Art of Gothic Documentary Review

Andrew Graham-Dixon’s BBC4 documentary The Art of Gothic – Britain’s Midnight Hour starts with the question ‘What is Gothic?’ and over three one hour episodes goes on to explain the origins and development of the Gothic genre over the centuries from the 1700’s.

Gothic was originally the term used for a medieval style of sacred architecture dedicated to the glory of God, but also came to be associated with the sinister, the supernatural and horror. It was used by artists in the Italian Renaissance as an insult, to mean architecture not influenced by the civilised worlds of Ancient Greece and Rome.

The first Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole in 1764, which included all the elements of future Gothic novels, such as haunted houses, horror figures and supernatural happenings, and was part of the Gothic revival in the 18^th Century.  Graham-Dixon uses his own personal style of presentation to mix facts with his own views and ideas on the development of Gothic from then to the present day. I found it interesting how he related the development of the genre to the events of the time, such as the horror of the French Revolution instilling fear into people across the Channel in England, terrified that the chaos might spread to their own country, and how authors and artists used these fears in their work, such as The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, which caused a scandal at the time.  By the end of the 18^th Century Gothic novels were the most popular genre, but were regarded by some as dangerous books; unlike most novels at the time, they had no moral tale to tell, but were full of fantasy and horror and explored the depths of human desires.

In the second episode Graham-Dixon takes the viewer through the 19^th Century and discusses how the Victorians were affected and worried by the many changes at the time, as the Industrial Revolution changed England from a rural society to an urban society and advances in science seemed to challenge the need for spiritual beliefs. There was a renewed interest in all things medieval, from architecture to jousting, as people looked back in history at this more spiritual era. It was interesting how he focused on a few notable artists and writers of the time to link their work to the Gothic and how they reflected people’s fears, such as John Martin’s painting The Great Day of his Wrath (1851) of a city burning and imploding, suggesting the end of the world. Similarly Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein reflected people’s worries at the time about the rapid pace of scientific discoveries; he explained how her monster, created from decaying body parts, reflected the development of electricity and actual scientific experiments trying to revive dead animals, and echoed people’s fears that science was running out of control without considering the consequences – much as people fear today. Going into detail about a few specific examples gives the viewer a good understanding of Graham-Dixon’s personal views on how Gothic developed.

The final episode took the story from the end of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th, with the development of cinemas taking Gothic round the world, through films such as Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Psycho. I enjoyed Graham-Dixon’s analyses of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and his use of Gothic imagery, with vampires sucking the blood from capitalism’s workers and the inclusion of then modern technology, such as typewriters and telephones, in Dracula to represent the advance of the monster of machinery in society.

Andrew Graham-Dixon is clearly very enthusiastic about his subject and I found his enthusiasm quite infectious. However, I did feel the content could perhaps have been covered in only two episodes and the use of such a dramatic soundtrack did, at times, become annoying and take away from the content of his work. Overall, though, the documentaries were very informative and gave me a much clearer understanding of Gothic and how the genre has developed.