer (who arrived in England around the same time Holbein did), the British would soon see artists that were born and bred in their own land. Thomas Wyatt, whom Dr. Fox says is “the man who brought the renaissance to English literature,” is one such figure. Wyatt’s role in bringing the excitement of the sonnet form back to England, where it was tinkered with in new and exciting ways, marked an important moment in the English renaissance. The same can be said for the paintings of John Betts, who helped implant key characteristics that embodied much of the British Resiannace style painting: an art that “would not be about beauty, grace, and endless cherubs, [but] instead have a solid and earthy reality.”
But not all that took place during this time was of a peaceful, artistic nature. The tension between Protestant and Catholic ideology defined much of the era, and when Queen Mary ascended the throne in 1553, it meant a blood bath for some of her religious foes. As mentioned, Dr. Fox focuses more on individuals than forces in this documentary, but when the political and religious climate is especially relevant, it is given due attention. And indeed for the figures of John Day and John Foxe, among others, Mary’s reign meant the constant possibility of danger and death. But out of such a critical time came Foxe’s gargantuan Book of Martyrs, detailing (and showing) the horrors of his fellow persecuted Protestants. Immensely popular, it was the “most widely read book in England for the next 200 years.”
As the documentary moves into episode 2, with Queen Elizabeth now on the throne, viewers see major changes in the current of the British Renaissance. This was a period infused with an interest in codes, symbols, and riddles, as well as an age of exploration and discovery.
Of the three episodes in the series, it’s likely this one that contains the most familiar figures, Shakespeare being known to all. But Dr. Fox introduces us to characters like John Dee — an adviser to the queen and who apparently was the first to the phrase “British empire” — and Emery Molyneux, who created beautiful globes which embodied a critical spirit of this time. On the darker end of the spectrum, we meet Thomas Tresham, a deeply committed Catholic (living in a period of Protestantism), who designed phenomenally intricate, and coded, architecture.
If there’s one thing that A Very British Renaissance does exceptionally well, it’s taking full advantage of the visual side of a documentary — showing viewers what would otherwise be much more difficult to get from a book on the very same material. This is certainly the case in the scene discussing Tresham: we get to see long, comprehensive shots (as well as close-ups) of what are truly remarkable buildings — Triangular Lodge and Lyveden New Bield. Tresham’s architecture, with “its cleverness, its quarkiness, its desire to hide rather than reveal…[and] its stubborn but brilliant rebelliousness,” shows us some of the central, unique themes of the British Renaissance.
In the final episode of the series, we see a Britain start to collapse in on itself, with Parliament and the King finally coming to heads in 1642. But before that, the energy of the renaissance continued to push the envelope of artistic endeavor as it also exhibited a passionate eagerness to turn inward and explore deeply our own selves.
Enter Robert Burton. In a nice scene discussing a figure much less popular and well-known than his contemporary John Donne, we get to see close-ups of The Anatomy of Melancholy, the book Burton spent virtually his entire life researching and writing. It dissected everything relating to melancholy. First published in 1621, and republished multiple times after, there’s a kind of sad irony that a book of its nature would so shortly precede one of the most tumultuous periods in English history, along with the close of a tremendous one-hundred-plus-years of new ideas.
From Pietro Torrigiano to Anthony van Dyck, A Very British Renaissance shows us what these ideas were and who developed them. This was the stuff that made the renaissance in Britain a reality. It was a time of exceptional creativity, intellectual daring, and ardent discovery of all kinds. Whether it is less spectacular or less worthy of praise than the renaissance the Italians had, is up for the viewer to decide.
Spectatio 