The Essay

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia.Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-conformity had no place in military or civilian life. Yet somehow as soon as the war ended, a full-blown non-conformist bohemia exploded in New York. Membership of this Bohemia, for men at least, was signified by wearing an undergarment - the T-shirt - in public. Today that means nothing. In 1945, in a society that was still mobilised with military single-mindedness, it was shocking.In this series for The Essay, Michael Goldfarb explores the how and why of this extraordinary eruption through the stories of some of T-shirt Bohemia's key figures: Marlon Brando, Jackson Pollock, James Baldwin, Charlie Parker and Jack Kerouac.In this episode, the importance of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis and how the war created the space for jazz to evolve into America's unique form of classical music.

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia.Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-conformity had no place in military or civilian life. Yet somehow as soon as the war ended, a full-blown non-conformist bohemia exploded in New York. Membership of this Bohemia, for men at least, was signified by wearing an undergarment - the T-shirt - in public. Today that means nothing. In 1945, in a society that was still mobilised with military single-mindedness, it was shocking.In this series for The Essay, Michael Goldfarb explores the how and why of this extraordinary eruption through the stories of some of T-shirt Bohemia's key figures: Marlon Brando, Jackson Pollock, James Baldwin, Charlie Parker and Jack Kerouac.In this episode, the story of Jackson Pollock, a keen T-shirt wearer, as he struggles towards his abstract vision and the role of Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, an artist in her own right, in his success.

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemia.Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-conformity had no place in military or civilian life. Yet somehow as soon as the war ended, a full-blown non-conformist bohemia exploded in New York. Membership of this Bohemia, for men at least, was signified by wearing an undergarment - the T-shirt - in public. Today that means nothing. In 1945, in a society that was still mobilised with military single-mindedness, it was shocking.In this series for The Essay, Michael Goldfarb explores the how and why of this extraordinary eruption through the stories of some of T-shirt Bohemia's key figures: Marlon Brando, Jackson Pollock, James Baldwin, Charlie Parker and Jack Kerouac.In this episode, Michael focuses on James Baldwin, Marlon Brando's wartime roommate in Greenwich Village, and the slow integration of American letters by African American authors.

In 1945, when World War II finally ended and while Europe's artistic centres smouldered, in New York City an artistic renaissance, in music, painting, theatre, and literature, burst forth out of the city’s bohemian.Most of this work was generated in a single neighbourhood of Manhattan: Greenwich Village. World War II in America was a time of national unity, a singleness of purpose where non-conformity had no place in military or civilian life. Yet somehow as soon as the war ended, a full-blown non-conformist bohemia exploded in New York. Membership of this Bohemia, for men at least, was signified by wearing an undergarment - the T-shirt - in public. Today that means nothing. In 1945, in a society that was still mobilised with military single-mindedness, it was shocking.In this series for The Essay, Michael Goldfarb explores the how and why of this extraordinary eruption through the stories of some of T-shirt Bohemia's key figures: Marlon Brando, Jackson Pollock, James Baldwin, Charlie Parker and Jack Kerouac.In this episode, he focuses on Marlon Brando and Stanley Kowalski whose T-shirts were designed by Lucinda Ballard, for the original production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Joanna Robertson argues that it's the regular, everyday moments and rituals that make up and frame the fabric of our lives. The details of dress or speech that shape and project an identity. Painters capturing an essence in time, like that of Madame Cezanne in Provence, dressed in blue, hair pulled tautly back into a bun, sitting next to a table with a white cup and saucer, spoon standing upwards in the cup. Or the myriad details, from by-passers to snippets of conversations to the design of a chair or cafe interior, which, when well observed, can turn the instant of taking the first sip of a milky coffee in that same cafe to the level of a miracle, where all surroundings coalesce into one, soul-sweetening moment. Written and presented by Joanna Robertson Series Producer: Arlene Gregorius Series Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Nigel Appleton Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

Joanna Robertson believes it's the everyday moments that shape, frame and colour our lives. That includes observing, or imagining, the lives of others around us. Are portraitists creating a mere image, or capturing the authentic selves of their subjects? The celebrated Belle Epoque painter Giovanni Boldini became a darling of Parisian society with his glamorous portrayals of society women, but a spontaneous portrait of a wealthy couple's gardener in eastern France, possibly painted for Boldini's own eyes only, inside the lid of his paintbox, gloriously reveals the gardener's inner life.And what about the people we meet or see ourselves? Take the new neighbours who moved into a flat opposite. Their daily rituals, from their apparently perfect breakfast to their equally apparently perfect dinner, with all five regulation courses, every night, all seen through the windows. Why is observing them, with the resulting questioning of Joanna's own habits, such a vivid part of her and her daughters' daily life? And then Joanna actually meets the family. How do they compare to their imagined selves? Written and presented by Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Nigel Appleton Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

'It's only the minutiae of life that are important,' wrote the Austro-Hungarian author Joseph Roth, announcing that he was 'going for a walk'. Joanna Robertson feels, and does, the same, and finds that far from small, the minutiae are actually infinite. Just walking from her Paris flat to a nearby bakery, yields so many observations, memories and encounters, that they conjure up the life of the whole street. From the homeless man sleeping, and dying, on the monastery's front steps, to the blazing row (and withering put-downs) of two usually tolerant ladies of Polish and Russian heritage respectively. Not to mention the rivalry between Joanna's dogs and those of a well-known model and designer, who every day claim each others' territory in ways only dogs will....Written and presented by Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Nigel Appleton Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

The minutiae of the everyday frame, shape and colour our lives. Joanna Robertson lives in Paris, and finds that the views from her fourth-floor flat have a real influence on her daily life. Looking out over the neighbourhood of Montparnasse, her windows let her eye and mind wander over the sites of much recent and not so recent cultural history. Former residents whose residences she can still see, range from Irish playwright Samuel Beckett to Austro-Hungarian writer Joseph Roth. And, following in the footsteps of painter John Constable, Joanna too goes "skying", as he called it: observing the sky and its cloudscapes through the window. What's beyond the glass is both separate from, yet also inextricably part of her life. Written and presented by Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Nigel Appleton Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

The minutiae of life have always fascinated Joanna Robertson. Moments like opening the curtains or shutters in the morning, putting the key in the lock when returning home, making dinner, or smelling the cooking of the neighbours. The author Virginia Woolf dismissed everyday repetitive rituals as 'moments of non-being', by contrast to epiphanies of experience or understanding that she saw as 'moments of being'. Joanna Robertson argues that on the contrary, the deceptively insignificant everyday is actually what our lives are made of. They shape, frame and colour our waking moments. Other writers, like Proust, or painters like Vermeer or van Hooch, appear to agree, and have captured the essence of the everyday in their art. Written and presented by Joanna Robertson Producer: Arlene Gregorius Editor: Penny Murphy Sound engineer: Nigel Appleton Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.Concluding the series, Paterson Joseph retraces the footsteps of pioneering writer, composer and abolitionist Ignatius Sancho through Westminster to a lost grave beneath the still-pulsing streets.Producer: Ciaran Bermingham